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Journal Articles | 2022

Polarised social media discourse during COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from YouTube

Samrat Gupta, Gaurav Jain, and Amit Anand Tiwari

Behaviour & Information Technology

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted significant attention on social media platforms as these platforms provide users unparalleled access to ‘information’ from around the globe. In spite of demographic differences, people have been expressing and shaping their opinions using social media on topics ranging from the plight of migrant workers to vaccine development. However, the social media induced polarisation owing to selective online exposure to information during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a major cause of concern for countries across the world. In this paper, we analyse the temporal dynamics of polarisation in online discourse related to the COVID-19. We use random network theory-based simulation to investigate the evolution of opinion formation in comments posted on different COVID-19-related YouTube videos. Our findings reveal that as the pandemic unfolded, the extent of polarisation in the online discourse increased with time. We validate our experimental model using real-world complex networks and compare consensus formation on these networks with equivalent random networks. This study has several implications as polarisation around socio-cultural issues in crises such as pandemic can exacerbate the social divide. The framework proposed in this study can aid regulatory agencies to take required actions and mitigate social media-induced polarisation.

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Journal Articles | 2022

ShukraNitisara: A political economy treatise at the cusp of Indian kingdoms and colonial rule

Satish Deodhar

Indian Journal of Democratic Governance

Shukracharya’s treatise on political economy has been referred to in many ancient Indian texts such as Arthashastra, Buddhacharitam and Mahabharata. However, that treatise has been lost. A text titled Shukranitisara was brought to light in the nineteenth century. Written no later than the early part of the nineteenth century, the text has been written at the cusp of decline of the Indian kingdoms and entry of the colonial powers. The text is unique in that it seems to synthesize ancient Sanskrit writings as well as early regulations of East India Company. While a Sanskrit to English translation of the document exits and a few have also written about this text from the perspective of political science, nothing has been written from the perspective of economic policies. This is an effort to capture the economic aspects of the treatise. Among the four purusharthas or the life objectives, while Arthashastra had given primacy to artha or material wealth, Shukranitisara considers dharmic or ethical conduct as foremost for the economic decisions of the state and the householder. Among other things, the treatise addresses issues of governance, breadth of vocations and sciences, public finance, prices, markets, contracts, labour relations, and advice to a householder. If some of the policies mentioned in Shukranitisara are detailed and unique as compared to Arthashastra, some other are similar to the early regulations of the East India Company. Some of the policy advices from the text remain relevant even for today.

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Journal Articles | 2022

A multinational carbon-credit market integrating distinct national carbon allowance strategies

Miguel F. Anjos, Felipe Feijoo, and Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Applied Energy

We study the potential role and advantages of a multinational carbon-credit (CC) market allowing a set of countries to procure CCs for their domestic producers. We study the interaction of such a market with renewable portfolio standards, specifically regarding whether a country’s government or its energy producers are responsible for upholding the renewable portfolio standards (RPS), and how this impacts total emissions and energy mix. Implementing uniform carbon tax policies or cross-border emission trading systems hinders individual countries’ autonomy while strictly segregated carbon markets suffer from the tragedy of the commons. We develop a model where countries can have their own policies to allocate the CCs, which may include taxes or subsidies depending upon the country’s choices. We use a special form of equilibrium programs with equilibrium constraints (EPEC) game – Nash Among Stackelberg Players (NASP) – and recent algorithmic advances to identify equilibria for these games to identify the effect of such a common CC market, and the regional governments’ individualized interests on the resulting energy production patterns and emissions. We observe that countries could retain their autonomy and have reasonable freedom to set national policy by acting as intermediaries between the CC market and the producers. We carry out a case study using historical data and projections of energy production for the US and Canada, and observe the varying effects of such a common CC market on government policy and the behavior of energy producers. Establishing a common CC market could significantly reduce global emissions without infringing on national autonomy. Such a market helps governments to motivate producers to uphold renewable standards because if the producers do not voluntarily reduce emissions, then the government could enforce the obligation through its national policies, generally leading to a revenue loss for producers.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Physimorphic vs. Typographic logos in destination marketing: Integrating destination familiarity and consumer characteristics

Subhadip Roy and Rekha Attri

Tourism Management

Research on the effectiveness of destination logos is sparse. The present study introduces the idea of physimorphic (nature resembling) logos and explores its effectiveness on the tourist vis a vis non-physimorphic or typographic logos. The study hypotheses are developed based on the theories of Cue Utilization, Processing Fluency and Cognitive styles. Three controlled experiments are conducted in sequence with a combined sample size of 514 respondents. Major findings indicate that a physimorphic logo may be more effective than a typographic logo in generating a positive attitude and visit intentions towards a destination, more so for an unfamiliar destination than a familiar one. The results also establish the mediating effect of processing fluency and moderating effect of cognitive styles. The study contributes to the body of tourism literature by introducing and exploring the concept of ‘physimorphism’. The practical implications of the study encourage the use of physimorphic logos for destination branding.

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Journal Articles | 2022

The changing portrayal of children in Indian advertisements: A comparative study of the three decades

Sharuti Choudhary andSubhadip Roy

Young Consumers

Purpose – This study aims to analyse the roles in which children have been portrayed in advertisements over three decades (1990–2000, 2000–2010 and 2010–2020) and what have been the changes in the portrayal of the children, including the changes in product type and target audience. Design/methodology/approach – The content of 212 television advertisements was analysed for the study; 32 advertisements belonged to 1990–2000, 38 belonged to 2000–2010 and 142 belonged to 2010–2020. Findings – It could be observed that in 2010–2020, marketers had primarily focused on children as their central idea behind making any advertisement. They were projecting children as an emotional and informational tool for attracting adults and children, directly or indirectly. Research limitations/implications – The implications of this study are manifold. Firstly, the study supports the theories of socialisation and the changing role of children in the same. Secondly, the trend over the decades hints at the marketer’s changing strategy behind using children in advertisements to target adult audiences. Practical implications – The significant implication for the practitioner is the possibility of having a child protagonist in an ad for the non-children target audience. Originality/value – This paper is one of the first to analyse the changing role of children in advertisements over a long time horizon.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Cognitive sources of liability of foreignness in crowdsourcing creative work

Pankaj Kumar, Swanand J. Deodhar, and Sri Zaheer

Journal of International Business Studies

Is there a liability of foreignness in online crowdsourcing contests for creative work? Digitalization mitigates physical orthodox transaction-based frictions and is therefore expected to reduce the liability of foreignness. However, for creative work sourced digitally across borders, due to the decoupling of the locus of creation from the locus of selection and due to the cognitive nature of creative tasks, we suggest that frictions continue to arise from foreign solvers’ cognitive home biases in creative task generation and from solution-seeker firm managers’ cognitive home biases in creative task selection. These biases manifest as LOF, reducing the likelihood of foreign solvers’ work being selected as winners in online crowdsourcing contests. Furthermore, we argue that as foreign solvers gain both breadth and depth of international experience in prior online contests, and observe host peers in a live contest, the effect of the liability of foreignness is reduced due to the conceptual expansion of solvers’ creative consideration sets. Similarly, the seeker firm’s cognitive openness in selection arising from its being in a technology industry or being a physically international firm reduces the liability’s negative effect on solvers’ success. Our conditional logit estimation with multiway fixed-effects using 558,504 contest-solver observations from 13,993 solution-seeker firms in 102 countries and 11,497 solvers in 124 countries on an online platform broadly supports our hypotheses, suggesting that there are both demand-side and supply-side cognitive sources of LOF even in unblind online crowdsourcing contests.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Measuring gender attitudes: Developing and testing implicit association tests for adolescents in India

Tarun Jain, Diva Dhar, Vrinda Kapoor, Vrinda Kapur, and Anita Raj

PLoS ONE

We develop and test gender attitude measures conducted with a school-based sample of adolescents aged 14–17 years in India. We test a measure with survey items and vignettes to capture gender-based value and stereotypes, an Implicit Association Test (IAT) capturing gender-based value, and an IAT capturing gender stereotype. All demonstrate good internal reliability, and both IATs are significantly associated with our survey measure suggesting criterion validity, though not confirming it due to the lack of a gold standard measure on gender attitudes. Finally, construct validity is indicated from the measures’ positive significant associations with higher girls’ mobility and education. The gender-related IAT tools developed are consistent and valid, and modestly correlated with gender-related behavior outcomes such as mobility and school enrolment.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Religiosity and homophobia: Examining the impact of perceived importance of childbearing, hostile sexism and gender

Shubham Singhal and Vishal Gupta

Sexuality Research and Social Policy

Introduction Religiosity plays an important role in defning social norms and leads to homophobia. We tested whether the perceived importance of childbearing and hostile sexism mediate the relationship between religiosity and homophobia. We also tested the relative importance of two mediators and if they sequentially mediated the religiosity–homophobia relationship. Finally, we tested if gender moderates these efects. Methods Data from 49 countries with 70,867 participants collected by the seventh wave of the World Values Survey between 2017 and 2020 were analyzed using mediation and moderation techniques. Results The perceived importance of childbearing and hostile sexism explain the relationship between religiosity and homophobia. More specifcally, the perceived importance of childbearing mediates the religiosity–homophobia relationship, and it mediates the relationship more strongly than hostile sexism. Additionally, hostile sexism and the perceived importance of childbearing sequentially mediate the religiosity–homophobia relationship. This sequential mediation efect is stronger for men than for women. Similarly, the mediation efect of hostile sexism for the religiosity–homophobia relationship is stronger for men than for women. Conclusions The perceived importance of childbearing and hostile sexism explain the likely impact of religiosity on homophobia, which should be considered in psychological interventions and prevention programs. Policy Implications Interventions that are targeted at altering the perceived importance of childbearing and sexist attitudes can combat homophobia among religious people.

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Journal Articles | 2022

First-generation and continuing-generation college graduates’ application, acceptance, and matriculation to US medical schools: A national cohort study.

Hyacinth RC Mason, Ashar Ata, Mytien Nguyen, Sunny Nakae, Devasmita Chakraverty, Branden Eggan, Sarah Martinez, and Donna B. Jeffe

Medical Education Online

Many U.S. medical schools conduct holistic review of applicants to enhance the socioeconomic and experiential diversity of the physician workforce. The authors examined the role of first-generation college-graduate status on U.S. medical school application, acceptance, and matriculation, hypothesizing that first-generation (vs. continuing-generation) college graduates would be less likely to apply and gain acceptance to medical school.Secondary analysis of de-identified data from a retrospective national-cohort study was conducted for individuals who completed the 2001–2006 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Pre-Medical College Admission Test Questionnaire (PMQ) and the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). AAMC provided medical school application, acceptance, and matriculation data through 06/09/2013. Multivariable logistic regression models identified demographic, academic, and experiential variables independently associated with each outcome and differences between first-generation and continuing-generation students. Of 262,813 PMQ respondents, 211,216 (80.4%) MCAT examinees had complete data for analysis and 24.8% self-identified as first-generation college graduates. Of these, 142,847 (67.6%) applied to U.S. MD-degree-granting medical schools, of whom 86,486 (60.5%) were accepted, including 14,708 (17.0%) first-generation graduates; 84,844 (98.1%) acceptees matriculated. Adjusting for all variables, first-generation (vs. continuing-generation) college graduates were less likely to apply (odds ratio [aOR] 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.82–0.86) and be accepted (aOR 0.86; 95% CI, 0.83–0.88) to medical school; accepted first-generation college graduates were as likely as their continuing-generation peers to matriculate. Students with (vs. without) paid work experience outside hospitals/labs/clinics were less likely to apply, be accepted, and matriculate into medical school. Increased efforts to mitigate structural socioeconomic vulnerabilities that may prevent first-generation college students from applying to medical school are needed. Expanded use of holistic review admissions practices may help decision makers value the strengths first-generation college graduates and other underrepresented applicants bring to medical educationand the physician workforce.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Compliance and cooperation in global value chains: The effects of the better cotton initiative in Pakistan and India

Shakil Ghori, Peter Lund-Thomsen, Caleb gallemore, Sukhpal Singh, and Lone Riisgaard

Ecological Economics

The Better Cotton Imitative (BCI), the world's largest multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI) for sustainable cotton production, is a prime example of a hybrid “cooperation-compliance” model used by some MSIs to engage farmers and on-farm workers in the global South. Using a mixed methods approach, we investigate the impacts of this hybrid model on economic, environmental, and labor conditions of farmers and on-farm workers on irrigated cotton farms in Pakistan and India. In one of few cross-national comparisons of BCI impacts, we find evidence that farmers participating in BCI's “cooperation-compliance” model report (a) higher gross incomes and (b) lower input costs than comparison farmers. However, (c) BCI had no positive impacts upon labor conditions on cotton farms, as compared to conventional peers. Finally, (d) BCI's impacts are mediated by institutional and geographic differences across the study sites. We conclude that effects of MSIs are hard to generalize but can most meaningfully be understood within particular institutional designs, value chains, specific time periods, and institutional contexts.

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IIMA