US congressional members struck a different tone along party lines in 8 months of COVID-19 social

Meaningful messaging: Sentiment in elite social media communication with the public on the COVID-19 pandemic

2021-07-14

(Press-News.org) An analysis of the tone used in pandemic-related social media posts from U.S. Congress members over an 8-month period in 2020 finds clear partisan differences, with Democrats using a slightly negative tone compared with Republicans, who appeared to use more strongly positive language in their COVID-19 messaging. Democrats were also far more likely than Republicans to use neutral language. The study also indicates that tone plays a critical role in elite communications, finding that the public engages more with content that has a negative tone. The study authors note that messaging from political elites during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic holds a heightened significance for public health, information sharing, and personal behavior, with a message's tone either boosting public confidence in the provided information or fueling anxieties. Heightened political polarization can lead to fractured messaging around the issue. To investigate differences in the tone of pandemic-related social media messages from elite Democrat and Republican politicians, Janet Box-Steffensmeier and Laura Moses collected posts about COVID-19 generated by members of Congress between March 1 and October 30, 2020 using a public insights tool called CrowdTangle, which is owned and operated by Facebook. The researchers then used the VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) sentiment analysis tool to evaluate the tone of the messages. The findings revealed partisan differences in tone for pandemic-related messages, with Democrats far more likely to use neutral language than Republicans and employing a comparatively more negative tone, although both parties used a more positive tone overall. Democrats also posted about COVID-19 more than Republicans, averaging 26 posts per member compared to 18 during the study period. The findings also suggest that the more conservative a Congress member is, the more the public engaged with their social media content, although posts from liberal members were more likely to be shared.

INFORMATION:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Teasing out the impact of Airbnb listings on neighborhood crime

2021-07-14

A new study on the effects of Airbnb listings on Boston neighborhoods suggests that the prevalence of listings may hamper local social dynamics that prevent crime. However, tourists themselves do not appear to generate or attract higher levels of crime. Babak Heydari, Daniel T. O'Brien, and Laiyang Ke of Northeastern University in Boston, MA, USA present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 14, 2021. Widespread sentiment holds that Airbnb listings cause increased crime in residential neighborhoods. However, there has been limited research to explore and clarify this link. To better understand the relationship ...

Oldest fossils of methane-cycling microbes expand frontiers of habitability on early Earth

2021-07-14

A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bologna, has discovered the fossilised remains of methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system beneath the seafloor 3.42 billion years ago. The microfossils are the oldest evidence for this type of life and expand the frontiers of potentially habitable environments on the early Earth, as well as other planets such as Mars. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analysed microfossil specimens in two thin layers within a rock collected from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. This region, near the border with Eswatini and Mozambique, contains some of the oldest and best-preserved sedimentary rocks ...

New study provides data on protections of ebola vaccines

2021-07-14

GALVESTON, TEXAS - A new study published in Science Translational Medicine reports on the Ebola vaccine-mediated protection of five mucosal vaccine vectors based on the human and avian paramyxoviruses. The study comprehensively characterized the antibody response to each vaccine, identifying features and functions that were elevated in survivors and that could serve as vaccine correlates of protection. The multi-year study, led by Alexander Bukreyev, PhD, of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Galveston National Laboratory looked at whether all the vaccines conferred protection and produced ...

Adult children with college degrees influence parents' health in later life

2021-07-14

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Write down the benefits of obtaining a college degree and, more than likely, all the items on the completed list will relate to graduates: higher salaries, autonomous jobs and better access to health care, for instance. All of those factors, supported by extensive research, help draw a direct line connecting higher education and health. Similar research suggests how the education of parents affects their children. Now, two University at Buffalo sociologists have used a new wave of data from a survey launched in 1994 to further extend the geometry linking educational attainment and health that demonstrates another dimension of the intergenerational effects ...

Virtual schooling exposes digital challenges for Black families, MU study finds

2021-07-14

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A new study from the University of Missouri found the unanticipated transitions to virtual schooling due to COVID-19 exposed the lack of digital resources among Black families in the United States, including access to Wi-Fi and technological savviness. As two-thirds of the country's Black children are born into single-parent households, the findings help explain the extensive stress virtual schooling caused for many Black families trying to keep their children learning and engaged online while at home during the pandemic. "What we found was parents and caregivers often felt disempowered in the rapidly changing environment, as they did not necessarily feel equipped with the tools or technological savviness to effectively engage in their children's ...

Role of subnuclear NSrp70 in immunity-studied at Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology

2021-07-14

T lymphocytes, or T cells, are immune cells with diverse roles in building the body's immunity. How does one particular cell type fight against a host of different pathogens? The key to this adaptability is in alternative splicing, wherein the cell produces multiple forms of proteins for identifying different types of invading viruses and microbes, as well as destroying cancer cells. So, it is not surprising that finding ways to improve the production of T cells with enhanced pathogen recognition capacity is an actively researched area of modern science. In 2011, scientists from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea discovered a protein called NSrp70, which ...

New method makes vital fertilizer element in a more sustainable way

2021-07-14

Urea is a critical element found in everything from fertilizers to skin care products. Large-scale production of urea, which is naturally a product of human urine, is a massive undertaking, making up about 2% of global energy use and emissions today. For decades, scientists and engineers have sought to make this process more energy efficient as demand for fertilizer grows with increased population. An international research team that includes scientists and engineers from The University of Texas at Austin has devised a new method for making urea that is more environmentally friendly than today's process ...

Roadless forests see more blazes and greater severity, but fire resilience is the result

2021-07-14

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests with roads, but the end result for the roadless forests is greater fire resilience, Oregon State University researchers say. The findings, published today in Environmental Research Letters, provide a key piece of the puzzle for a region trying to develop better approaches to living with fire in the wake of a 2020 fire season that brought historically disastrous blazes. Limiting smoke exposure and reducing risk to water supplies, habitat and human infrastructure from huge, uncontrolled fires are important goals of policymakers, said James Johnston, a researcher in the OSU College of Forestry and the ...

The delicate balance of protecting river deltas and society

2021-07-14

Hundreds of millions of people live on river deltas around the world, making them central to rich diversity in culture and thriving economies. As deltas face environmental degradation and ongoing climate change, governments have sought ever more drastic measures to prevent flooding and protect society and its infrastructure. But, these policies can harm the natural environment and lead to loss of precious land. Striking a balance between limiting deltaic land loss and maximizing cultural and economic benefit to society is a top priority in sustainability policy. Researchers ...

Molecular bridge mediates inhibitory synapse specificity in the cortex

2021-07-14

With its breathtaking views and striking stature, the Golden Gate bridge certainly deserves its title as one of the modern wonders of the world. Its elegant art deco style and iconic towers offer visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for astounding photographs. Stretching for almost 2 miles, the Golden Gate serves as a critical gateway, facilitating the exchange of ideas, commodities, and people. Though not to the same grandiose scale, our brains have similar gateways to connect neurons. These tiny compartments, called synapses, enable the dynamic exchange of information and the formation of neural circuits. To build these circuits, developing ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Global cervical cancer vaccine roll-out shows it to be very effective in reducing cervical cancer and other HPV-related disease, but huge variations between countries in coverage

Negativity about vaccines surged on Twitter after COVID-19 jabs become available

Global measles cases almost double in a year

Lower dose of mpox vaccine is safe and generates six-week antibody response equivalent to standard regimen

Personalised “cocktails” of antibiotics, probiotics and prebiotics hold great promise in treating a common form of irritable bowel syndrome, pilot study finds