Sounman Hong

Online news on Twitter: Newspapers’ social media adoption and their online readership

Many news organizations have recognized the potential of social media as a journalistic tool and have used social media marketing to attract online audiences. The aim of this study is to understand the implications of news organizations’ adoption of social media sites through (1) an examination of the relationship between news organizations’ adoption of social media and their online readership and (2) a comparison of online traffic generated by social media sites with that generated by other online media institutions. Evidence suggests that newspapers’ adoption of social media is positively associated with an increase in their online readership, and this association increases in the size of the newspapers’ social media networks (e.g., number of Twitter followers). Evidence also suggests that the association between newspapers’ social media adoption and their online traffic may differ compared to the association between other online media institutions and the online traffic they generated. A descriptive analysis shows that the online traffic generated by social media sites is less concentrated than that generated by search engines or news aggregators; this can be explained by the fact that social media sites might be less susceptible to information cascades, compared to search engines or news aggregators.

Who Benefits from Twitter? Social Media and Political Competition in the U.S. House of Representatives

Many researchers have assumed that social media will reduce inequalities between elite politicians and those outside the political mainstream and that it will thus benefit democracy, as it circumvents the traditional media that focus too much on a few elite politicians. I test this assumption by investigating the association between U.S. Representatives using Twitter and their fundraising. Evidence suggests that (1) politicians’ adoptions of social media have yielded increased donations from outside their constituencies but little from within their own constituencies; (2) politicians with extreme ideologies tend to benefit more from their social media adoptions; and (3) the political use of social media may yield a more unequal distribution of financial resources among candidates. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for political equality, polarization, and democracy.

Political Polarization on Twitter: Implications for the Use of Social Media in Digital Governments

This study investigates two competing opinions regarding the role of social media platforms in partisan polarization. The “echo chambers” view focuses on the highly fragmented, customized, and niche-oriented aspects of social media and suggests these venues foster greater political polarization of public opinion. An alternative, which we term the “crosscutting interactions” view, focuses on the openness of the Internet and social media, with different opinions just a click away. This view thus argues that polarization would not be especially problematic on these outlets. Exploiting the variation among members of the U.S. House of Representatives in measured positions of political ideology, this study estimates the association between politicians’ ideological positions and the size of their Twitter readership. The evidence shows a strong polarization on Twitter readership, which supports the echo chambers view. Lastly, we discuss the implications of this evidence for governments’ use of social media in collecting new ideas and opinions from the public.

Adaptive governance and decentralization: Evidence from regulation of the sharing economy in multi-level governance

Abstract When does decentralization lead to adaptive governance? This study proposes a conceptual framework of the necessary conditions in which decentralization may result in adaptive governance. We thereby consider two distinct forms in the context of multi-level democratic governance: central and local governments. Based on prior findings that local governments are more sensitive to democratic influences than central ones, we point out that decentralization may hinder the process of adaptation if the considered policy embodies entrepreneurial politics (i.e., if the adaptation generates widely distributed benefits but narrowly concentrated costs). To support our analyses, we use the example of the recent rise of the sharing economy, as manifested by Airbnb, and present qualitative evidence suggesting that higher-tier (central or federal) governments are relatively more favorable to such sharing services than lower-tier (local or city) governments.

Fiscal Rules in Recessions: Evidence from the American States

This study explores the impact of balanced-budget rules on states’ fiscal policy outcomes and tests whether this impact depends on the political and economic environments in light of the American states’ experience from 2004 to 2010. The findings suggest that (1) budget rules are more binding in recessions as compared with “normal” times; (2) the impact of the rule depends on the political environment, especially on the party identity of the governor; (3) a divided government influences the rule’s impact, particularly when one party controls the governorship and another controls the legislature; and (4) states’ responses, as measured by total budget cuts, to unexpected revenue shocks (such as unexpected decreases in tax revenue) tend to be larger than states’ responses to unexpected expenditure shocks.

Making Money by Giving It for Free: Radiohead's Pre-Release Strategy for In Rainbows

In 2007 a prominent British alternative-rock band, Radiohead, pre-released its album In Rainbows online, and asked their fans to “pick-their-own-price” (PYOP) for the digital download. The offer was available during an 8-week window, soon after which the digital and CD albums were commercialized at pre-set prices. In this paper, we use weekly music sales data in the US between 2004 and 2012 to examine the effect of Radiohead’s innovative strategy on the subsequent sales of the band’s albums. We find that Radiohead’s PYOP offer had no significant impact on CD album sales. Interestingly, it yielded a higher percentage change in the digital album sales compared what would have been obtained with a conventional release. This suggests that the increase in sales due to the vast media attention generated by the offer strategy must have dominated the cannibalization effect. Consequently, the PYOP offer had a positive impact on sales revenues, even if one assumes no revenues were obtained directly from the PYOP downloads. However, this “success story” does not readily apply to similar strategies adopted by other bands. We show that Nine Inch Nail’s free provision of its new album, The Slip, decreased digital album sales. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Political and Institutional Determinants of Tax-Exempt Bond Yields

Political-institutional factors — such as the political composition of state legislatures, and interstate variations in public sector labor environments, such as union strength, and collective bargaining rights — can explain a significant proportion of interstate variation in bankruptcy risk. We find that, controlling for multiple economic variables, states with weaker unions, weaker collective bargaining rights, and fewer Democratic state legislators pay less in borrowing costs absolutely, and less in borrowing costs at similar levels of unexpected budget deficits, than do states with stronger unions and a higher proportion of Democrats.

“Hard,” “Soft,” or “Tough Love” Management: What Promotes Successful Performance in a Cross-Organizational Collaboration?

ABSTRACT One of the most pervasive debates in literature on managing people is whether using “hard” or “soft” approaches—seeking to influence behavior by pressuring or by nurturing—produces better organizational performance. This article examines this question in the context of a cross-organizational collaboration in English local government between police, probation, social work, and other organizations designed to reduce crime. Using a survey to gather data about the organizational context of these collaborations and actual crime data, we find interaction effects between the joint presence of “hard” and “soft” features in explaining crime reduction. Taking a phrase from pop psychology, it appears that organizations characterized by “tough love” perform better than those with only “hard” or “soft” features by themselves. We suggest that further research be conducted on the relationship of “tough love” to organizational performance.

Ethnic Diversity in Public Organizations and Public Service Performance: Empirical Investigation

This study examines whether bureaucracy that is representative with respect to race and ethnicity improves overall service performance. In 1999, the UK government set force-specific 10-year targets...

Social media and political voices of organized interest groups: a descriptive analysis

This study provides a descriptive look at the use of social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and inequality of political voices in the context of political interest organizations. It seeks to answer the question of whether the Internet and social media allow those who were previously outside the mainstream of power with respect to the broader democratic discourse to raise their voices and be heard. Overall, we find that social media does not diminish the concentration of political voices within the democratic discourse. Rather, the evidence suggests that political voice is more concentrated when the voice is measured by the size of the online network using social media than when measured by traditional variables such as the number of lobbyists. We also report that a very small number of large organizations that have very large-sized online networks as measured by Twitter followers are driving the high concentration of online political voices.