Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The commercial institutional peace research program has provided empirical evidence that such institutions help reduce the incidence of militarized inter-state conflict. But it remains unclear how commercial institutions produce their observed pacific effect. We examine empirically three different arguments that might explain the commercial institutional peace. First, commercial institutions increase the economic opportunity costs of war for the state. Second, some commercial institutions provide information about other states' military capabilities, which may make bargaining for peace more efficient. Third, many commercial institutions bring high-level state leaders together on a regular basis, building trust to overcome the commitment problem in international bargaining. Our statistical results show the greatest empirical support for the third explanation: commercial institutions with more organs for high-level state leaders demonstrate a substantively strong and statistically significant effect in reducing the outbreak of military conflict. We find some limited support for the second explanation, and no support at all for the first explanation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to study whether commercialization can explain the extent to which Swedish news media at the 1998 and 2002 national elections framed politics as a game rather than as issues, followed an interpretive rather than a descriptive journalistic style, and, finally, how many sentences politicians were allowed to speak for themselves. Using quantitative content analysis, the study includes the two leading national broadsheet papers, the two leading national tabloids, and the three main broadcast news shows during the three weeks prior to each election.
Contrary to expectations, the results show that even though the Swedish media system has become more commercialized during the last 15-20 years, commercialization is not the decisive factor in explaining the extent to which leading Swedish media in their election coverage frame politics as a strategic game, follow an interpretive journalistic style or let politicians speak for themselves. Even though commercialization of the media is a global force, affecting news media in democracies around the world, most news media are still rooted in their country- and cultural-specific contexts, where they have to operate within the limits set by political regulations, audience expectations, journalistic norms and values, and current events as they play out during different election campaigns.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The social control of the commercial sex industry has resulted in enormous expenditures of police time and resources in many communities across the United States. Police strategies such as aggressive hot spot patrols and sting operations resulting in multiple arrests of commercial sex workers are commonly used by social control agencies. It is questionable whether strategies such as these are effective in resolving illicit sex work. Furthermore, there is a dearth of literature that assesses the perceptions of police officers themselves toward the social control of commercialized sex work. This qualitative case study aims to explore the perceptions of police officers toward commercialized sex work. The study was guided by three main questions: (1) What are police officers perceptions in regards to expending time and resources toward the enforcement of commercialized sex work? (2) What are the perceptions of police officers regarding whether sex work should be decriminalized and regulated? and (3) What are the perceptions of police officers regarding whether or not commercialized sex work results in social harms?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Much of the literature on NPR finds that the network and its member stations have become more commercially responsive over time, an attribute that was not intended or even desired at the outset of NPR and its forerunner, Educational Radio. This paper is an exploratory study that builds on previous work by outlining the ramifications of NPR’s new commercial focus and then looks to other non-NPR affiliated forms of public radio such as Pacifica, community, and campus radio and examines whether these stations are able to offer a meaningful non-commercial alternative to NPR by providing services now largely abandoned by NPR stations. It is suggested that these types of stations may also be subject to the same dynamics affecting public radio.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Sacred Harp singing has always been a non-commercialized musical form practiced in relative, though not complete, obscurity; its focus on participation rather than performance is a major factor in its lack of widespread attention. Its recent inclusion in the Miramax film Cold Mountain represents Sacred Harp’s first involvement in contemporary processes of commercialization. This paper examines the impact of Cold Mountain’s release on the commercialization of Sacred Harp, the ways that a narrative about Sacred Harp is being produced in the media, and the responses of Sacred Harp singers themselves to these processes. These events provide an excellent opportunity to study the ongoing processes as a non-commercial genre comes into contact with major commercializing institutions. Rarely do we have the opportunity to study these processes from their inception, and whether or not Sacred Harp singing ultimately makes the transition to being a substantially commercial genre, its successes and failures in this arena will be illuminating. In particular, the participatory nature of the tradition creates challenges both for those who seek to market it and for Sacred Harp singers who must deal with the arrival of newcomers to their tradition.