Email Interactions Research Articles

Patient and public involvement in an evidence synthesis project: description of and reflection on involvement.

We conducted an NIHR-funded evidence synthesis project, reviewing evidence relating to interventions for perceptual disorders following stroke. This related paper describes how people with lived experience of stroke-related perceptual disorders contributed to and influenced the project, and identifies lessons for future review projects. We planned our patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) activities within a study protocol, described according to the domains of the ACTIVE framework; these were founded on principles for good practice in PPIE. Activities occurred across the lifespan of the project, consisting primarily of group discussions and voting to determine if there was consensus. To assess impact and individual experiences, we sought feedback using an evaluation form after each discussion, and conducted an online meeting at the end of the project to allow further reflection. We recruited five people to a Lived Experience Group, including two stroke survivors and three carers. Members attended one face-to-face meeting during the development of the review. Subsequent activities were all held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic; with six online meetings, plus email interactions. Positive impacts of the Lived Experience Group on the reviews included clear definitions of key terms, selection of outcome measures, agreement on implications of review findings, and identification of research recommendations. Key challenges identified related to the complexity of the topic and challenges in the use of new online technology as a consequence of the COVID-pandemic. A number of lessons were learned during this project. Specific recommendations for future PPIE are to ensure that those involved have an opportunity to get to know one another, and to provide optional sessions to increase familiarity with online meeting software, clear explanations of the purpose of involvement and specific feedback after each activity. These lessons should be considered when planning the PPIE within future reviews.

Drowning in emails: investigating email classes and work stressors as antecedents of high email load and implications for well-being.

High email load has been associated with impaired well-being because emails impose specific demands, disturb the workflow, and thereby overtax individuals' action regulation toward prioritized goals. However, the causes and well-being-related consequences of email load are not yet well understood, as previous studies have neglected the interaction type and function of emails as well as co-occurring stressors as antecedents of high email load and have relied predominantly on cross-sectional designs. In two studies, we aimed to clarify the nature of email load through the lens of action regulation theory. The first study, a two-wave investigation with a fortnightly interval, examined the lagged relationships among email load, work stressors, strain, and affective well-being. The sample included 444 individuals across various occupations and organizations, with 196 of them working from home or remotely at least part of the time. In the second cross-sectional study, we surveyed 257 individuals using a convenience sampling approach, 108 of whom worked from home or remotely at least partially. This study focused on evaluating how different email classes-distinguished by email interaction type (received vs. processed) and email function (communication vs. task)-serve as predictors of high email load. In Study 1, we found a positive lagged effect of high email load on strain, even when controlling for the co-occurring stressors time pressure and work interruptions. In addition, lagged effects of email load on time pressure and interruptions were identified, while no evidence was found for the reverse direction. The results of Study 2 suggest that only the number of communication-related emails received, but not the number of task-related emails received, or the number of all emails processed contribute to high email load. Findings suggest that email load can be considered a unique stressor and that different classes of email need to be distinguished to understand its nature. Clarifying the sources of email load can help develop effective strategies to address it.

"Good Morning, My Dear Dr." Openings and Closings in University Students’ Academic Emails

The current study investigates the openings and closings in the emails of Jordanian undergraduate students to their professors. It is significant as it provides invaluable insights into different aspects of student-professor interpersonal communication. This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining how Jordanian university undergraduates open and close their first-contact emails to their professors. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The sample of this study consisted of 200 authentic Arabic email messages drawn from a professor’s mail inbox. The data were analyzed based on Salazar-Campillo & Codina-Espurz’s typology of opening and closing. The findings reveal that the emails included all the opening and closing moves reported by previous research, however, with clear variation. The findings also show that openings and closings are used as politeness strategies to create a positive tone for student-professor academic interactions. Moreover, the study concludes that the emails resorted to more informal opening and closing formulas. The emails in this study do not conform to the norms and etiquette of student-professor email interaction. Furthermore, this study reports the use of emojis in almost all moves of the opening and closing sequences. Based on the findings, future studies are recommended.

Facework in teacher-student email interactions

Two trends have become prominent in higher education worldwide. On the one hand, globalization has favored the expansion and influence of the English language. On the other hand, email has become one of the main forms of communication in academic settings, especially in teacher-student out-of-class correspondence. While these facts have increasingly attracted scholarship attention, studies in education seem to focus more on the students’ display of face(work) alone, while neglecting the teacher’s counterpart. To redress this imbalance, the present study aims to examine face(work) as displayed in students’ email requests for consideration (e.g., on late assignments submission and class attendance) and teachers’ responses. A qualitative analysis of 20 sets of teacher-student interactions reveals different strategies opted for by the students and the teacher in face(work) management. Drawing on face-constituting theory, the findings show that whilst the students are concerned with their own face alone, the teacher is concerned with how to avoid classroom conflicts in the way that attends to one’s own face, the students’ face and the classroom harmony. In this way, the management of face(work) operates in a complex and dynamic way that allows the co-construction and reaffirmation of their respective identities. For example, whilst the students’ actions overlook the relevance of the interdependence relation between them, their peers and the teacher, which is critical for the harmony of the classroom, the teacher’s actions privilege connectedness over separateness. Furthermore, the findings suggest that cultural specificities governing the backgrounds of both the teacher and the students are not always influential in the management of face in email interactions.

Nifty method for prediction dynamic features of online social networks from users’ activity based on machine learning

Nowadays with the development of m4obile personal devices, the interaction of most people takes place through online social network more than ever. They rely on online applications to communicate, express their opinions, or react to others expressions instead of waiting the time to do that directly in a real life. Computationally, such interaction is modeled as a virtual network (or formally as graph) that is described with a set of features e.g. graph diameter, average-clustering coefficient etc. To compute these features, it is required to count or inspect all nodes or/and edges properties of the graph. When the graph is dynamic, i.e., the structure is change over time with each interaction, the computation of these features is a challenge and complex for time and space. Instead, AI based approaches are suggested to predict such features based on only few information of an interaction. This work trains the machine to learn computing the global features of online social networks through noticing the effect of users’ interaction on these features. Three datasets of different of two real online social networks are used in experiments. The obtained result shows an approximate accuracy of predication by RF 99% for Email interaction dataset and 82% by TreeNet for College message interaction dataset. The results of paper refer to: (a) The paper demonstrates the successful application of machine learning techniques to predict and analyze dynamic graph features in online social networks. (b) The Random Forest model emerges as the most suitable approach, providing accurate predictions and insights into the dynamics of dynamic graphs. (c) The study highlights the importance of the Graph Average Clustering Coefficient (GACC) as a significant feature in predicting global graph dynamics. (d) The research showcases the limitations of the KNN-Regression model and emphasizes the need for models that can handle the complexity and nonlinearity of dynamic graphs effectively.

Uncovering Hidden Media Framings in Generic Communication Competence Assessments: Is the Face-To-Face Context the Default Framing?

ABSTRACT Dispositional communication competencies can be assessed in (a) a generic form that does not include any reference to a particular medium of interaction or in (b) a communication medium-specific version. To date, little is known about the specific media that individuals use as a reference and the weights they assign to them when responding to generic communication items – an important research gap because the use of diverse communication media has risen considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on media theories, two hypotheses were derived: Generic ratings contain a “hidden” face-to-face (FtF) communication framing that is dominant in the cognitive processing (media naturalness perspective) versus media are equally weighted in the mental aggregate of respondents (adaptation perspective). According to a preregistered study plan, generic and medium-specific communication items were assessed to investigate these hypotheses (referencing FtF, videoconferencing, chat, and e-mail interaction contexts). Training (n = 200) and test (n = 389) datasets were analyzed using latent variable modeling. Results indicated that generic ratings have a strong hidden FtF framing. These hidden framings impact the predictive power of the competencies to explain communication criteria (i.e. communication satisfaction). Exploratory analyses indicated that individual differences in media experience may affect the framings.

Perspective of MBBS students of a government medical college on various aspects of online medical education: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdown measures adversely affected institution-based education system including medical education. Internet-based online teaching emerged as the only alternative mode of continuing medical education during those times. The situation was novel to the medical institutions, the faculties, as well as the students and involved coordinated effort from all stakeholders for an efficient outcome to the ritual of compulsory online medical education. Aims and Objectives: The study was planned to obtain the perspective and point of view to various aspects of online teaching from of the MBBS students. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted through a questionnaire using Google-Forms on MBBS students of Raiganj Government Medical College, Raiganj, from August 1, 2022 for a period of 1 week after obtaining necessary ethical clearance. Results: A total of 174 students responded out of 202. Majority of the respondents (81.3%) said that it was their first experience of online teaching. Most attended 2–3 h of online classes daily and did not want it to be more than that either. Somnolence during class was cited as the most common physical difficulty, while poor network connectivity was the biggest logistic problem. Live lecture was the most preferred mode of online teaching and personal email interaction with the concerned faculties was the most preferred mode for doubt clearing. Most students found online classes inferior than offline classes with respect to opportunity to interact with teachers, class ambience, ability to sustain attention, demonstration of practical skills, and peer-interaction. Conclusion: Online medical education, in spite of all its present drawbacks and demerits, can be used as a tool to provide medical education alongside offline mode after making necessary innovations and modifications by analyzing student as well as faculty feedback.

De‐gendering parents: Gender inclusion and standardised language in screen‐level bureaucracy

AbstractSwedish welfare organisations have a long history of promoting gender equality and inclusivity, involving implementation of more gender‐inclusive language (e.g., non‐gendered terminology). This study analysed the use of non/gendered expressions at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, as state policy is realised in conjunction with personalised service in textual interaction in screen‐level bureaucracy. We drew on conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis to analyse 378 email interactions between clients and social insurance officers, focusing on gendered institutional terminology and gendered person references. The findings suggest that social insurance officers avoided a heteronormative language, in line with Swedish official public language policy, but that a gender‐neutral language may come at the cost of formality, standardisation, and de‐personalisation. The study brings new knowledge on the ways in which street‐level bureaucrats manage responsiveness and standardisation in digital text‐based interaction with clients.

Multilingual cyberpragmatics in instructional settings. Exploring gender and age effects in Catalan, Spanish and English email requests

ABSTRACT The present study focuses on email communication in the multilingual university setting. Previous studies dealing with similar settings point to the lack of politeness markers in students’ email messages [Bjorge, A. (2007). Power distance in English lingua franca email communication. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17(1), 60–80], requests tend to be more direct and they may not match with the degree of imposition or social distance involved. Students’ lack of netiquette and the lack of physical presence on the Internet may influence their pragmatic behaviour. In addition to that, other studies [Barón, J., & Ortega, M. (2018). Investigating age differences in e-mail pragmatic performance. System, 78, 148–178] point to age effects and further confirm the preference for direct pragmatic forms. Nevertheless, very few studies have adopted a multilingual perspective. For this reason, we have examined 250 email requests to faculty. Openings and requests produced in Catalan, Spanish or English were analysed. Our main goal was to confirm whether students’ requests would devoid politeness markers and whether openings would show a lack of netiquette. We were also interested in identifying age and gender effects and in finding out if the pragmatic forms chosen would be in line with the politeness orientation of the language involved. Results are in line with previous studies but they also contradict them adding interesting information on the way multilingualism is displayed in email interaction.

Interactions Between the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Alcohol Industry: Evidence From Email Correspondence 2013-2020.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent and nature of email interactions between National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) leaders and the alcohol industry from 2013 to 2020. We performed a thematic content analysis of 4,784 pages of email correspondence obtained from Freedom of Information Act requests to the National Institutes of Health on three senior NIAAA staff members. A total of 43 NIAAA staff were identified interacting with 15 industry bodies (companies and other organizations). NIAAA leaders provided industry with extensive information about scientific and policy developments. Discussions were facilitated by the willingness of NIAAA leaders to meet with industry and have other informal contacts, as well as NIAAA leadership presence at industry-sponsored and other events. Key industry actors asked NIAAA leaders for help on science and policy issues. At times, NIAAA leaders heavily criticized public health research and researchers in correspondence with industry. Institutional practices of engagement with the alcohol industry have been sustained by NIAAA leaders' activity. There is an urgent need to better understand the extent to which commercial rather than public health interests have shaped alcohol research agendas, both within and beyond NIAAA.

A study of linguistic manipulations of activating, seeking and creating common ground in intercultural business communication

Abstract Previous studies on common ground (CG, for short) have mainly focused on its definition and functions in various daily interactions. Few studies explore the linguistic manipulations of CG in cross-cultural business interactions. This paper aims to fill in this gap by examining how sellers and buyers manipulate linguistic actions of activating, seeking and creating CG to make a deal. This study instantiates and develops Kecskes’ (2013) CG model. Based on qualitative analysis of data collected from email interactions between Chinese sellers and Australian buyers, I find that (1) Interlocutors often activate their core CG through manipulating frequency markers such as “again”, and epistemic markers such as “I knew”, “you know”, “might”; (2) Interlocutors seek core CG and emergent CG by manipulating epistemic markers such as “I’m sure”; (3) Interlocutors often bring the third party or element into the communication to create emergent CG by using question markers such as “you see?”, imperative markers such as “Do you understand!”, and narrative markers like “I tell you” and “once” or “before”; (4) The interpersonal manipulations of CG construction contribute to business integrity and reliability because the more efforts interlocutors make to activate, seek, and create CG, the more clarified and acceptable their business relations become in business communication. For the purpose of validating what I have found, I conduct a quantitative study of linguistic means of constructing CG in the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English (SBCSAE), and summarize the typical linguistic means of activating, seeking, and creating CG in various settings.

The Usefulness of Telemedicine in Perinatal Mental Health Services During and after COVID-19 Pandemic. Detailed Experience of the Team of „Together” Baby-Mother-Father Unit in Budapest

Due to the nature of the perinatal period, it affects generations who are more at home in the electronic space, hence some form of telemedicine can be used in a number of areas. The “Together” Baby-Mother-Father Integrated Program has been running since 2004. Both the condition of those affected and the current epidemic makes it difficult for patients and their families to access adequate perinatal specialist care. At the beginning of the epidemic, the switch to telemedicinal psychiatric care has been rapid and focused mainly on the use of Phone, Skype, Viber and Email. To our findings the advantages include, easier access to care, and more frequent contacts. The home environment is accessible and the families are more involved. Also, care does not compete with the scarce resources of time and space. Some of the possible disadvantages are, that more work on intimacy is needed, and the treatability of certain diseases is questionable (e.g., psychoses). Care is less documentable with the current regulations, and funding has not yet been adapted to the changes. The telemedicinal care and support network in Hungary - among many - contains an online medical system (EESZT) including e-prescription. Online- psychotherapy, consultation, peer-group platforms. There is a non-stop hotline for patients, etc. In 2021 the total number of our cases increased by 34%, but realistically the visit number was also higher, due to the amount of shorter telephone and e-mail interactions. Depression and bipolar disorder were among the highest proportion by the patients present.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Online health promotion program and individualized health coaching for veteran wellbeing

The pandemic has highlighted the need for accessible and effective health promotion as Canadians are isolated from their communities during social distancing measures. A web-based health promotion program in which participants also received individualized email-based health coaching from medical students has been available during the pandemic to empower veterans and their family members to engage in healthy lifestyle change. Health coaches’ email interactions with participants used techniques of motivational interviewing, including an empathetic style, statements of affirmation, and reflections. Open-ended questions were useful in gaining insight into the participant’s current lifestyle, including habits, challenges, and coping strategies. As services have transitioned online and individuals have become more isolated, the connection formed between online health coaches and individuals participating in the health promotion program became crucial in countering the mental and physical health repercussions of the pandemic. In a preliminary analysis, we show that web-based health promotion with health coaching, for Canadian Veterans and their families, leads to significant weight loss, increased activity and improvement in wellbeing metrics such as sleep and stress. The medical students acting as health coaches were able to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges involved in behaviour change, something that is seldom covered in detail in the medical school curricula. Medical students were also able to practice their motivational counseling skills surrounding lifestyle changes. Given the lack of available evidence for web-based health promotion that targets veterans and their families, these preliminary results appear promising, with longer-term follow-up planned for the next two years.

‘Entanglement’ – A new dynamic metric to measure team flow

We introduce “entanglement”, a novel metric to measure how synchronized communication between team members is. This measure calculates the Euclidean distance among team members’ social network metrics timeseries. We validate the metric with four case studies. The first case study uses entanglement of 11 medical innovation teams to predict team performance and learning behavior. The second case looks at the e-mail communication of 113 senior executives of an international services firm, predicting employee turnover through lack of entanglement of an employee. The third case analyzes the individual employee performance of 81 managers. The fourth case study predicts performance of 13 customer-dedicated teams at a big international company by comparing entanglement in the e-mail interactions with satisfaction of their customers measured through Net Promoter Score (NPS). While we can only speculate about what is causing the entanglement effect, we find that it is a new and versatile indicator for the analysis of employees’ communication, analyzing the hitherto underused temporal dimension of online social networks which could be used as a powerful predictor of employee and team performance, employee turnover, and customer satisfaction.

579-P: Behavioral Outcomes of a Digital Health Coaching Program Stratified by Baseline A1C: A Real-World Retrospective Analysis

Background: The 2021 ADA Standards of Medical Care suggest digital health coaching (DHC) programs can be beneficial in treating diabetes. As programs expand, it is increasingly important to understand expected benefits for diverse populations. Studies have shown greater clinical impact for patients with suboptimal baseline health, yet little is known about the influence of health on behavioral outcomes. In this real-world study, we analyzed trends in lifestyle change by baseline A1c following exposure to a T2DM DHC program. Methods: The 12-week DHC program, including patient-centered phone, email and/or text interactions, was delivered to T2DM patients. Retrospective analysis of patient reported data at baseline and program completion was conducted to evaluate impact on engagement in CDC recommended physical activity and healthy meal consumption (defined by USDA MyPlate guidelines). Outcomes were analyzed for 3 cohorts stratified by baseline A1c (<7% 7-9%, >9%) using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank tests and paired proportion tests. Results: Individuals who completed all measures (n=130) were included in the study. A majority (82.30%) reported a baseline A1c ≥ 7%, and 27.69% were high-risk (A1c > 9%). Across all cohorts, there were significant improvements in the percent of participants adherent to CDC guidelines, median weekly activity minutes and number of healthy meals (p<0.01). For subgroup analyses, weekly activity minutes improved the most for the A1c < 7% cohort (50 minutes; p<0.01). Change to weekly healthy meals was greatest for those with an A1c ≥ 7%. Conclusions: Outcomes suggest that DHC can improve lifestyle behaviors among all individuals with T2DM, irrespective of baseline A1c, with those at an elevated glycemic risk reporting the greatest dietary benefit and those with the lowest risk reporting the greatest shift in physical activity. If confirmed, findings may inform DHC referral strategies and individualized behavioral goals. Disclosure M. Martin: Consultant; Self; PACK HEALTH. J. Patterson: None. V. T. Tran: None. B. B. Oconnor: Employee; Self; Pack Health. M. Allison: None. D. Patel: None.

Performance of face-threatening speech acts in Chinese and Japanese BELF emails

The paper explores the performance of face-threatening speech acts by Chinese and Japanese in BELF emails, focusing on the genre structure and the linguistic realizations of mitigation. Based on a corpus of 469 emails, the study identifies a five-move structure, i.e., openings + reasoning supportive moves (RSMs) + head acts + mitigating supportive moves (MSMs) + closings, for performing FTAs in business emails and finds that the major difference between Chinese and Japanese move structures lies in that Chinese tend to use more MSMs than Japanese. Both Chinese and Japanese exhibit a preference for the “RSMs + head acts” sequential pattern. In terms of the mitigating devices in MSMs, Chinese demonstrate a preference for the expression of gratitude as a mitigating strategy while Japanese prefer to use tag questions and apologies. The findings of the research can be explained from the perspectives of mode of thinking, language education and cultural identities. The study aims to shed some light on BELF communication by raising our awareness of certain taken-for-granted patterns in email interactions between two seemingly similar cultures to avoid possible communicative breakdown. In addition, the paper offers some pedagogical implications for business English teaching.

(Im)politeness in Intercultural Email Communication between People of Different Cultural Backgrounds: A Case Study of Jordan and the USA

ABSTRACT This study investigates how people from different cultures negotiate meanings in email interactions. The data is composed of 120 emails written by two groups of students: sixty emails are written by Jordanian university students and sixty by American university students. The emails are supposed to be written to hypothetical friends. The data were analysed qualitatively, relying primarily on discourse analysis complemented by the theory of politeness, in addition to the notion of cultural stereotypes. The evaluation of the data indicated that the American students used much more indirect strategies than their Jordanian counterparts. The results of this study offer insights into the nature of politeness strategies as employed by the two groups of students. This study argues for the importance of including pragmatic and intercultural communication instruction in language classes to teach students how to be polite in a foreign language.

User Motive Factors: The Rudiments to Email Satisfactory Communication

Our study aims to evaluate if user motive factors, comprising; cognitive needs, social integrative needs, and personal integrative needs might influence email satisfactory communication among South-East Nigerian academic staff. The study was proposed because empirical evidence has proven these user motive factors as effective elements of the uses and gratification theory; capable of influencing satisfactory communication on other virtual communication media. However, past studies appeared little or no consideration has been explicitly given towards integrating them on email interaction related-study to attest them. Therefore, this study was conducted via a quantitative research method because it required hypotheses testing to infer the outcomes and generalize them to the targeted population. Regarding the key findings of the study, it showed that South-East Nigerian academic staff email usage patterns differed from one another. However, the salient email usage pattern established that almost the majority of them mostly prefer using their email addresses to the official ones. Furthermore, the direct effects relationships demonstrated that only two dimensions of user motive construct had significant direct effects on email satisfactory communication. Whilst the social integrative needs had no significant direct effects. Nonetheless, personal integrative needs contributed most to email satisfactory communication. Conclusively, it is recommended that South-East Nigerian academic staff and other email users should mostly consider personal integrative needs and cognitive needs if they intend to achieve email satisfactory communication. The outcomes of our study further contributed to the virtual media satisfactory communication domain, especially the asynchronous ones. Keywords: Email usage patterns, satisfactory communication, asynchronous virtual communications, user motive factors, South-East Nigerian academic staff.

Face and cultural conceptualizations in German-Brazilian business exchanges

Abstract Following up on recent calls for studies dealing with first-order understandings of face (Arundale 2013; Haugh 2013), this paper presents arguments in favor of an empirical investigation of cultural conceptualizations (Sharifian 2011) underlying these first-order (or emic) models. The arguments are based on the findings of a study on business communication in international contexts (Mendes de Oliveira 2020). The study comprises the analysis of (a) interviews with business people from different sectors and (b) a compilation of e-mails exchanged by Brazilian and German employees of a healthcare company. I focus specifically on conceptualizations of ‘respect in business negotiations’ (Mendes de Oliveira 2017) as well as on their pragmatic instantiations in e-mails. For instance, the recurrent image schema vertical splitting in the Brazilian interview excerpts on the topic of respect in business negotiations is shown to be pragmatically instantiated in terms of how participants acknowledge ‘hierarchy’ in their construals of face in e-mail interactions. The image schema horizontal splitting is shown to be related to how German participants construe ‘face’ as a transactional phenomenon in the e-mail exchanges. I conclude that cultural conceptualizations play an important role in the Brazilian and German emic models of face. Future studies can take the reflections presented in this paper into consideration in order to strengthen the arguments that favor the inclusion of culturally-based views on face into an overarching theoretical model of face (Arundale 2013).

The use of official languages in electronic communications in the Valencian local administration

AbstractThe Valencian autonomous community is a bilingual Spanish region where, alongside Spanish, a second language is officially recognized. Yet in many areas of the Valencian administration the language law is not implemented. This article explores the presence of the two official languages in the electronic communications of this region’s city and town council agencies. It combines a variety of methods (use of secondary data, content analysis and a variation of the “mystery shopping” technique) with statistical analysis of data merged into a unit matrix of 397 municipalities. A comparison of present web page data with data from 2005 to 2010 reveals that there has been advancement on the implementation of legal provisions: Spanish monolingual web pages are being replaced by bilingual portals. Evidence also shows a greater presence of Valencian in the official social media accounts and in telephone and email interactions. However, the use of Spanish on public administration websites is still prevalent. Likewise, this study confirms the significant power of the social use of language, influenced in part by the political party in power.