Moderate View Research Articles

The Effect of Social Media on Elections: Evidence from the United States

We study how social media affects election outcomes in the United States. We use variation in the number of Twitter users across counties induced by early adopters at the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, a key event in Twitter's rise to popularity. We show that this variation is unrelated to observable county characteristics and electoral outcomes before the launch of Twitter. Our results indicate that Twitter lowered the Republican vote share in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, but had limited effects on Congress elections and previous presidential elections. Evidence from survey data, primary elections, and a text analysis of millions of tweets suggests that Twitter's relatively liberal content may have persuaded voters with moderate views to vote against Donald Trump.

Conceptual engineering, speaker-meaning and philosophy

ABSTRACT We sometimes seek to change and improve our conceptual repertoire in some way. This is called ‘conceptual engineering’. In recent work, I have defended the ‘Speaker-Meaning Picture’ of conceptual engineering. Independently, while critiquing the conceptual engineering literature, Max Deutsch has argued against understanding conceptual engineering in terms of speaker-meaning. Deutsch’s critique targets what he calls the ‘standard account’ of conceptual engineering and its role in philosophy. In my contribution to this symposium, I also object to the ‘standard account’. I then sketch a more moderate view, centred on the Speaker-Meaning Picture, arguing that it avoids Deutsch’s criticisms. I close by discussing a new objection to the Speaker-Meaning Picture, raised by Deutsch in this symposium: that it trivialises conceptual engineering methodology.

The Dragon and the Captain: China in the perspective of Brazil´s nationalist rightThe Dragon and the Captain: China in the perspective of Brazil´s nationalist right

Since 2009 China has been Brazil´s biggest trade partner, and its important ally. However, the nationalist right that won the 2018 elections has a critical perspective of the country. This paper maps the views on China held by the new Brazilian government, both in terms of the economic arguments (protectionism of industry, fear of Chinese control of infrastructure and natural resources) and political concerns (the desire for a diplomatic rapprochement with the United States and anti-communism hostility towards Beijing). The paper claims that these positions are important for foreign policy decision-making and that they complicate relations with China, but that is also necessary to take into account more moderate views from other groups in the administration.

College students’ satisfaction and sense of belonging: differences between underrepresented groups and the majority groups

Student satisfaction and sense of belonging are key to student retention and success. This study investigated undergraduate students’ satisfaction and sense of belonging based on a survey of 2791 students from one predominantly white institution in the southeast United States. The results revealed that students were overall satisfied and felt they belonged to the campus community. Students in the underrepresented groups (i.e., non-White, non-heterosexual, and non-Christian) reported significantly less satisfaction and a weaker sense of belonging than those in the majority groups. Seniors reported significantly less satisfaction than freshmen and sophomore. Students with a conservative political view reported significantly more satisfaction than those with a moderate or liberal political view. In addition, students’ sense of belonging as well as their ethnicity/race, sexual orientation, religious belief, political view, and student rank significantly predicted their satisfaction, and about 34% of the variation in students’ satisfaction could be explained by these variables. The findings can inform policy making, funding navigation, and intervention programs in higher education, and higher education institutions should commit to equality, diversity, and inclusion in promoting student satisfaction and success.

Accessing the Right to Basic Education in South Africa: Four Years after the Ratification of the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Abstract This article examines access to the right to basic education enshrined in the South African Constitution. Underpinned by the human rights-based approach, the study employed survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews as methods of data collection. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the survey respondents contend that the post-apartheid state has fulfilled the right to basic education only to a small extent notwithstanding the existence of pre-schools, primary, and secondary schools located within a reasonable walking distance from the communities. Preference for the three classes was not equally distributed in the population, X2 (2, N= 500) = 99.68, p < 0.05. On the contrary, the majority of government participants interviewed rated the post-apartheid state fulfillment of the right to basic education in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality as fair. Overall, all the government participants had a moderate view regarding the fulfillment of the right.

Lay beliefs about scientists' relations with their employers.

Lay beliefs about scientist-employer relations may affect public attitudes toward science. A representative sample of US residents characterized scientists' relations with one of four employers: federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Overall, they held moderate views of how much scientists and employers shared motivations, interests, and values, and of whether employers tried to change-and succeeded in changing-how scientist employees did their scientific work. Judgments differed little across employers. Best predictors of these views were belief in scientific positivism, subjective knowledge of science, and age. These findings suggest scientific authority in the United States is not immediately threatened by public beliefs that employers skew their scientific employees' work, although that might differ for specific topics or demographic sub-groups.

Bias in social interactions and emergence of extremism in complex social networks.

Emergence of extremism in social networks is among the most appealing topics of opinion dynamics in computational sociophysics in recent decades. Most of the existing studies presume that the initial existence of certain groups of opinion extremities and the intrinsic stubbornness in individuals' characteristics are the key factors allowing the tenacity or even prevalence of such extreme opinions. We propose a modification to the consensus making in bounded-confidence models where two interacting individuals holding not so different opinions tend to reach a consensus by adopting an intermediate opinion of their previous ones. We show that if individuals make biased compromises, extremism may still arise without a need of an explicit classification of extremists and their associated characteristics. With such biased consensus making, several clusters of diversified opinions are gradually formed up in a general trend of shifting toward the extreme opinions close to the two ends of the opinion range, which may allow extremism communities to emerge and moderate views to be dwindled. Furthermore, we assume stronger compromise bias near opinion extremes. It is found that such a case allows moderate opinions a greater chance to survive compared to that of the case where the bias extent is universal across the opinion space. As to the extreme opinion holders' lower tolerances toward different opinions, which arguably may exist in many real-life social systems, they significantly decrease the size of extreme opinion communities rather than helping them to prevail. Brief discussions are presented on the significance and implications of these observations in real-life social systems.

Acceptance of evidence-based nursing databases by educational nurses using Rogers’ model

Nurses always need accurate, up-to-date and reliable information. Evidence-based resources can be an appropriate approach to this need. The first step in utilizing these resources is to acknowledge them and use them in clinical practice. This descriptive cross-sectional study was designed to determine the acceptance rate of evidence-based databases by nurses based on Rogers’ innovation-diffusion model. A total of 214 nurses working in educational hospitals participated in the study in 2019. The data collection tool was a questionnaire, with confirmed validity and reliability, which was designed based on five components of Rogers’ model: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation. The data analysis was performed using SPPS Version 23 to compute descriptive and analytical statistics indices. Based on the categories in Rogers’ model, the nurses had moderate views on the rate of acceptance of evidence-based databases, limited (low) knowledge and awareness of the databases, a favorable persuasion level and a low implementation rate. Well-educated, senior educational supervisors and nurses were more in line with persuasion, knowledge and implementation of evidence-based resources. According to the regression analysis ( p < 0.001), persuasion and confirmation components had the greatest effect on the acceptance of databases, indicating the significance of providing evidence-based nursing education, both formal and informal, using the related databases.

Pesantren dan Upaya Menangkal Tumbuhnya Radikalisme: Analisis Gagasan KH. Marzuki Mustamar

Studi ini bertujuan untuk meneliti gagasan-gagasan seorang tokoh terkemuka Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), pimpinan Pondok Pesantren Sabilurrosyad Malang yaitu KH Marzuki Mustamar tentang upaya menangkal tumbuhnya paham radikalisme pada pondok pesantren. Melalui analisa hasil wawancara, penelitian ini menemukan bahwa yang terpenting dalam upaya menangkal tumbuhnya paham radikalisme di pesantren adalah kemampuan para kyai atau pengasuh pesantren dalam mengontekstualisasikan nilai-nilai ajaran Islam dengan konteks kehidupan yang ada dalam proses pembelajarannya. Melalui kemampuan ini, para santri akan menjadi tahu dan memahami bahwa ajaran Islam benar-benar relevan dengan kehidupan dan mampu membawa kemaslahatan bagi seluruh umat manusia. Dalam hal ini, para kyai atau para pengasuh pesantren bisa melakukannya melalui beberapa cara: pertama, memilih materi-materi atau kitab-kitab yang berpandangan moderat yaitu yang berpaham ahlussunnah, dan menafsirkan ulang terhadap materi-materi atau kitab-kitab yang tidak sesuai dengan konteks keindonesiaan. Kedua menanamkan kepada para santri nilai-nilai ketauhidan dan nilai-nilai kemanusiaan secara seimbang, ketiga, memberikan keteladanan dalam berperilaku toleran di masyarakat. Keempat membiasakan para santri berperilaku toleran melalui praktek langsung berbaur dengan masyarakat.

An examination of associations between business process management capabilities and the benefits of digitalization: all capabilities are not equal

PurposeWhile organizations have learned to understand the importance of developing business process management (BPM) capabilities, digitalization now transforms business processes, and introduces new challenges. Extending prior research examining the value of BPM capabilities in organizations, this study examines the associations of BPM capabilities across direct and indirect digitalization benefits.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from the capabilities perspective of strategic management, the dynamic versus ordinary classification was used to classify eight BPM capabilities. An empirical investigation of associations between the eight BPM capabilities and 20 digitalization benefits is presented based on data collected from 165 BPM professionals across four continents. Factor analyses were performed to verify the framework measures for BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits. The Kendall's tau-b (τb) correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength and direction of associations.FindingsOverall results confirm positive associations between BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits, but the relationship was less dominant for ordinary BPM capabilities and indirect benefits. Furthermore, relationships between individual BPM capabilities and specific digitalization benefits vary both across and within the categories.Practical implicationsThese findings support the moderate capability-based view that puts ordinary and dynamic capabilities on equal footing in dynamic environments, while also providing insight for managers focused on specific outcomes with digitalization efforts.Originality/valueThis study reveals that the strength of associations between BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits varies. This highlights the relevance of ordinary-dynamic and direct-indirect distinctions, and the value of a more fine-grained understanding to better inform practice.

Doxastic divergence and the problem of comparability. Pragmatism defended further

AbstractSituations where it is not obvious which of two incompatible actions we ought to perform are commonplace. As has frequently been noted in the contemporary literature, a similar issue seems to arise in the field of beliefs. Cases of doxastic divergence are cases in which the subject seems subject to two divergent oughts to believe: an epistemic and a practical ought to believe. This article supports the moderate pragmatist view according to which subjects ought, all things considered, to hold the practically right belief in, at least, some cases of doxastic divergence. Unlike many defences of pragmatism, this paper does not aim to overcome exclusivism (briefly, the view that only epistemic, but not practical, considerations have an influence on what a subject ought to believe). Another major challenge that pragmatism faces is to show that the epistemic and the practical ought to believe are comparable. This article makes a case for their comparability.

Concept of Religious Tolerance among Ulama of Traditional Pesantren in Sukabumi, West Java

Pesantren nowadays has been accused by the West as a nest of radicalism and terrorism. Not without reason, in Indonesia, many intolerance and violence issues have involved several Muslim communities and alumni of pesantren. Therefore, in this study, the authors intimately will explore the views of traditional pesantren ulama, mainly in Sukabumi, on some issues of religious tolerance. In this study, the authors used a qualitative approach by using a semi-structured interview and analysis document as a data collection. After that, the data will be analyzed qualitatively. This study found that traditional pesantren ulama in Sukabumi understood the concept and discourse of religious tolerance. They have moderate views and attitudes towards non-Muslims. However, some traditional pesantren ulama in Sukabumi refused to tolerate towards Ahmadiyyah minority group. A Kyai even has a gruff view and attitude towards Ahmadiyyah groups. Meanwhile, two other ulama refused to commit violence against Ahmadiyyah and other groups

The Galaxy, National Literature, and Reconstruction

Brook Thomas, “The Galaxy, National Literature, and Reconstruction” (pp. 50–81) The North’s victory in the Civil War preserved the Union and led to the abolition of slavery. Reconstruction was a contentious debate about what sort of nation that union of states should become. Published during Reconstruction before being taken over by the Atlantic Monthly, the Galaxy tried, in Rebecca Harding Davis’s words, to be “a national magazine in which the current of thought of every section could find expression.” The Galaxy published literature and criticism as well as political, sociological, and economic essays. Its editors were moderates who aesthetically promoted a national literature and politically promoted reconciliation between Northern and Southern whites along with fair treatment for freedmen. What fair treatment entailed was debated in its pages. Essayists included Horace Greeley, the abolitionist journalist; Edward A. Pollard, author of The Lost Cause (1866); and David Croly, who pejoratively coined the phrase “miscegenation.” Literary contributors included Davis, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Mark Twain, Constance Fenimore Woolson, John William De Forest, Julian Hawthorne, Emma Lazarus, Paul Hayne, Sidney Lanier, and Joaquin Miller. Juxtaposing some of the Galaxy’s literary works with its debates over how the Union should be reimagined points to the neglected role that Reconstruction politics played in the institutionalization of American literary studies. Whitman is especially important. Reading the great poet of American democracy in the context of the Galaxy reveals how his postbellum celebration of a united nation—North, South, East, and West—aligns him with moderate views on Reconstruction that today seem racially reactionary.

National comparisons of early career researchers' scholarly communication attitudes and behaviours

The paper compares the scholarly communication attitudes and practices of early career researchers (ECRs) in eight countries concerning discovery, reading, publishing, authorship, open access, and social media. The data are taken from the most recent investigation in the 4‐year‐long Harbingers project. A survey was undertaken to establish whether the scholarly communication behaviours of the new wave of researchers are uniform, progressing, or changing in the same overall direction or whether they are impacted significantly by national and cultural differences. A multilingual questionnaire hosted on SurveyMonkey was distributed in 2019 via social media networks of researchers, academic publishers, and key ECR platforms in the UK, USA, France, China, Spain, Russia, Malaysia, and Poland. Over a thousand responses were obtained, and the main findings are that there is a significant degree of diversity in terms of scholarly communication attitudes and practices of ECRs from the various countries represented in the study, which cannot be solely explained by the different make‐up of the samples. China, Russia, France, and Malaysia were more likely to be different in respect to a scholarly activity, and responses from the UK and USA were relatively similar.Key points ECRs from China, Russia, France, and Malaysia are more likely to hold different (although moderate) views in respect to a scholarly activity. ECRs from the UK and USA are similar in many respects, including being positive towards open science and relying less on external factors (impact factor or number of download) for their decision to read a paper. French ECRs appear not to want to do, abide, or follow anything novel or innovative and are very critical of scholarly developments. Spanish ECRs are innovative and more positive about publishing open access (OA), while Chinese ECRs are somewhat conservative as they are less likely to publish in OA Chinese ECRs are the highest users of social media for testing and conducting research but least likely to use it to share their reputations or build reputations.

The Stigma of Addiction and Effects on Community Perceptions of Procedural Justice in Drug Treatment Courts

We present a series of four between-subject, multifactorial experiments that examine how labeling offenders with addiction, as well as if that psychiatric label is described to be biologically influenced, may affect community perceptions regarding the importance of procedural justice in drug treatment courts. Stigmatization toward addiction is hypothesized to moderate community views on procedural justice. Labeling with addiction garnered nonsignificant effects on community perceptions of the importance of procedural justice in drug treatment courts. Yet, patterns of moderation analyses indicated that participants with higher degrees of stigmatization toward an offender with addiction, and particularly if that psychiatric label was also described to be biologically influenced, rated the importance of offenders experiencing aspects of procedural justice as significantly higher. Higher degrees of public stigmatization associated with the “brain disease model” of addiction appear to coexist with increased community support for offenders with such labels experiencing increased procedural justice and fairness.

Repugnance and Perfection

Repugnance and Perfection

Development of Freedom (Uhuru) Ideology and the Inspirations of the Nationalist Ideological Movements in Kenya and South Korea

This article traces the origin of nationalistic movements in Kenyan and South Korean history and examined factors which inspired nationalism movements in both countries. For example, it established that in Kenya, the desire and thirst for freedom/independence and the development of freedom (Uhuru) ideology were some of the factors that inspired nationalism movements. In South Korea, various theories (defend orthodoxy, eastern learning movement, and ban heterodoxy) which emancipated from 19th century by some individuals played major roles in inspiring and motivating Koreans people not only to join nationalistic movements, but, to strengthen such movements. In both countries, the political terrains were coated with several ideological colors which manifested themselves in different phases even as the two countries were going through different transitional experiences. As opposed to Park Chung-hee's radical revolutionist ideologist reflected on his foreign policy which also were highly tied towards the US and were subject to Washington's demand, Kenya's ideological movements were cautious, a fact that was reflected on how the country formulated its foreign policy. For instance, Kenya opted for the moderate view and shun out extreme rhetoric which many other newly independent African countries chose. This article traces the root of the freedom ideologies (uhuru) and their inspirations in both countries.

An Analysis of The Contents of Da'wah Attaki in You Tube Media with The Title of "The Most Beautiful Love" in The Perspective of Religious Moderation

The emergence of radical community organizations has lately threatened religious moderation, which has become the spiritual feature of the majority of Muslims in Indonesia. You Tube media plays an important role in both moderate and radical preaching spreading. This article will examine Hanan Attaki's proselytization in the video published on April 17, 2018 in You Tube entitled "The Most Beautiful Love." Hanan Attakiis the founder of the "Youth Hijrah" society that has a "Youth Hijrah" You Tube account with many student supporters. The research question is how is the Hanan Attaki video message from You Tube entitled "The Most Beautiful Love" to convey the ethics of creating love for teenagers and whether the message is from a moderate or radical view. Yusuf Qardlawi, a mujtahid cleric in this century, is the notion of moderation used. Thisresearch utilizes a technique of qualitative content analysis, a technique for systematically, objectively and visibly evaluating communication to the message being observed and being nonreactive.

HOPE AND OPTIMISM ON THE FUTURE OF INDONESIAN ISLAM: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PESANTREN IN PANTURA

Purpose of the study: This study aimed to understand the meaning perception of hope and optimism about the future of Islam in Indonesia.
 Methodology: The study used discourse analysis, the collection of data obtained through observation, in-depth interview and documentation.
 Main Findings: Results of the study showed confidence in the future of Indonesian Islam is based on optimism.
 Applications of this study: the research has done in pesantren Tarbiyatut Tholabah Kranji. The participant of the study was a student of pesantren (santri) as well as the student of Islamic higher education, IAI Tarbiyatut Tholabah.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: The strong optimism on the future of Indonesian Islam supported by a moderate Islamic view is always responsive to changes in society.

The problem of correlation between national, panhuman and universal values in the sustainable development of modern society

The authors consider the correlation between national, panhuman and universal values in the context of sustainable development of modern society with account for the peculiarities of the Republic of Belarus. The authors see into the main tendencies in philosophical and scientific studies connected with the sustainable development issue, analyze the correlation between the related concepts of “evolutionism” and “sustainable development” in modern philosophy and science. The article analyzes the correlation between different values in sustainable development of society and considers the implementation of these ideas in documents adopted in the Republic of Belarus. The research is based on general scientific methods: historical and comparative analysis, as well as the method of critical analysis.  The authors conclude that the transformation of the global economy into a stable ecosystem hasn’t been appropriately reflected in philosophical and axiological studies. There are moderate, specific and radical societal views on the values manifested in the fight for freedom and truth evolving into contradictions, ethno-religious and nationalist conflicts. In the Republic of Belarus, the conditions have been created for the accomplishment of goals of sustainable development of society with account for the national peculiarities of development that will help harmonize national, panhuman and universal values.