text:
Journal of Service Science and Management > Vol.11 No.2, April 2018
Exploring the Determinants of Community Engagement in Social Q & A Communities ()
Linlin Zhang1*, Yongwei Jiang2
1Management School, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
2Staff of Pauli Real Estate Limited by Share Ltd., Guangzhou, China.
DOI: 10.4236/jssm.2018.112015 PDF HTML XML 767 Downloads 1,815 Views Citations
Based on group identity and interpersonal bonds, this study constructs a theoretical framework to explain the influence mechanism of community engagement in social Q & A community users. According to the data received from 402 users of social Q & A community, this study empirically tested the proposed model. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that community identification is the antecedent of community engagement. And community identification plays a mediating role in the impact of perceived online relationship commitment on community engagement. Community prestige has a positive impact on community identification, and social presence and familiarity has a positive impact on the perceived online relationship commitment.
Social Q & A Community, Community Engagement, Community Identification, Perceived Online Relationship Commitment, Attachment
Zhang, L. and Jiang, Y. (2018) Exploring the Determinants of Community Engagement in Social Q & A Communities. Journal of Service Science and Management, 11, 203-218. doi: 10.4236/jssm.2018.112015.
In recent years, people present a more precise and more refined demand for knowledge, and the social Q & A communities came into being. The social Q & A community is a knowledge service platform based on social media, which is based on users' questions, answers and discussions. Compared with the traditional Q & A community, the social Q & A community pays more attention to the quality of knowledge, the establishment of social relations, and the continuous participation and contribution of the users. Community engagement is the specific application of customer engagement concept in the network community. It refers to the behavior of users who are motivated by a certain motivation and voluntarily produce other contributions other than trading behavior to the community, such as writing comments, prestige, recommendation, and help other consumers [1] .
Although the social Q & A community is developing rapidly, community operators still face severe challenges. In the quiz community with high maturity, most community users have low stickiness and low participation. Therefore, how to retain the existing users and encourage their community behavior has become a common concern in both the practice and the academia. On the one hand, the current network community is various, and the cost of network space transfer is low. If users find social Q & A community can't meet their needs, they may stop using or transferring to another community of the same type [2] . On the other hand, community users do not have a clear obligation, and their knowledge contribution behavior is voluntary. It's this nature that makes it difficult for managers to encourage members to take knowledge of this kind of pro-social behavior [3] [4] [5] . Under this background, it's of great significance to understand the influencing factors and influencing mechanism of users' community engagement behaviors to better understand users' needs and improve service level in social Q & A communities.
The essay attempts to develop and test a model exploring the determinants of community engagement in the context of social Q & A communities. First, drawing on the social psychological study, we propose a research model to study and explain community engagement. Specifically, our model predicts that two mechanisms, identification and commitment, are the main drivers of community engagement. Through literature search, reading and analysis, this study combs users' community interaction behavior, group identity theory and interpersonal bonds theory. The socialized Q & A community users are taken as the research object, and the sample data are obtained through the network questionnaire survey, and the theoretical model is tested. This research applies SPSS19.0 and AMOS17.0 statistical software to analyze the collected data. Descriptive statistical analysis, reliability test, validity test and structural equation model are used to verify the correctness of the theoretical model and hypothesis. The innovation points of this paper are as follows: firstly, cross disciplinary research is carried out. Based on the theory of group identity and interpersonal bonds, this study attempts to explore the determinants of social Q & A community engagement, and make an important attempt for cross research in social psychology and relationship marketing. Secondly, based on the theory of group identity and interpersonal bonds, this paper explores the influencing factors of community engagement in social Q & A communities. Finally, it expands the existing research on the socialized Q & A communities and the user's engagement behavior.
2. Theoretical Foundations and Research Hypotheses
The theoretical root of customer engagement is expanded domain of relationship marketing and S-D logic, which emphasis on specific interpersonal interaction and creation experience [6] . Brodie et al. [7] put forward that customer engagement is the psychological state that customers produce when they interact with specific objects (such as brands) and create customer experience in specific service relationships. Van Doorn [1] et al. (2010) also believes that a specific interactive experience is an essential condition for customer alignment. These interactions and experiences may be generated by the effectiveness of the product or service [8] , User information or content interaction [9] [10] , and interpersonal interaction [7] [11] . The difference between identity and bonds is that people are integrated into a group based on different reasons, that is, people like the whole group―identity based attachment to a group, or because they like the individual in a group―bond-based attachment to individual member [12] . People with the same identity often take concerted action to maintain and improve their common identity. Based on this, this study focuses on user behavior in social Q & A communities, and explores the influence of group identity and interpersonal bonds on user interaction under this context.
On the other hand, scholars generally believe that perceived online relationship commitment is an important factor affecting customer engagement [13] . The establishment of perceived online relational commitment usually relies on extensive and continuous interaction, so that individuals can reliably expect other individuals or organizations to act [14] .
Although in traditional Q & A network, users usually have no actual contact with others, but this does not mean that interaction cannot be produced. Previous studies have shown that in the e-commerce environment, social presence and familiarity are important factors for the formation of personal perceived online relationship commitment [15] .
From the perspective of time dimension, this study explores how social presence and familiarity affect users' perceived online relationship commitment, and how users' perceived online relationship commitment affects community engagement. Among them, the social presence represents the psychological connection in the interaction of the user's reality, and the familiarity is formed by the experience of the past interaction.
To sum up, this paper will take users from social Q & A communities, such as Zhihu and Guokr and so on, to explore how user attachment based on group identification and interpersonal bonds affect users. The research model is shown in Figure 1.
1) The influence of identity based attachment to a group on community engagement.
A growing number of literature on group identity points out that members will seek more personal contact with the group as the importance of identity increases [16] . In addition, good identification will enable individuals to produce the willingness to participate in the behavior to support the group [17] . Bhattracharya and Sankar Sen [18] (2003) also pointed out that corporate identity can make consumers more loyal and active in recommending new customers to
Figure 1. Research model.
businesses, and willing to spread information that is beneficial to enterprises (or avoid and resist information that is not conducive to business). Algesheimer [4] (2005) based on the empirical study of brand community, found that the customer's identity to the brand community is positively affecting the community engagement. We believe that one way to reflect or reflect this situation in the research is by supporting the community. So, we assume that:
H1: In the social Q & A communities, community identification has a positive impact on community engagement.
Community identity depends mainly on two aspects: the community and the user. On the one hand, as a provider of community, its good prestige will lead to the generation of individual identity. Bhattacharya and Sankar Sen [18] (2003) have pointed out that organizational prestige is an important factor affecting members' identification in the research on organizational identity. The social Q & A community is also an embodiment of the organization. On the other hand, as users of the demand side, the researchers (e.g., Hall and Schneider [19] , 1972) in the field of organizational behavior show that the degree of satisfaction that individuals support for organizations to help achieve personal goals is related to identification. The more satisfaction a person gives to the organization, the higher the sense of identity is. In contrast, some studies have found that through expectations, the satisfied members will have more recognition of the group [20] . So, we assume that:
H2: In the social Q & A communities, the perceived community prestige has a positive impact on the community identification.
H3: In the social Q & A communities, expectation confirmation has a positive impact on community identification.
2) The influence of bond-based attachment to individual member on community engagement.
The relationship commitment reflects the inner perception of the individual's dependence on the established relationship [13] . Therefore, in the study of this article, Perceived online relationship commitment is defined as "the extent to which individuals believe themselves (he/she) can maintain relationships with others in the socialized Q & A community" [21] . The higher the demand for individuals to maintain this established relationship, the stronger the attachment to the relationship will be, which is to spend more time and energy in maintaining and continuing interaction with partners. In the social Q & A communities, participation is a way of building a close relationship, which can be regarded as a social support and a pro social behavior. In the process of maintaining the established relationship, individual users become more willing to participate in the community to help others. Community participation is also seen as a positive act. So, we assume that:
H4: In the social Q & A communities, the perceived online relationship commitment has a positive impact on the community engagement.
The sense of social presence is defined as the extent to which the user psychologically perceiving others' existence through the media [22] . Previous studies have shown that social presence can be realized through practical or virtual interaction, and influence the pleasure of the customer to produce a feeling of psychological proximity [23] . In the socialized e-commerce, social presence promotes the development of the relationship between customers and strengthens their socialized ability. Therefore, in the social Q & A community, the higher the user perceived social presence is, the more willing they are to participate in interaction, such as sharing information and asking questions, which is more conducive to perceive the formation of relationship commitment.
Familiarity involves the understanding and experience of consumers about when, how, and by whom [14] usually in the interaction and learning of the past [24] . Research shows that familiarity reduces the confusion and misunderstanding in the process of customer transaction [15] . It can also effectively predict the future behavior of suppliers or other individuals [25] . Therefore, in the socialized Q & A community, familiarity may increase the confidence of the user, which leads to a higher commitment to perceived relationships. Accordingly, we propose the following hypothesis:
H5: In the social Q & A communities, social presence has a positive impact on perceived online relationship commitment.
H6: In the social Q & A communities, familiarity has a positive impact on perceived online relationship commitment.
3) The impact of perceived online relationship commitment on community identification.
Concern for a sense of belonging is an important factor in the formation of human thoughts [13] . That is to say, the existence of real or virtual bonds will have an impact on the way people think [26] . The community identity of individual users is influenced by the commitment of personal perception. In particular, the stronger the individual's attachment to the socialized Q & A community, the greater the sense of belonging of the individual to the socialized Q & A community. This leads to an increase in switching costs. In this case, the more users contribute to the social Q & A community, the higher the cost of conversion to other communities, because once he or she leaves, he or she will have nothing. As a result, when a personal user has a strong attachment to other members, the user will have a strong dependence on the whole socialized Q & A community. So, we assume:
H7: In the socialized Q & A community, the users' perceived online relationship commitment has a positive impact on the community identification.
3.1. Measurement
The majority of the tested scales used in our survey were adapted from the previous literature. Specifically, the scales for community engagement were adapted from Ray et al. [5] (2014). These scales captured the affective, cognitive, and pro-social characteristics that are simultaneously involved in engagement. The scales used to measure community identification are also drawn from Ray et al. [5] (2014). These scales avoided items that measured affective bonds in favor of items that reflected the definition of identification as the commonality of values, vision, and goals between respondents and their respective social Q & A communities. To measure perceived online relationship commitment, we used scales drawn from Ma and Yuen [21] (2011) to assess individual believes about he/she can persist in a relationship with others on a social Q & A community.
To measure the community prestige, we used scales drawn from Stokburger et al. [27] (2012) to assess users' status or esteem associated with a social Q & A community. Additionally, measures for expectation confirmation were adapted from Bhattacherjee [28] (2001). These scales measure whether their experience with using social Q & A community is better than their expectation.
The scales used to measure social presence were adapted from Animesh et al. [29] (2011) to assess a participant's perception of how personal, warm, intimate, sociable, or sensitive the social interactions are in the social Q & A community. To measure familiarity, we used scales drawn from Chiu et al. [30] (2012) to assess participant's understanding and knowledge about the social Q & A community. All items were measured using a seven-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree".
3.2. Sample and Data Collection
The questionnaire was translated from English to Chinese and then back-translated from Chinese to English by certified professional translators to ensure the integrity of the constructs. Before deploying the main survey instrument, we invited 20 undergraduate students at a public university in China to conduct a pilot study in order to ensure that their understanding of the meaning of the items was consistent with the constructs being used in this study. Some minor modifications were made based on their feedbacks. The revised questionnaire was then used for the official online survey (Appendix).
In order to assess the validation of the proposed model, we collected data from China social Q & A community user using an online survey. Instead of studying users of one or two social Q & A community, we targeted a broad set of online users who might have used many social Q & A communities. A self-reported survey was distributed to social Q & A community users. Only those who self-reposed as had used social Q & A community were eligible to participate in this study. The surveys asked respondents to consider a social Q & A community they recently visited. A total of 402 users completed the survey. The demographic details of these social Q & A community users are described in Table 1.
Table 1. Sample demographics.
4. Data Analysis and Discussion
The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to statistically test theoretical assumptions against empirical data. SEM is a multivariate technique that combines aspects of multiple regression and factor analysis to estimate a series of interrelated dependence relationships simultaneously. Consequently, we conducted our main data analysis using an AMOS 21.0, which can test confirmatory measurement, goodness-of-fit, and common method bias.
A two-step approach was used for data analysis. We firstly assessed the measurement model and then tested the structural relationships among the latent constructs. We used the two-step approach in order to establish the reliability and validity of the measures before assessing the structural relationship of the model.
4.1. Measurement Model
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to assess the measurement model. One item of social presence was dropped due to the high cross loading. All fit indices meet the commonly applied thresholds (see Table 2).
We further evaluated internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity by examining the Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE) of each construct (see Table 3). Internal reliability was examined by Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. The values of Cronbach's alpha and CR were higher than the criterion 0.70 [31] , thereby justifying an adequate level of internal reliability. Convergent validity was used to ensure that theoretically related scales were highly correlated. Three criteria of convergent validity were proposed as a CR of more than 0.70, an AVE of 0.50 or above and item loadings higher than 0.70 [32] . As shown in Table 3, the CR of each construct ranges from 0.88 to 0.95, the AVE ranges from 0.71 to 0.87, and all the item loadings are higher than 0.70. All of these measures meet the recommended levels.
Table 2. Fit indices of measurement model.
Note. CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; RMR = root mean square residual; GFI = goodness-of-fit index; AGFI = adjusted GFI.
Table 3. Confirmatory factor analysis.
Discriminant validity indicates that the extent of the construct is low in correlation with other constructs. Such validity is demonstrated when the square root of AVE for the given construct is higher than the correlations between that construct and all other constructs [32] . As shown in Table 4, the square root of AVE exceeds the correlations between each construct and the other constructs, suggesting adequate discriminant validity for all constructs.
4.2. Structural Model
Following the establishment of the measurement model, we go forward to the structural model. The overall fit and the explanatory power of the proposed model were examined, and the results are shown in Table 5 and Figure 2. The overall goodness-of-fit (see Table 5) suggests a good fit between the structural model and the data.
Figure 2 illustrates the path coefficients and explanatory power for the structural model. Five of the seven proposed hypotheses were supported. Community identification (H1; β = 0.66) had significant effects on community engagement, explaining 50% of its variance. Contrary to our expectation, perceived online relationship commitment had no statistically significant effect on community engagement (H4 was not supported).
Table 4. Discriminant validity.
Table 5. Fit indices of structure model.
Note. CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; RMR = rootmean square residual; GFI = goodness-of-fit index; AGFI = adjusted GFI.
Figure 2. Structural model results.
The results also show that perceived online relationship commitment (β = 0.63) and community prestige (β = 0.39) had statistically significant effects on community identification, explaining 78% of its variance. H2, H7 were thus supported. However, expectation confirmation had no statistically significant effects on community identification, contrary to the relationship proposed in H3. Finally, social presence (β = 0.50) and familiarity (β = 0.22) had significant effects on perceived online relationship commitment, explaining 42% of its variance; H5 and H6 were also supported.
The path coefficient between the latent variables is significant or not, which can be judged by T test and P value. When T > 1.96 or P < 0.05, the path coefficient can be determined to be significant. The hypothesis test results, as shown in Table 6, are accepted in all hypotheses of this study, except that H3 and H4 are not accepted, and the other 5 hypotheses are accepted.
This study aims to provide a research model to reveal the determinants of community engagement in social Q & A community. The results lend support to five of the seven proposed links. The research model accounted for 50% of the variance in community engagement. While community identification significantly influenced community engagement, perceived online relationship commitment had no statistically significant effect on community engagement. The effect of perceived online relationship commitment on community engagement was mediated by community identification.
Moreover, we found that community prestige and perceived online relationship commitment collectively explained 78% of the variance in community identification. Contrary to our hypothesis, expectation confirmation did not significantly impact community identification.
Table 6. Hypothesis test results.
In addition, interaction is the foundation of the relationship commitment. In particular, social presence and familiarity collectively explained 42% of the variance in perceived online relationship commitment. Moreover, we found that social presence (β = 0.50) has a stronger power than familiarity (β = 0.22) in explaining perceived online relationship commitment.
In conclusion, this study shows that community identification is the antecedent variable of community engagement, and community identification completely mediates the impact of perceived online relationship commitment on community engagement. Perceived community prestige is an important factor affecting community identification, and social existence and familiarity will positively affect the perceived online relationship commitment.
Questionnaire of community engagement in social question and answer communities.
Dear Lady/Mr:
Hello! I am a master's graduate student at the School of management, Jinan University. At present, a survey is being carried out on the factors that affect the community engagement in social Q & A communities. We sincerely invite you to take 5 - 10 minutes in your busy schedule to fill out the following questionnaires. All the survey data will be used for academic research and strictly confidential. The results will only show comprehensive information, and will not involve any personal information. Please choose the most suitable answer according to the actual situation of using the social Q & A communities. Thank you for your participation!
(Description: the social Q & A community is a knowledge service platform based on social media, which is based on users' questions, answers and discussions. It has both the professionalism and openness of the encyclopedia web sites, the interactivity of question and answer websites and the increase of social service functions. For example, Quora, Zhihu, Guokr, Ask.Weibo, Welp, Jiwenjida, Luexiao, and so on.)
Part 1: Basic information. Please choose the right answer according to your actual situation.
1. Your sex:
1) male; 2) female
2. Your age:
1) under age 18; 2) 19 - 24 years old; 3) 25 - 30 years old; 4) 31 - 35 years old; 5) 36 - 40 years old; 6) 41 - 45 years old; 7) 46 - 50 years old; 8) More than 50 years old
3. Your education level is:
1) high school and below; 2) college; 3) undergraduate; 4) Master; 5) doctor and above
4. Your occupation is:
1) the students in the school; 2) the Workers in the party and government institutions and institutions; 3) Enterprise staff; 4) the freelance; 5) other (please fill in)
5. Which social Q & A community(s) have you used?
1) Quora; 2) Zhihu; 3) Guokr; 4) Luexiao; 5) Welp; 6) Jiwenjida; 7) Ask.Weibo; 8) other (please fill in)
6. How long has it been for you to use the social Q & A communities:
1) under 6 months; 2) 6 months to 1 years; 3) 1 to 2 years; 4) 2 to 3 years; 5) 3 to 4 years; 6) 4 years or more
7. How often do you use the social Q & A communities over the past month:
1) none; 2) 1 to 2 times; 3) 1 to 2 times a week; 4) more than 3 times a week; 5) 1 to 2 times a day; 6) more than 3 times a day
Please answer the following contents according to the actual use of the social Q & A community that you most often use. Choose a most suitable answer you think is the most appropriate. Among them, "1" represents "totally disagree", "2" represents "Disagree", "3" represents "A little disagree", "4" represents "Uncertain", "5" represents "A little agree", "6" represents "Agree", "7" represents "totally agree",
Part 2: Social Q & A community users' perceived benefits.
Part 3: The emotional attitude of the user to the social Q & A community.
[1] Van Doorn, J., Lemon, K.N., Mittal, V., et al. (2010) Customer Engagement Behavior: Theoretical Foundations and Research Directions. Journal of Service Research, 13, 253-266.
[2] Zheng, Y.M., Zhao, K. and Stylianou, A. (2013) The Impacts of Information Quality and System Quality on Users' Continuance Intention in Information-Exchange Virtual Communities: An Empirical Investigation. Decision Support Systems, 56, 513-524.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2012.11.008
[3] McAlexander, J.H., Schouten, J.W. and Koenig, H.F. (2002) Building Brand Community. Journal of Marketing, 66, 38-54.
https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.66.1.38.18451
[4] Algesheimer, R., Dholakia, U.M. and Herrmann, A. (2005) The Social Influence of Brand Community: Evidence from European Car Clubs. Journal of Marketing, 69, 19-34.
[5] Ray, S., Kim, S.S. and Morris, J.G. (2014) The Central Role of Engagement in Online Communities. Information Systems Research, 25, 528-546.
https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2014.0525
[6] Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2008) Service-Dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36, 1-10.
[7] Brodie, R.J., Hollebeek, L.D., Juric, B., et al. (2011) Customer Engagement: Conceptual Domain, Fundamental Propositions, and Implications for Research. Journal of Service Research, 14, 252-271.
[8] Caru, A. and Cova, B. (2007) Consuming Experiences: An Introduction. Consuming Experiences, Routledge, London, 3-16.
[9] Cho, C.H. and Leckenby, J.D. (1997) Internet-Related Programming Technology and Advertising. Proceedings of the Conference-American Academy of Advertising, 69-79.
[10] Massey, B.L. and Levy, M.R. (1999) Interactivity, Online Journalism, and English-Language Web Newspapers in Asia. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 76, 138-151.
https://doi.org/10.1177/107769909907600110
[11] Haeckel, S.H. (1998) About the Nature and Future of Interactive Marketing. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 12, 63-71.
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6653(199824)12:1%3C63::AID-DIR8%3E3.0.CO;2-C
[12] Back, K.W. (1951) Influence through Social Communication. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 46, 9.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0058629
[13] Ma, W.W.K., Yuen, A.H.K., Park, J., et al. (2015) New Media, Knowledge Practices and Multiliteracies. Springer, Singapore.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-209-8
[14] Luhmann, N., Poggi, G., Burns, T., et al. (1979) Trust and Power: Two Works. U-M-I Out of Print Books on Demand.
[15] Gefen, D. (2000) E-Commerce: The Role of Familiarity and Trust. Omega, 28, 725-737.
[16] Mael, F. and Ashforth, B.E. (1992) Alumni and Their Alma Mater: A Partial Test of the Reformulated Model of Organizational Identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 103-123.
https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130202
[17] Fisher, R.J. and Wakefield, K. (1998) Factors Leading to Group Identification: A Field Study of Winners and Losers. Psychology & Marketing, 15, 23-40.
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6793(199801)15:1<23::AID-MAR3>3.0.CO;2-P
[18] Bhattacharya, C.B. and Sen, S. (2003) Consumer-Company Identification: A Framework for Understanding Consumers' Relationships with Companies. Journal of Marketing, 67, 76-88.
[19] Hall, D.T. and Schneider, B. (1972) Correlates of Organizational Identification as a Function of Career Pattern and Organizational Type. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 340-350.
[20] Oliver, R.L. and Swan, J.E. (1989) Equity and Disconfirmation Perceptions as Influences on Merchant and Product Satisfaction. Journal of Consumer Research, 16, 372-383.
https://doi.org/10.1086/209223
[21] Ma, W.W.K. and Yuen, A.H.K. (2011) Understanding Online Knowledge Sharing: An Interpersonal Relationship Perspective. Computers & Education, 56, 210-219.
[22] Fulk, J., et al. (1987) A Social Information Processing Model of Media Use in Organizations. Communication Research, 14, 529-552.
[23] Hassanein, K. and Head, M. (2005) The Impact of Infusing Social Presence in the Web Interface: An Investigation across Product Types. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10, 31-55.
https://doi.org/10.2753/JEC1086-4415100202
[24] Gefen, D., Karahanna, E. and Straub, D.W. (2003) Inexperience and Experience with Online Stores: The Importance of TAM and Trust. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 50, 307-321.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2003.817277
[25] Doney, P.M. and Cannon, J.P. (1997) An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer-Seller Relationships. Journal of Marketing, 61, 35-51.
[26] Baumeister, R.F. and Leary, M.R. (1995) The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497-529.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
[27] Stokburger-Sauer, N., Ratneshwar, S. and Sen, S. (2012) Drivers of Consumer-Brand Identification. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29, 406-418.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2012.06.001
[28] Bhattacherjee, A. (2001) Understanding Information Systems Continuance: An Expectation-Confirmation Model. MIS Quarterly, 25, 351-370.
[29] Animesh, A., Pinsonneault, A., Yang, S.B., et al. (2011) An Odyssey into Virtual Worlds: Exploring the Impacts of Technological and Spatial Environments on Intention to Purchase Virtual Products. MIS Quarterly, 35, 789-810.
[30] Chiu, C.M., Hsu, M.H., Lai, H., et al. (2012) Re-Examining the Influence of Trust on Online Repeat Purchase Intention: The Moderating Role of Habit and Its Antecedents. Decision Support Systems, 53, 835-845.
[31] Nunnally, J.C. and Bernstein, I.H. (1994) Validity. Psychometric Theory. McGraw-Hill, New York, 99-132.
[32] Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981) Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, 39-50.
JSSM Subscription


text:
the magic flute (die zauberflöte)
I promise I won't pick classical music every Wednesday, but I thought I would start out with my favorite opera, The Magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Although La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) was composed last, it was first performed on September 6, 1791, while The Magic Flute was premiered on September 30 of the same year, making it the last opera of Mozart's tragically short life. Mozart died in December of the same year.
The libretto for The Magic Flute was written by Emanuel Schikaneder, whose theater company was first to perform the work. Schikaneder, who was a well-known comedic actor in Vienna, played the role of Papageno. Mozart's sister-in-law, Josepha Hofer, played the Queen of the Night, a role that was written specifically for her magnificent voice and exceptional range.
The story of The Magic Flute is styled as a fairy tale; however there are parts of the story that are not very suitable for children. Although magical animals frolic in the forest and little angel children fly down from heaven (usually in a hot-air balloon), there are darker qualities to the story as well. The heroine, Pamina, is encouraged by her mother to assassinate the king, Sarastro. When she is led to believe that the prince no longer loves her, Pamina attempts (or at least considers) suicide. And the story is chock-full of references to the Freemasons and their mystical ceremonies. Both Mozart and Schikaneder were members of a Masonic Lodge, and the opera celebrates the Enlightenment ideals upon which the Freemasons were founded.
In my days at UT-D, I took a class called "Mozart and the German Enlightenment." It was a very interesting class, in which we read some German writers from that time period, like Schiller and Goethe, and studied most of Mozart's operas. The major paper I wrote for that class was about The Magic Flute, and my thesis was that this opera proved that Mozart was not a misogynist, as some have claimed. At the end of the opera, both Pamina AND Tamino (princess and prince) go through the trials required to become members of the king's court, and these trials have frequently been compared to the rites of the Masonic order. I felt that Mozart's inclusion of the female character in this ritual was significant, even though women would not have been allowed to gain membership in a Masonic lodge.
Another thing that makes this opera unusual is that the audience is initially led to believe that the Queen of the Night is the protagonist. She enters the story by looking for a hero to rescue her daughter from Sarastro, the sun king. She seems sympathetic and genuinely distressed that her daughter has been kidnapped. In the second act, however, we discover that Sarastro leads a group of scholars and philosophers and that the Queen's daughter, Pamina, is staying in the castle voluntarily. When the Queen commands her daughter to kill the king, we discover her true, wicked nature.
Der Hölle Rache / Diana Damrau
This aria, one of the most famous in all of opera, is sung by the Queen as she seeks to enlist her daughter in her terrible assassination scheme. Although the opera was written in German, this version has English subtitles. The performer is Diana Damrau, one of the best sopranos to ever take on the role. The Queen's part was written for the highest of soprano voices, and is very difficult to sing. During parts of the song, the Queen uses her voice to try to cast a spell on her daughter. Unfortunately, in these subtitles there are "eehhhrrr" words listed during those times. But it was Mozart's intention, I believe, that no specific words were meant to be understood during those passages.
By the way, this opera is different in yet another way. While most operas are sung completely from beginning to end, this opera was in a style known as "singspiel" – a style where spoken words exist side-by-side with the sung parts. Nowadays, we would call that a "musical!" This type of performance was very popular and intended for the masses, as well as the elite. I hope you will listen to the clip linked above and enjoy this amazing performance.
Previous Article fallingwater
Next Article the big year

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Brewminate: We're Never Far from Where We Were
Hungary's Cold War with Polio
Trapped by the Cold War and scarred after a failed revolution, Hungary fought one of its greatest battles against polio.
By Penny Bailey / 04.14.2014
Kisvárda, Hungary, 1954. The summer night was warm, the road outside deserted. No one drove any more unless they were secret police or favoured by the Party. Inside, Irén and János Vargha sat watching their two-year-old son's eyelids as he slept through his fever. The only visible sign of the attack, they were told, would be if György's eyeballs started moving rapidly.
Polio was unpredictable. Often no more harmful than any other childhood infection, it could on occasion 'turn' with swift, inexplicable savagery, destroying a child's nerve cells and leaving him paralysed for life. If it damaged the nerves controlling his lungs they could freeze up and György would either die or spend the rest of his life inside an iron lung that breathed for him.
The hours crept by without him showing any symptoms of paralytic polio, but the next morning, as Irén stood him on the table to get him dressed, his legs buckled. She stood him up again – again his legs wouldn't support him. This moment is his earliest childhood memory. "I could stand easily before," he says. "Now I could still bend my legs but I couldn't straighten them. For me it was astonishing and interesting that my legs were doing that strange thing. But my mother was afraid."
György was rushed 100 km to the hospital in Debrecen. Then began the frantic search for gamma globulin. The antibody-rich solution was the only medicine then known to have some ability to disarm the poliovirus in the bloodstream, preventing it from invading the nerves. But gamma globulin was scarce. Irén and János rode from town to town and village to village on their motorbike, pharmacist after pharmacist regretfully shaking their heads.
© Alex Hedworth/Eye Candy
Later that evening, as they sat at home thinking of their son fighting his lonely battle in a strange bed far away, there was a knock at the window. Behind the curtain they saw two ávós – secret police agents – waiting at the door, a large black Pobeda parked in the empty road behind them. In 1950s communist Hungary, when a black car stopped outside your house in the middle of the night, there was only one explanation: the ávós had come to take you away.
But when János and Irén opened the door, fear gave way to relief, then bafflement. The men explained they had driven three-and-a-half hours from Budapest because they had heard the Varghas' son had polio. They were very sorry and had brought the boy some gamma globulin.
Sixty years on, György's daughter, historian Dr Dora Vargha, tells me her father's story over coffee in Bambi Presszó on the Buda side of the Danube. Her own little boy is three years old, a little older than György was when he first caught polio. Her son was born just as she was starting to write up her research, the first ever history of polio in Cold War Hungary. "It put everything in a different place. I could suddenly feel the stakes – the fear. I took him for his first polio vaccination just after I finished my research. That was a strong moment for me."
We're just down the street from the National Institute of Rheumatology and Physiotherapy (ORFI), where György spent a large part of his childhood. Sadly, the ávós delivery arrived a little too late for the young György, who needed six operations on his legs and rehabilitative therapy in the Lukács Thermal Baths opposite the ORFI.
In communist Hungary, both the café and the baths were favourite haunts of intellectuals and dissidents, who exchanged ideas in the haze drifting over ashtrays or rising from sulphurous, shadowy thermal waters. The tradition began at the end of the 19th century, when Budapest's new middle class constructed elegant bridges, the continent's first subway, the world's first-ever telephone exchange, and Andrássy Avenue – a vast, leafy boulevard to rival the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Writers, artists, inventors and philosophers gathered in the city's cafés and baths to talk about the exciting, radical future.
Half a century later, the stucco had been blasted from Budapest's once-elegant frontages, the glass from its windows, and its bridges had been blown up by the retreating Nazis. The world was divided between the two postwar superpowers: the democratic USA and the communist USSR, who, under the threat of an apocalyptic nuclear war, were locked in ideological combat – the Cold War. Each side sought to prove that its was the right way to build a bright new world by demonstrating technological and economic superiority and happier, healthier citizens.
In Europe, the divide was physical as well as ideological. The continent was cut in half by a vast, impregnable military barrier, passing along Hungary's western border. No one could cross the Iron Curtain in either direction without permission from the highest levels of government, and activity behind it was invisible to the other side. The Soviets had installed a communist government in Hungary, and in place of the coffeehouse intellectual there was a new hero: the proletariat worker.
The vision for the country – shared by many of its homegrown communists – was of a centrally managed, classless state whose resources were shared equally among everyone. By 1950, all its mines, factories and banks had been nationalised and the large country estates divided among the peasants. "You couldn't own your own store or business any more. But most people kept their home, if it was a reasonable size," says Dora. "Large houses were divided into apartments to house more families. You still see the effect of that in Budapest: one flat will have the kitchen, and the next-door flat will have the big bathroom."
It made the Varghas' strange encounter with the ávós in 1954 all the more baffling. As the district veterinarian for the farms and villages surrounding Kisvárda, János was indisputably a member of the former middle class, the hated bourgeoisie. Why had two ávós driven nearly four hours in the middle of the night to help a child they had never met? Years later, the family found out. "It turned out my grandfather was the vet for the parents of one of the pharmacists he had asked about the gamma globulin," explains Dora. "And the pharmacist had a brother-in-law who was an ávó in Budapest at the time. The communist ideal was that everything should be shared equally, but in reality, access to scarce resources depended on who you knew."
After the War, countries everywhere were short of the labour they needed to build a prosperous modern society – whether their economies were capitalist or communist. Hungary was in a dilemma: without rapid industrialisation there wouldn't be a proletariat on which to build the communist state. But those of its citizens who had survived the War and were fit enough to work – even if they couldn't be proven to be bourgeois or dissident – had fought (albeit reluctantly) on the side of Nazi Germany and were by definition ideological enemies.
While the UK encouraged mass immigration from its former colonies to swell its workforce, the Hungarian state directed its utopian gaze towards its children. Given the right education, enough food and free healthcare, untainted Hungarian children would grow up to be productive, ideologically pure miners and steel workers. "Wherever you looked, you would see images of the healthy, muscular body of the hard-working citizen. You couldn't get away from it. Statues, posters, newspapers and magazines all depicted the same ideal," says Dora.
To make that shining vision a reality, the government introduced a range of measures to encourage women to have children. It didn't matter if they weren't married. Propaganda reassured them: "To give birth is a duty for wives, and glory for maidens." A special tax was levied against anyone over 20 who was still childless. From 1952, abortion was made a crime, accompanied by public show trials (guilt a foregone conclusion) of women charged with having abortions and the doctors charged with performing them.
To allow mothers to parade their babies proudly through Hungary's streets and squares, the national bus-manufacturing company Ikarus started producing prams in 1954 – the year György caught polio. One of Dora's favourite images among the photographs and film footage she unearthed in her research – and one that is redolent of the era in which it was taken – is of a collection of pristine, bus-shaped Ikarus prams (with women cooing into them) in front of a row of proud, parental buses.
Enter polio. A disease that specifically targeted and disabled children, the first epidemic struck in 1952, the second – the one that paralysed György – in 1954. That same year, Hungary watched closely as trials of the world's first vaccine against polio began on more than a million children throughout the USA. The trials were deemed a success and the injectable Salk vaccine, named after Jonas Salk – a Jewish scientist from New York, who developed it using an inactivated virus – was quickly introduced nationwide in the USA.
In April 1955, the US Cutter Laboratories (one of the companies licensed to produce the vaccine) released a batch containing poliovirus that had not been fully inactivated. As a result, almost 200 vaccinated Americans went down with paralytic polio. A Hungarian newspaper was swift to declare that "due to such negligence many thousands of children became the guinea pigs of the savage protectors of free enterprise". The American Medical Association, meanwhile, blamed the 'Red Menace' of socialised medicine in the form of mass trials for the notorious 'Cutter incident'.
Yet in June the following year, after a series of international success stories had confirmed the safety and efficacy of the Salk vaccine, Hungary decided to start producing it domestically. It went even further and sent two virologists and the director of the Human Vaccine Production and Research Institute (a nationalised vaccine production company) to Denmark, a centre of polio research in Europe at the time. That they were allowed to travel across the Iron Curtain was remarkable, all the more so considering that scientists, like vets and doctors, had been kingpins of the conservative prewar society. America was less liberal with its own scientists, rejecting 600 passport applications on political grounds before 1958.
However, doctors and scientists were in short supply. Many had fled when the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944. Others had returned from Russian prisoner-of-war camps 'unable to work' (as a result of deprivation or torture) or been deported to the Siberian gulags because of their 'bourgeois' affiliations. The desperate need gave scientists more freedom than academics in the more politicised humanities and social sciences, says Dora. "The Party turned more of a blind eye to their political and ideological views, and after a while many physicians and scientists actually regained the social status they had before the war. There wasn't a clean break from the prewar society – just a new set of inequalities."
Four months after its scathing condemnation of America, the Hungarian government was forced to make a rare admission of negligence itself. The construction of new hospitals was one of the objectives set out in the first Five-Year Plan, of 1950, an economic blueprint for rapid industrialisation. But on 19 October 1956, Health Minister József Román told the leaders of the health institutes that none had been built. Existing hospitals were overcrowded, and to cope with the strain other buildings – not originally intended for healthcare – had been converted into makeshift infirmaries (the ORFI was first established in a former hotel). Román also admitted that public health and epidemiology had been neglected.
The lack of investment in healthcare was a stunning omission, particularly since free healthcare was a key tenet that communist leaders used to distinguish their system from the capitalism of the West – supported by the belief that a healthy body led to a healthy mind that would choose the most rational ideology (theirs). The government also took the rare step of allowing public discussion of those concerns in the media. "For a brief moment in time newspaper reports spoke the same language as those in the ministerial archives," says Dora.
Her grandparents saw the reality. György's hospital in Debrecen was unable to cope with the ever-increasing influx of children with polio. János's medical contacts had advised him that the ORFI had a large polio ward and offered the most advanced treatment and surgeries for polio-induced paralysis, so the Varghas transferred their son 250 km away to Budapest.
Only three at the time, György now has just fragments of memory of the period he spent in Debrecen, enduring agonising daily lumbar punctures (spinal taps, in which a needle is inserted into the lower part of the spine; even in the early 1950s it was seen as an outdated, and painful, treatment for polio). "I remember lying on my belly on an operating table, crying in pain," he says. "And lying on my back in my bed, which was in the far corner of a ward with perhaps 12 other children. When the nurse came towards my bed I started crying before she even reached me."
On 23 October 1956, tens of thousands of students, workers, writers and intelligentsia marched together to Parliament calling for greater independence for Hungary from the Eastern Bloc and "the rights of free men for all its citizens". The government labelled the revolt "chauvinistic, nationalistic, and anti-Semitic", and Moscow sent in its Red Army to help quell the "counter-revolutionaries". Street battles with tanks, machine guns and Molotov cocktails ensued, making new craters in Budapest's patched-up façades, as rebels set the ávós' black Pobedas ablaze.
Five-year old György witnessed the uproar from the ORFI. Sat upright on a raised physiotherapy bed he could see out of the window to the navy-blue waters of the Danube in the distance. He had a clear view when a tank directly outside raised its gun at a machine-gunner on the roof of the neighbouring building – to the electrified György it looked as if it was pointing directly at the hospital. Eventually, his parents came to take him home to Kisvárda; the ORFI couldn't look after him any more as food and medical supplies had run dry due to the revolution.
With all international communications down and airports closed, Budapesters relied on Radio Free Europe (RFE), a CIA-funded broadcasting network, to let relatives abroad know they were all right as the violence raged on. RFE broadcasts from the West offered tactical advice to the "freedom fighters" and urged them to hold on, assuring them that help was on its way.
In the last days of October 1956 RFE served another purpose. Another polio epidemic erupted in the midst of the revolution, but the iron lung at the hospital in Debrecen, where György had first stayed, was broken. A replacement was needed urgently to save a child's life. The hospital contacted local radio stations, which broadcast an appeal. It was picked up by RFE and made its way to Munich, where the West German Red Cross managed to track down an iron lung.
In the evening of 29 October, a German plane carrying the lung crossed the Iron Curtain and made its way towards Debrecen airport. But the fighting had spread to Debrecen, the airport was in darkness and with all the phone lines down it was impossible to reach anyone who worked there. The nearest alternative was Miskolc airport, over 100 km away. The radio station in Miskolc broadcast an urgent appeal – and its citizens responded. People living near the airport illuminated the area with lights, while local amateur radio transmitters contacted the plane and helped guide it safely to the ground.
On 1 November, in Budapest, revolutionary leader Imre Nagy announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Eastern Bloc equivalent of NATO) and appealed through the UN for the USA, the UK and other powerful countries in the West to recognise Hungary as a neutral state, no longer aligned with the USSR. He also set out plans to transform the country into a multi-party democracy.
Across the river on Rózsadomb (Rose Hill), one of the leafy hills overlooking all the turmoil from the Buda side, five buildings had been seized by the rebels. Once the luxury villas of the prewar bourgeois elite, they had been nationalised by the communists, then turned into a kindergarten for the children of the Party elite. On 4 November – three days after his bid for Hungary's independence – Nagy paused in the midst of trying to implement those radical changes and gave orders for orthopaedist Dr László Lukács to set up a specialised polio hospital in the annexed buildings.
This was to be the only one of his orders that was fulfilled. A few hours later, a Soviet radio station announced the formation of a new Hungarian government headed by a new Moscow-installed leader, János Kádár, who declared his dedication to eliminating imperialist, Western, "counter-revolutionary" elements from Hungary. Nagy was deposed and given sanctuary in the Yugoslav embassy (he was later arrested when he left the embassy and was tried and executed in secret).
No military support for the rebels arrived and by then, despite the promises broadcast by RFE, it was clear that it wasn't going to. That same day, the USSR stepped up its intervention and the Russian Commander-in-Chief gave the order to attack.
György, back home in Kisvárda near the Soviet border, awoke to find the ground was trembling and rumbling. His father carried him to the edge of the road, where crowds silently assembled, watching the Soviet army march from the USSR towards Budapest. Hour after hour, the seemingly endless procession of tanks, big guns, cars and soldiers filed past – terrifying to most onlookers but enthralling to a little boy.
The Soviet military finished routing the rebels by 11 November. A day later, despite the hostility of a political elite who wanted their kindergarten back, Lukács upheld Nagy's orders and opened the Heine Medin Post Treatment Hospital in the appropriated villas on Rózsadomb.
The communist elite had chosen well: it was a perfect place for children. The new hospital was surrounded by small parks and woods, and from the top of the hill the children could look down over the treetops towards the gleaming curve of the Danube and the fairytale domes and spires of the Parliament building far below. As well as being the only hospital in the country dedicated to the long-term effects of polio, the Heine Medin also became a home for children with polio whose parents couldn't afford to care for them. "They could live together and grow up there together," says Dora.
Party members who had lost their lovely kindergarten may have been compensated in one respect: the secluded location meant that polio-stricken bodies – the antithesis of the ideal, healthy proletarian body – were largely out of sight.
The next challenge for the Heine Medin was to equip itself – no mean task, considering the revolution had brought the country to a halt, the infrastructure was still down and supplies were scarce. Help came from the West, with the International Committee of the Red Cross coordinating donations of hospital beds, bed linen, surgical equipment and medicine from all over Europe (the high-quality blankets from Sweden were known as the 'Swedish blankets' for years afterwards). Meanwhile, the new hospital's only van had been hit in the street fights and sported a large hole in its side and base. Children and babies paralysed by polio were carried up the hill to the Heine Medin with the clean laundry, in laundry baskets tied to the inside of the van.
It was perhaps inevitable that children paralysed by polio sometimes had to undergo painful rehabilitative surgery that failed or was even injurious. For one of the patients Dora interviewed, polio made her legs uneven in length. To help her walk more easily, Lukács sawed off a part of her unaffected leg near the knee joint – one of the most common surgeries at the hospital – so that instead of one bad and one good leg, she ended up with two short legs. Because ether in large doses was considered dangerous for children, some weren't given full anaesthesia for the operation. "I still remember the pain and the sound of him tinkering away at my bones," she told Dora. "Even though they said I wouldn't feel anything, I can tell you I felt every single thing."
Down the hill in the ORFI, György's first operation – an attempt to manipulate his muscles, when he was four – had also turned out to be painful and superfluous. He was at least given ether, but found it extremely unpleasant. "Everything went dark after they put the mask on, then a red-orange colour passed in front of my eyes. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up I vomited." He also recalls the discomfort of being in a cast that enclosed his leg and his lower body for about six weeks after each operation. "I mostly lay in bed looking at the ceiling. It was very boring." When it was hot the children sometimes begged the nurses to remove their casts at night to give them some relief from the unbearable itching. Sometimes the nurses did – risking the wrath of the head of the hospital, who occasionally made surprise visits to the wards in the middle of the night.
Once the cast came off for good, the real pain began: physiotherapy to re-tone the muscles that had been in plaster. It was a critical part of the rehabilitation process and could be more efficient than surgery, but György remembers the agony of having the therapist stretch and move his legs again.
The pain of physiotherapy, and the degree of cooperation required from the child, meant many of the children had an unusual amount of autonomy over what surgeries they had. Doctors and therapists took pains to forge strong relationships with them and gain their trust, so that they would buy into their treatment. When György was eight years old, the chief doctor and medical students came to his bed on their ward rounds and told him he needed another operation. He began to scream and shout at them. Sharing a hospital room with adult men had added some choice swear words to his vocabulary and he put them to good use now. "I sent the whole company to hell," he recalls. The medics beat a hasty retreat, but the matter wasn't over. György's favourite physical therapist came talk to him. After she had managed to calm him down, she gently persuaded him to agree to give the surgeon a chance to explain why he should have the surgery before he made up his mind.
Outside, the country was licking its post-revolution wounds. While help from the West had come for Hungary's polio-stricken children, its revolutionaries realised that no help was coming their way. With the tacit agreement of the West, Hungary remained part of the Eastern Bloc. In the two years after the revolution, the new government led by Kádár meted out harsh punishment to the rebels: trainloads were deported to the Siberian gulags, while those remaining faced mass arrests, imprisonments and executions.
Once Soviet power was restored – and Kádár's own position stablilised – things slowly changed for the better. Briefly, the revolution had unmasked the reality of the 'People's State' for the rest of the world to see. And the communist governments in both the USSR and Hungary had also learned an important lesson: if communism was to succeed in Hungary, there had to be bit more give in the system.
Gradually people's lives became easier, albeit at a price. "The new government positioned itself as the paternalistic provider for and protector of its citizens," says Dora. "But it wanted acknowledgement for that. In return for free healthcare education and mass-dining canteens it expected happiness, loyalty and gratefulness from its people."
Before it could adopt that new role, however, the state had to rebuild homes, workplaces, roads and power lines that had been damaged in the revolution – and treat citizens who had been harmed in the street fighting or by the polio epidemic. The challenge was compounded by the fact that in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, even basic necessities like soap were difficult to get hold of – and many of the 200,000 rebels who had fled the country were much-needed doctors and other professionals.
In desperation the state turned for aid to those it had driven away. It announced that all packages arriving containing food, clothing and medicine – many of which were sent by dissidents who had fled Hungary – would be duty-free. It also offered amnesty to those who hadn't been affiliated with the revolt. Around 50,000 Hungarians were lured back home in the early summer of 1957 (some of whom were imprisoned or executed despite that promise), but most of them never returned. However, as it turned out, the most disastrous immediate consequence of the revolution was the interruption to the production of Salk vaccine.
It was the summer of 1957. A heatwave enveloped Budapest, the temperature rising to a scorching 45°C. While Budapesters sought relief along the banks of the Danube and in the city's outdoor spas and pools, the government took pains to ensure that beer production (by the nationalised breweries in Budapest's Kőbánya district) would be sufficient to quench its citizens' thirst throughout the long, hot summer.
Then, on 27 June, a warning appeared on the back pages of newspapers: polio had appeared in the city. In the following weeks its darkening shadow spread across the country, claiming more victims than it had in any of its previous visitations. As anxious parents followed its progress in newspaper and radio reports, mass organised vacations in the mountains or by Lake Balaton were banned and – in the relentless, claustrophobic heat – children were forbidden to go to the baths and spas.
Today, over half a century later, a similar heatwave has just broken in Budapest. "It was over 38 degrees in the city yesterday," says Dora. "As I was walking around I was thinking, 'Oh my god what could it have been like in 1957?' It was only the year after the revolution so there wasn't time to rebuild everything and lots of people didn't have running water in their homes. And then if you can't go to the public pools, it's just deadly, the streets get so hot. I took my son to this fountain where the water's coming from the ground and the kids were running around enjoying the water and that was a lifesaver."
The new Kádár-led government was in a quandary. Inadequate healthcare and the lack of doctors (and the criticisms of those who had stayed behind) had been one of the grievances driving the revolution six months ago – and it simply couldn't risk another uprising. It needed to flex its muscles against polio – and be seen to win. But Hungary hadn't yet begun to produce the Salk vaccine.
Once again, it turned to its enemies in the West and ordered a shipment of Salk vaccine from Denmark. The shipment (originally produced in Canada) was delivered by a West German pilot who had volunteered for the job on his day off and was heralded as a hero in the Hungarian press. For once there was no suggestion that he might be an imperialist spy.
Shortly afterwards, the government had to reach through the Iron Curtain again because the shipment brought by the West German pilot wasn't enough for the entire population. It purchased a batch from the American pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis – and accepted a donation from the World Health Organization (WHO) of 40,000 doses – despite the fact that Hungary, along with other Eastern Bloc countries, had withdrawn its membership in 1949.
Perhaps most remarkably, it accepted further donations of vaccine from the national Actio Catholica organisation. In the 1950s, the relationship between the Hungarian state and the Catholic Church was extremely fraught. The head of the Hungarian Church, Cardinal József Mindszenty, who staunchly opposed communism, had been tried, tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial. The revolutionaries had managed to free him, and he was now living in sanctuary in the US embassy.
The temporary but necessary graciousness towards its enemies seemed to pay off. When the next year passed without an epidemic – held up as proof that the campaign had succeeded – the Hungarian government had cause to congratulate itself. Or so it thought.
György, now aged eight, had his second operation in 1959. The surgeon divided a flexor muscle of his right leg, and reattached it to allow him to straighten it. He remembers a group of doctors gathering round his bed when the cast came off. "They said, 'Extend your leg'. I tried but it didn't work and they were disappointed. Then the Chief Medical Officer had an idea – she told me to bend my leg instead. I tried to, and it straightened! I was thrilled. For a short time I had to think of bending to extend my leg, then my brain got used to it."
Outside, the city was sweltering in another heatwave. A newspaper article from the period warns people that all buses going into the hills were completely packed, reassuring them that if they went to cool off in the open-air baths instead, there would be enough beer and ice cream for everyone.
Then, on 21 July, the impossible happened: a health minister's report on the back page of Népszava, the trade unions' newspaper, mentioned a growing number of polio cases in Budapest. Ten days later, a newspaper article warned parents to avoid crowds and swimming pools. Polio was back – with a vengeance. As the epidemic unfolded it again reached every corner of the country, the dreaded paralytic form claiming 1,830 new victims – just slightly fewer than it had in 1957. But this time everyone had supposedly been vaccinated. How could this have happened?
The mystery and fear were compounded by silence from the government. This time there were no weekly reports from the Health Ministry detailing the number of cases and what cities and counties were affected, as there had been in 1957. In 1959 there were only two reports throughout the long, hot weeks of the epidemic, and these discussed the success of the vaccination programme before going on to blame parents for not taking their children to be vaccinated when they had the chance.
The internal papers of the Health Ministry, however, told a different story. There was hardly any mention of parental negligence. Instead the reports dwelt on practical, organisational issues that could have compromised the vaccination programme. One was the lack of a clear registration system. Another was the difficulty in diagnosing polio when 95 per cent of cases were abortive (non-paralytic). When polio was diagnosed, doctors and hospitals often failed to report it. And even if they did, information about when and how many doses of vaccine the child received (if any) wasn't covered by the form.
There were also complaints from doctors that the needles supplied by the Health Ministry were leaking; many started using their own needles (working against the communist ideal of a centrally organised, standardised method). Moreover, doctors were suspicious of the injection method the government had chosen to adopt. Most countries injected 0.5 ml of vaccine into the muscle, but the Danish method of injecting a lower dose (0.3 ml) into the skin instead seemed to be equally effective. The saving was very appealing to the cash-strapped Hungarian government – which parents now blamed for lowering the dose.
Why had the Salk vaccine seemed to work in 1958 but not 1959? One suggestion is that another intestinal virus, the Coxsackie B virus, had been circulating in 1958 and may have interfered with the poliovirus in the gut, where it replicates, preventing an epidemic. Chris Maher, senior adviser on polio operations and research at the WHO, offers another: "The injectable, inactivated [Salk] vaccine gives really good individual protection, by boosting immunity in the bloodstream, but it doesn't stop the live poliovirus from infecting the gut." The virus replicates in the gut for a few weeks, without doing that particular host any harm, and is eventually shed back into the sewage system where it can circulate until it finds someone else to infect.
This, he says, is why samples taken from Israel's sewage system in June 2013 were found to contain live poliovirus. "Israel has a highly immunised population, their basic coverage is 90 per cent, but they use the inactivated vaccine. So when poliovirus of Pakistan tribal origin was brought over, no one got hurt. But people are obviously getting infected and shedding the virus – because we're continuing to find virus. So there is the risk that they could end up with clinical cases of polio." More worryingly, people from Israel, although protected themselves, could carry the virus to places where vaccination rates are lower, like southern or eastern Europe, and unknowingly infect many more people.
Back in 1959, salvation for the harassed Hungarian government and frightened parents arrived – and this time it came from the 'right' side of the Iron Curtain: the USSR. Albert Sabin, a Polish-American Jewish researcher, had developed a new vaccine in the USA. But he couldn't test it there because a large proportion of children there had already been immunised with the Salk vaccine. So he had turned to the East and, in a much-lauded Cold War scientific collaboration, trials had begun in 1957 on millions of children in the USSR and Czechoslovakia.
This vaccine used a weakened (attenuated) rather than a killed poliovirus, and could be delivered orally on a sugar lump – a method that, in contrast to the Salk vaccine, didn't require any medical expertise or specialised training. Importantly, the vaccine went straight to the gut where the virus replicates, so it would induce the immune system to stop the virus there so it wouldn't be shed to circulate in the population; the harmless, attenuated virus would be shed in its place, immunising anyone it infected who hadn't been vaccinated. Although the new vaccine provided less personal protection than the Salk vaccine (it didn't boost the immune system in the bloodstream so well), it seemed to be a better tool for protecting large communities.
The Sabin vaccine did not come without risks. The weakened but live virus might mutate in the gut and become more virulent, leading to vaccine-derived strains of polio. "If you've got high vaccine coverage in a population, vaccine-derived strains aren't an issue – they need a large, susceptible population," says Maher. This, he says, gives the virus time to mutate and develop circulating characteristics, by hopping from one susceptible gut to the next. And once the mutated virus does begin to circulate as a vaccine-derived strain, it has the same characteristics as wild-type (naturally occurring) poliovirus, including the power to cause paralysis. "The most active vaccine-derived strain circulating [in December 2013] is in Pakistan, in the same region as the wild-type virus, where there's a very susceptible, unvaccinated tribal population," he says.
Fifty years ago, this concern was exacerbated by Cold War suspicion. Doctors and scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain distrusted the Sabin vaccine for the same reason: because it hadn't been tested in the USA. Americans doubted the reliability of Russia's results (some even believed they may have been deliberately misrepresented, as part of wider attack on the West's children). And some Russians were suspicious of a vaccine that the Americans had developed but not tested on their own children. Despite these concerns, Hungary took the plunge. It began its own trials of the Sabin vaccine on 3–4 November 1959, and a month later became the first country in the world to begin a nationwide vaccination campaign with it. By 1969, polio had been practically eradicated in Hungary, ten years before the USA achieved the same result.
"The oral vaccine – the attenuated live vaccine – can knock it out of circulation completely because it creates immunity in the gut and stops the virus spreading. That's why the first countries to use it could eradicate polio early on," says Maher. "Once polio had been knocked out of some fairly large areas for good, that prompted health organisations to start thinking about global eradication. The oral vaccine has since been demonstrated to eradicate polio in just about every setting."
In fact, he says the best possible vaccine schedule is a combination of the two. "In Syria [in 2013] the routine vaccination is a combination of the injectable inactivated vaccine and the oral attenuated one. A marriage of the two protects the individual and the community – it gives you a better bang for your buck." However, the eradication campaign responding to an outbreak of polio caused by the civil war there (which has led to a drop in vaccination rates) is using the oral vaccine alone. "You use the oral vaccine to respond to an outbreak, because it's easy to administer, it stops people shedding the virus back into the environment, and it helps protect the wider community."
Yet even given the well-documented success of the Sabin vaccine, polio remains endemic in small pockets of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, where vaccinators are prevented from gaining access to unvaccinated children.
"Worldwide, people aren't refusing the vaccine at a household or community level because they think it might harm them. That's not a significant issue now," says Maher. "The main obstacle is armed conflict; the group in control will decide not to allow us in." Often, he says, it's not that they don't trust the vaccine or that they think it's a Western plot to poison their children. They're more wary of the idea that vaccinators, as they move from house to house, might be as gathering intelligence, passing information around, or marking houses. "In an era of target-marking and air attacks, it's not an entirely illogical position for these guys to have," says Maher, "but it certainly makes life complicated for us."
Winter came. Snow settled on the Heine Medin's elegant buildings up on the hill. Down below, in the ORFI, there was no lift, and as nurses couldn't carry the bigger children up and down the stairs, those living in the upstairs wards could no longer leave them. The nurses brought snow in from outside to show them.
György underwent two further operations on his left leg there, and by 1961, aged ten, he could finally stand again. Once he could walk, his parents paid for him to learn to swim in the outdoor pool of Lukács Thermal Baths opposite, where, overlooked by slim, mullioned windows in the ochre façades, he played ball with his friends from the hospital in the shallow end, or watched the vigorous games of water polo being played at the other end.
By 1963, polio was becoming a distant memory in Hungary thanks to the Sabin vaccine. As a result, the victorious state turned its attention to more pressing matters. It stopped trying to get hold of iron lungs, respirators and other medical equipment from international organisations. And because of the lack of new patients, after just six years as a dedicated polio hospital designed to support patients for life, the Heine Medin hospital on Rózsadomb was transformed into a general hospital.
"Once you've got protection covered – and no one's going to get ill again – treatment becomes a non-issue and so lots of questions can be left unexplored," says Dora. "But in Hungary there were still thousands of existing patients, and now there was no organised, dedicated care for them. Everybody was dispersed and had to fend for themselves without any trained physicians or physical therapists or nurses, or access to specialist equipment."
The problem persists today. Many childhood survivors from the Heine Medin and ORFI hospitals, who Dora interviewed for her research, are now dealing with post-polio syndrome: increased weakness and pain in the muscles, starting 20–30 years after the original infection, probably caused by the decades of extra stress placed on the remaining nerve cells. Or they continue to need specialist medical equipment such as respirators or movement aids, which have to be prescribed by doctors with little or no knowledge of polio. "They're only taught the virology part of it in medical school and nobody's doing the treatment any more, so it's very difficult to find doctors who actually know how to help them," says Dora. "Some of the patients call themselves dinosaurs because they're the last of their kind. They're the only repositories of knowledge of their disease, and it will die with them."
If their families didn't have the resources to care for them, or they were orphans or wards of the state, the children no longer had a permanent home to grow up in. They were moved around the country, from place to place, housed temporarily in palace ruins and other abandoned buildings from a former era – sometimes even in mental asylums. The important thing was to keep them invisible: their disabled bodies spoke too eloquently of the state's earlier failure to protect them.
György was one of the lucky ones. He moved back home, and went regularly for physio to the hospital in Debrecen where he was first treated as a two-year-old. It is now linked to the university at which he is now Professor of Microbiology. He still loves swimming. He recalls how, once he had learned to swim all those years ago in Lukács Baths, he loved to dive in, through the steam rising from the water into the chilly November air, hiding the other swimmers from sight, and down to where he could finally stretch out his legs and kick.
Editor: Mun-Keat Looi
Illustrator: Bill Bragg
Fact Checker: Katie Palmer
Art Director: Madeleine Penny
Copyeditor: Tom Freeman
Originally published by Mosaic Science under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Previous: Scurvy and the Terra Incognita
Next: Ritual Landscapes in Pagan and Early Christian England
A History of Forced Religious Conversion since the Ancient World
Christian Nationalism Is Tearing America Apart at the Seams
Proclus of Athens: Defending Traditional Paganism in 5th-Century Greece
Christian Nationalism Is One of Trump's Most Powerful Weapons
The Talpiot Tomb: Have the Remains of Jesus and His Family Been Found?
Archives Select Month January 2022 (102) December 2021 (154) November 2021 (154) October 2021 (148) September 2021 (156) August 2021 (144) July 2021 (151) June 2021 (143) May 2021 (140) April 2021 (127) March 2021 (143) February 2021 (121) January 2021 (120) December 2020 (131) November 2020 (125) October 2020 (123) September 2020 (122) August 2020 (129) July 2020 (193) June 2020 (174) May 2020 (174) April 2020 (176) March 2020 (182) February 2020 (167) January 2020 (174) December 2019 (159) November 2019 (142) October 2019 (169) September 2019 (118) August 2019 (147) July 2019 (157) June 2019 (153) May 2019 (188) April 2019 (183) March 2019 (187) February 2019 (174) January 2019 (188) December 2018 (189) November 2018 (176) October 2018 (184) September 2018 (185) August 2018 (188) July 2018 (186) June 2018 (175) May 2018 (168) April 2018 (182) March 2018 (188) February 2018 (170) January 2018 (187) December 2017 (174) November 2017 (146) October 2017 (91) September 2017 (97) August 2017 (53) July 2017 (62) June 2017 (129) May 2017 (120) April 2017 (98) March 2017 (190) February 2017 (235) January 2017 (281) December 2016 (301) November 2016 (152) October 2016 (258) September 2016 (202) August 2016 (119) July 2016 (107) June 2016 (188) May 2016 (323) April 2016 (367) March 2016 (391) February 2016 (26)
Categories Select Category Abolition (2) Aboriginal (1) Abortion (34) Abraham Lincoln (1) Academic (83) Activism (21) Addiction (3) Aegean (2) Afghanistan (2) Africa (37) African-American (18) Age of Exploration (2) Aging (6) Agriculture (55) Ainu (1) Akkadian (1) Alaska (2) Albania (1) Alchemy (5) Alcohol (40) Alexander the Great (8) Alt-Right (2) American Republic (4) American Revolution (27) Americas (2) Anatolia (1) Ancestry (1) Ancient (358) Ancient (7) Ancient (4) Ancient Alcohol (6) Ancient Aliens (1) Ancient Cults (7) Ancient Economy (7) Andes (2) Anglo-Saxon (9) Animals (45) Antebellum (1) Anthropology (260) Anti-Semitism (1) Arabia (5) Archaeology (178) Architecture (321) Argentina (1) Argumentation (1) Armenia (2) Art (333) Art History (995) Artificial Intelligence (1) Asia (7) Assyrian (5) Astrology (7) Astronomy (131) Astrophysics (5) Atheism (7) Athens (30) Augustus (8) Australia (5) Aztec (16) Babylon (9) Baseball (1) Beer (11) Belgium (1) Biology (109) Biometrics (1) Black (13) Black Death (4) Bolivia (1) Books (35) Brain (9) Brazil (4) BreakingNews-012022 (7) BreakingNews-012122 (7) BreakingNews-012422 (7) BreakingNews-012522 (7) BreakingNews-012622 (7) BreakingNews-012722 (7) BreakingNews-012822 (7) Britain (35) Bronze Age (7) Buddhism (14) Burma (2) Business (37) Business/Economy (53) Byzantine (47) Byzantium (33) Calendar (1) California (1) Cambodia (2) Canaan (2) Canada (3) Cancer (3) Cannabis (2) Capitalism (1) Caribbean (6) Carolingian (3) Carthage (5) Cartography (5) Catalonia (1) Cathedrals (1) Catholic (9) Cats (5) Caucusus (1) CBD (2) Celt (18) Charlemagne (3) Chemistry (2) Chichen Itza (1) Children (25) Chile (2) China (74) Chinese (16) Christianity (62) Christmas (11) Cicero (2) Cinema (8) Civil Rights (66) Civil War (45) Classical (2) Classics (46) Cleopatra (1) Climate Change (168) Coffee (171) Cognition (6) Cognitive Science (15) Cold War (12) Colombia (1) Communication (91) Community (5) Compassion (2) Computers (12) Confucius (2) Consciousness (7) Conservation (1) Constitution (7) Cooking (6) Corporate History (7) Cosmology (3) COVID (41) Crime (28) Criminal Justice (18) Crusades (25) Cryptocurrency (2) Cuba (2) Culture (67) Current Events (893) Dance (4) Death (15) Denmark (2) Depression (5) Diaspora (1) Dinosaur (2) Disability (5) Disease (112) Dogs (3) Drug War (20) Drugs (24) Druid (1) Dutch (10) Early Modern (59) Earth History (11) East (3) Economics (42) Economy (119) Ecuador (1) Education (134) Egypt (112) Egyptian (33) Elderly (1) Energy (7) England (106) Enlightenment (17) Entertainment (80) Environment (177) Epistemology (2) Ethics (2) Ethnography (5) Etruscan (21) Europe (46) Euthanasia (2) Evolution (107) Exoplanets (2) Facebook (1) Family (1) Fascism (15) Fascist (4) Fashion (33) FeaturedCats-012022 (4) FeaturedCats-012122 (4) FeaturedCats-012422 (4) FeaturedCats-012522 (4) FeaturedCats-012622 (4) FeaturedCats-012722 (4) FeaturedCats-012822 (4) Federalist (1) Feminism (40) Fertile Crescent (1) Feudalism (10) Fiction (1) Film (7) Financial (4) Fine Arts (7) Fitness (11) Flanders (1) Florence (4) Flu (1) Food (92) France (43) Franks (2) French (19) French Revolution (7) Futurism (2) Gambling (4) Games (48) Gangs (1) Gauls (5) Gay (5) Gender (8) Genealogy (1) General Interest (37) Genetics (12) Geography (14) Geology (7) Georgian (2) Germany (32) Gilded Age (9) Gothic (6) Government (6) Gratitude (1) Great Depression (3) Greece (374) Greek (202) Greenland (1) Grief (3) Guatemala (1) Gun Control (8) Guns (15) Gypsies (2) Halloween (5) Hannukah (2) Happiness (2) Hawaii (1) Health (139) Health/Medicine (216) Hellenistic (5) Hindu (6) Hinduism (13) Hispanic (1) Historiography (19) History (5,719) History of Communication (7) History of Crime (4) History of Disease (7) History of Education (4) History of Law (7) History of Law Enforcement (7) History of Police (6) History of Religion (5) History of Technology (4) History of the United States (7) History of Vaccines (4) Hitler (28) Holidays (28) Holocaust (3) Holy Roman Empire (4) Homeless (6) Homer (9) Hopi (1) Houston (2) Human Rights (2) Humanism (7) Hungary (2) Huns (2) Iberian (2) Iceland (4) Immigration (41) Inca (15) India (52) Indigenous (20) Indo-European (4) Indus Valley (5) Industrial Revolution (13) Inka (5) Inspirational (11) International (73) Internet (64) Iran (7) Iraq (1) Ireland (3) Irish (2) Iron Age (4) Islam (25) Israel (38) Italy (11) Jab over Java (1) Japan (23) Japanese (7) Jerusalem (1) Jewelry (1) Jewish (30) Jews (15) Jordan (3) Journalism (79) Judaea (2) Judah (1) Judaism (29) Julius Caesar (5) Justinian (1) Kathmandu (1) Kiev (3) Knowledge (1) Korea (9) Kwanzaa (1) Labor (11) Language (51) Latin America (16) Latino (1) Law (100) Law Enforcement (23) Lesbian (1) LGBT (74) Libertarian (1) Lifestyle (7) Linguistics (89) Literature (287) Livonian (1) Logic (8) London (7) Machu Picchu (1) MainBanner1-012022 (7) MainBanner1-012122 (7) MainBanner1-012422 (7) MainBanner1-012522 (7) MainBanner1-012622 (7) MainBanner1-012722 (7) MainBanner1-012822 (7) MainBanner2-012022 (4) MainBanner2-012122 (4) MainBanner2-012422 (4) MainBanner2-012522 (4) MainBanner2-012622 (4) MainBanner2-012722 (4) MainBanner2-012822 (4) MainBanner3-012022 (4) MainBanner3-012122 (4) MainBanner3-012422 (4) MainBanner3-012522 (4) MainBanner3-012622 (4) MainBanner3-012722 (4) MainBanner3-012822 (4) Manifest Destiny (1) Maps (1) Marines (1) Maritime (21) Maritime History (4) Marriage (2) Mars (3) Math (21) Maya (11) Media (26) Medicine (211) Medieval (504) Medieval (4) Medieval (5) Medieval Guilds (4) Meditation (5) Mediterranean (8) Memory (2) Mental Health (54) Mental Illness (48) Mesoamerica (27) Mesolithic (1) Mesopotamia (41) Mesoregion (1) Metal (2) Metallurgy (2) Meteorology (1) Mexico (21) Micronesia (2) Middle Ages (335) Middle East (10) Migration (11) Military (53) Mind (2) Mindfulness (104) Minoa (17) Modern (2) Monastic (1) Money (6) Mongol (6) Mongolia (5) Morality (3) Moses (1) Movies (2) Museums (7) Music (60) Muslim (1) Mussolini (2) Myanmar (2) Mycenae (7) Mythology (132) Nanotechnology (1) Napoleon (2) Native American Architecture (4) Native American History (7) Native Americans (103) NATO (1) Nature (4) Naval (4) Nazi (31) Nazism (8) Near East (2) Neolithic (11) Nero (1) Netherlands (2) Neuroscience (24) New York (2) New Zealand (1) News (3) Nigeria (1) Nordic (3) Normandy (1) Norse (7) North Korea (2) Norway (3) Nuclear (4) Numismatics (1) Nutrition (5) Oceania (3) Oceanography (1) Oil (5) Olmec (1) Olympics (2) Opera (2) Organ Donation (1) Orient (1) Ottoman (6) Ottonian (4) Pagan (5) Pakistan (3) Paleography (2) Paleolithic (5) Paleontology (6) Palestine (12) Palmyra (2) Panpsychism (1) Parthia (3) Peace (2) Peloponnesian (1) Persia (27) Persian Gulf (1) Personal (2) Peru (3) Pets (14) Pharmacy (5) Philanthropy (2) Philosophy (364) Phoenicia (2) Phoenician (2) Photography (49) Physics (30) Picts (1) Piracy (11) Pirate (3) Plato (4) Poetry (32) Poland (2) Police (10) Political Science (47) Politics (295) Pompeii (6) Portugal (13) PostCarousel-012022 (7) PostCarousel-012122 (7) PostCarousel-012422 (7) PostCarousel-012522 (7) PostCarousel-012622 (7) PostCarousel-012722 (7) PostCarousel-012822 (7) Poverty (24) Prehistoric (33) Prehistory (63) Press (36) Printing (2) Progressive (1) Prohibition (3) Protestant (3) Protestant Reformation (1) Pseudoscience (5) Psychiatry (6) Psychic (1) Psychology (467) Pueblo (1) Puerto Rico (4) Quantum (3) Race (33) Racism (72) Reason (3) Reconstruction (3) Red Scare (1) Reformation (18) Relationships (21) Religion (621) Religion and Meaning (4) Rembrandt (1) Renaissance (55) Robotics (1) Roman (205) Romanesque (6) Romania (2) Romanticism (1) Rome (410) Russia (85) Saudi Arabia (1) Scandinavia (2) Schizophrenia (1) Science (224) Scotland (6) Secularism (2) Segregation (6) Seleucid (1) Sex (2) Sexuality (7) Shakespeare (7) Sicily (2) Silk Road (2) Slav (4) Slavery (63) Social Justice (1) Social Media (50) Socialism (1) Socialist (1) Sociology (57) Socrates (1) South Africa (1) Southeast Asia (7) Soviet Union (21) Space (46) Space Exploration (111) Spain (23) Spanish Inquisition (4) Sparta (6) Sports (35) Stalin (3) STEM (1) Stoicism (2) Stone Age (8) Suicide (3) Sumer (2) Supernatural (9) Supreme Court (1) Surveillance (2) Taxation (1) Taxes (1) Tea (3) Technology (179) Television (1) Terrorism (12) Texas (6) Thanksgiving (3) Theatre (5) Tibet (2) Tobacco (2) Trade (28) Transgender (3) Transhumanism (3) Transportation (7) Travel (33) Trojan (1) Troy (1) Trump (4) Tunisia (1) Turkey (4) UAE (1) Ukraine (2) Uncategorized (2,637) United Kingdom (5) United States (161) Universe (10) Ur (2) Urban (13) Vaccines (3) Vandals (1) Vape (4) Venezuela (1) Veterans (1) Victorian (19) Vietnam (1) Viking (32) Volcano (1) Wales (1) Warfare (48) Weapons (4) Weather (4) Welsh (1) West (1) West Indies (1) Wine (6) Witch (4) Witchcraft (4) Women (171) World War I (29) World War II (21) Writing (34) Yemen (2) Youth (2) Zionism (11) Zoroastrian (1)
Subscribe to Brewminate
Brewminate on Facebook
Search Brewminate
Individual pages signify the copyright for the content on that page. Some content is licensed under a Creative Commons license, and other content is completely copyright-protected. See the bottom of each page for copyright information. Our logo, banner, and trademark are registered and fully copyright protected (not subject to Creative Commons). See "Terms of Service" link for more information.
Brewminate uses Infolinks and is an Amazon Associate with links to items available there. Proceeds are donated to charity.
Copyright © 2021 Some Rights Reserved (See Terms of Service)


Easily record your screen, PowerPoint, multiple audio tracks, and webcam video to create compelling training videos, screencasts, and presentations without ever leaving your desk. With the power of interactive Camtasia Studio videos, you can deliver high-quality content anytime, to even your most remote audience. Camtasia Studio helps you keep pace in a mobile world by making it easy to publish videos and MP3 files for iPod and other portable media players. Now your marketing message, screencast, lecture, or just-in-time training video can reach your audience practically anywhere – on the bus, in a coffee shop, or while they're jogging. Camtasia Studio videos are simply designed to share.
• Record Anything Easily create training, demonstrations, presentations, online courses... the possibilities are endless. Connect with your audience by including screen recordings, audio, voice narration, PowerPoint, Picture-in-Picture and webcam video.
• Edit and Enhance Edit and enhance your video with callouts, titles, credits, zooming, panning, quizzes and additional audio tracks. Camtasia Studio's extensive editing options are at your fingertips.
• Share Publish in Flash, QuickTime and a variety of video formats, then share on the Web, CD or DVD. You can use the Production Wizard to assist you in choosing the best format and settings for sharing with your audience, or you can have complete control over audio and video codecs and quality, frame rate, color depth, and inclusion or exclusion of special effects.


What a wonderful creepy twist on my favorite Christmas carol, Ash!!
Thanks for the note, Jess…you're getting a ten dollar gift card to B&N! Shoot me your snail mail girl…you know how to hit me up!
Thanks for having me, Kim! Now I got that song stuck in my head.


text:
typedef void(^GetDataHandler) (id,NSError * error);
@interface ALXGetData : NSObject

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub