Congrats to S.J. for his Publication!

Our own S.J. Min is the sole-author of a recent publication in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication entitled Online vs. Face-to-Face Deliberation: Effects on Civic Engagement. The paper, based on an experiment S.J. conducted here at OSU, concludes that both online and FTF deliberation about politics can increase knowledge, efficacy, and willingness to participate in politics.

Academic year off to a great start for COPS

First, congratulations to Myiah Hively for her sole-authored top-two paper at MAPOR, which continues the group's five year streak of wins at this public opinion conference. Graduate students Michael Beam, Nick Geidner, Laurel Gleason, Jay Hmielowski, Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville, Teresa Myers, and Chris Shen were all authors on MAPOR papers as well. Faculty members Chip Eveland, Lance Holbert, Young Mie Kim, and Mike McCluskey also had papers at MAPOR, as did COPS alumni Tiffany Thomson and Lindsay Hoffman. Way to make an impact at the group's main autumn conference everyone!

We also had some great student research presentations to the group this quarter by Jay Hmielowski; Myiah Hively & Kristen Landreville; Micheal Beam, Kristen Landreville, & Heather LaMarre; and Teresa Myers.

Opportunities for future research abound, as we heard in October from faculty members Lance Holbert, Kelly Garrett, Mike McCluskey, Chip Eveland and Andy Hayes about the many data sets available exclusively to COPS students and faculty for analysis.

Last but certainly not least, COPS was instrumental in attracting soon-to-be Cornell Ph. D. Erik Nisbet to join the School's faculty as an assistant professor in strategic communication starting Autumn 2008. Welcome Erik!

The group has a lot to be proud of already, and we're just getting started -- great work everyone!

Erik Nisbet to join OSU Fall 2008

I am thrilled to be able to report that Erik Nisbet will be joining the OSU School of Communication as an assistant professor starting in the Fall of 2008. Erik is completing his Ph.D. at Cornell University and conducts research in the intersection of politics, public opinion, public policy, and international media. Erik had multiple offers from good institutions, and his decision to come to OSU reflects the many positives we offer, not the least of which is COPS. So join me in welcoming Erik!

Another MAPOR Winner This Year

Congratulations to Myiah Hively for her placement in the top two of the MAPOR Fellows Student paper competition this year. I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone that OSU has had at least one student -- but often two -- win a paper award at MAPOR conference for the past five consecutive years. To refresh your memory, here they are:

2007

Hively, M. H. (2007, November). Testing the Gamson hypothesis: The interaction between efficacy and cynicism in predicting participation and protest. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2006

Myers, T., & Goodall, C. (2006, November). Fear appeals in political communication: An examination of public opinion about social security and global warming. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2005

Hoffman, L. H. & Reineke, J. B. (2005, November). Coorientation in a public opinion context: Predicting accurate perceptions of community opinion. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Reineke, J. B. (2005, November). Doing unto others as one does unto one's self: Exploring the association between support for public censorship and self-censorship.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2004

Hoffman, L. H. (2004, November). Mobilizing information as a link to political participation: A content analysis of online and print newspapers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Huge, M. (2004, November). Measurable hesitation as a precursor to self-censorship: Replication and extension of the minority slowness effect. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2003

Hoffman, L. H. & Huge, M. E. (2003, November). Media frames of protest groups: The effects of exposure on perceived legitimacy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Fun with rivalries

There are many rivalries between universities, some based on sports, some on academics, and then some a little of both. The COPS group was pleased to be able to host a number of faculty and grad students from the University of Wisconsin last weekend. Everyone was treated to fun on High Street before and after the OSU-UW football game, and we particularly enjoyed OSU asserting its dominance on the field. As you can see in the photograph, Dhavan Shah of Wisconsin went away convinced that OSU is where it is all happening! In fact, he taught his class this week wearing this hat. More photos to come.

Stats / Methods for WI 2008 and Beyond

As you all know, among communication programs we have one of the strongest internal methods/stats training programs available in the country. First year students will be enrolling in Andrew Hayes' second level required statistics course in the Winter. And, as enrollment time comes, I wanted to remind senior students about Lance Holbert teaching the COMM 801 Structural Equation Modeling course this Winter as well. Those of you who took COMM 801 last year (with Andrew Hayes as "Advanced Linear Models") are permitted to take this course again since the topic shifts regularly.

Also, you might know that both Andrew and Lance have forthcoming books on advanced stats / methods. Andrew, in addition to his book Statistical Methods for Communication Science, and being an Associate Editor for the journal Communication Methods and Measures, has another book (co-authored with our own Mike Slater) coming out this fall called The Sage Sourcebook of Advanced Data Analysis Methods for Communication Research. Lance's book, which is in progress, is entitled Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures and Analytical Techniques.

So, take advantage of the resources here (as well as in OSU's Quantitative Psychology program, our Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Survey Research headed by COPS' own Jerry Kosicki, and advanced courses in Political Science and Education as well) and become a methods and stats expert today!

COPS Alumnus on Local TV News

Recent OSU graduate and COPS alumnus Lindsay Hoffman, now an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, was recently interviewed by a local news station for a story on the use of YouTube by political candidates in local elections.

LaMarre Wins Criminal Justice Research Center Grant

Congratulations to Heather LaMarre! She was recently awarded a Graduate Student Research Grant in the amount of $1000 from OSU's Criminal Justice Research Center. The goal of her project "is to deepen our understanding of how adolescents learn from rap/hip hop music, as well as how the messages delivered through the music and by the artists influence adolescent opinions regarding social and political issues and at-risk behaviors (e.g., crime)."

Hoffman and Thomson Successfully Defend Their Dissertations

On consecutive days this week Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson succussfully defended their dissertations. Both students began the program as MA students in 2002, the first year of the new graduate curriculum. This makes three COPS members who successfully defended dissertations this year (plus two MA students who successfully defended theses). Lindsay will start as an assistant professor at the University of Delaware in August.

Congrats to Andrew and Teresa

Congrats to Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers for receiving a $2000 research grant in the open competition recently held by the Mass Communication & Society division of AEJMC. Their project will examine the interaction between state-level variation in media reports of deaths in Iraq and news attention as predictors of variations in public opinion toward the war.

Fei "Chris" Shen wins MC&S Top Student Paper Award!

I learned today that Chris Shen has won the Mass Communication & Society division of AEJMC's Top Student Paper Award. His paper, which discusses what he calls "intra-media interactions," will be presented at AEJMC in August. Congratulations Chris for helping keep our COPS streak of award-winning AEJMC papers alive for four (or is it five, Andrew) straight years!!!

Paper for my COPS presentation

Here is my paper from the recent Midwest Political Science Association meeting. I'll be discussing this during the June 1st episode of COPS. I'd be glad to receive comments.

Eveland Given 2007 Krieghbaum Under-40 Award

In the field of communication, there are a couple of awards that are given to scholars who represent the essence and spirit of scholarship and service to the field. One of those awards is the Krieghbaum Under 40 Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. I am pleased and excited to report that this year, Chip Eveland is being honored with this award at the 2007 conference in DC. This award "honors AEJMC members under 40 years of age who have shown outstanding achievement and effort in all three AEJMC areas: teaching, research and public service" (AEJMC call for nominees). Congratulations to Chip! Chip is the second COPS member to receive this award (Carroll Glynn was given this award in 1992).

Reineke Wins Comm Day Research Award

Congratulations to COPS member Jason Reineke for winning the School of Communication's Morgan Award last week during our Comm Day festivities! This award was given to Jason for his excellence in research during his time here at OSU, which includes multiple papers currently in press, three different top student paper awards, and a dozen conference papers in his four years (two M.A., two Ph.D.) with us so far. Keep up the great work Jason!

Best Published Paper in Political Communication 2006

COPS has another winner. I've just learned that the Political Communication divisions of ICA and APSA have named Young Mie Kim's recent Journal of Politics paper the 2006 top paper in political communication. This is of all papers published in the area of political communication during 2006, not just all papers submitted to these two association conferences. This is a very prestigous award. Congratulations Young Mie! You might recall that a paper co-authored by Chip Eveland won this award last year.

Here is the full reference:

Althaus, S. L., & Kim, Y. M (2006). Priming effects in complex information environments: Reassessing the impact of news discourse on presidential approval. Journal of Politics, 68, 960-976.

Grant Competition

From an email I recieved today from Diana Mutz:

SPECIAL CALL DEADLINE: July 1st, 2007

ATTENTION ALL SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCHERS:
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR ORIGINAL DATA COLLECTION VIA TESS!

The National Science Foundation, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, is funding opportunities for original data collection for research that has potential relevance to the concerns of DHS. Three broad substantive areas have been identified as relevant and likely avenues for research:

1. Risk communication and its effects on disaster preparedness
2. Government and individual attributions of responsibility and perceived responsiveness; and
3. Inter-group threat and cooperation

Other areas of research with relevance to terrorism, disaster preparedness, or related public health and medical issues will also be considered.

Data collection for these projects will be paid for and conducted with the assistance of Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). As with other TESS applications, only a short, 5 page proposal is required.

TESS offers researchers opportunities to test their experimental ideas on large, diverse, randomly selected subject populations, or on specific subsamples of the population (based on geographic location, demographics, or other criteria). For more information on this special call or on TESS opportunities more generally, and for examples of TESS studies completed in the past, please visit our home page at www.ExperimentCentral.org.

PLEASE NOTE: For those with other areas of interest, TESS continues to fund data collection for survey-experimental work in all areas of the social sciences, and for graduate student and faculty investigators in all disciplines. These proposals are accepted on a rolling basis, and we will continue accepting new proposals as our funding allows.

Forum on Media and Participation

It is with some hesitancy that I post this link to a forum in Political Communication Reports (the newsletter of the ICA Political Communication division) about the link between media and participation. The hesitancy is because of self-interest, as I was a participant in the roundtable, discussing some of the research I've done with COPS members. Nonetheless, you may be interested in reading about it, so I post it here for you:

http://www.unr.edu/organizations/pcr/1702_2007_spring/roundtable.html

Alyssa Morey Picks OSU

Alyssa Morey, a University of Wisconsin undergraduate, is the latest in the long line of students from around the country to commit to OSU and to become part of the COPS group. Alyssa has interests in media perceptions (especially the hostile media phenomenon), new technology, and political participation, among other topics. Please welcome her to our group! For now she can be reached at acmorey@wisc.edu

Teresa Myers Commits for PhD

Keeping the momentum going, I learned today that Teresa Myers, who completed her MA here in Winter quarter (Andrew Hayes adviser, Carroll Glynn committee member), will be staying on with us here at OSU/COPS for her PhD. Teresa, who was given early admission to the PhD after her first year in the MA program, has had a number of successes in research already, including a Top Three student paper at MAPOR this past fall and a forthcoming publication in Public Opinion Quarterly. Following in the footsteps of other MA students who have chosen to stay at OSU rather than leave for other programs -- including Lindsay Hoffman, Tiffany Thomson, and Jason Reineke -- it further demonstrates that the supportive yet challenging environment we offer produces both satisfaction and success. Glad to have you staying with us Teresa!

...and one more

I am happy to report that Jay Hmielowski will be joining us in the Fall of 2007 to begin his Ph.D. If you are keeping track, you will know that so far, not a single potential COPS student who visited us at the end of March has decided to go elsewhere. We credit that to not only the resources OSU and the School provide to graduate students, but also to the friendly, collaborative environment that COPS provides to all of its members and that is so apparent to all who pay us a visit. Jay comes to us from Washington State University, where he is completing his Master's degree. Please welcome Jay with a comment, or directly by email to jhmielowski@wsu.edu

COPS grows with the addition of Caryn Ragin

Please join me in welcoming Caryn Ragin, who will be joining OSU and COPS as an M.A. student beginning this Fall. Most COPS members would have met Caryn at our recent visitation day. She comes to us from Washington State University, where she did her undergraduate degree. She can be contacted at cragin_wsu@yahoo.com.

Nick Geidner commits to OSU

I am happy to report that Nick Geidner, after visiting us during our recent graduate student recruitment day, has decided to commit to OSU to pursue his Ph.D. Nick joins Laurel Gleason in the list of new COPS students who have chosen OSU, and we expect that list to grow over the next several days as more and more students realize that other institutions simply cannot match the resources and work environment OSU offers. We look forward to seeing Nick at our weekly COPS meetings and around the halls of Derby. Until he arrives at OSU, he can be contacted at ngeidner@gmail.com

What are you submitting to AEJMC?

I thought it would be interesting and useful if people responded in the comments section about what they're doing for AEJMC's deadline of April 1st. I'll start by posting in the comments first -- please join in.

AU 07 class

Welcome to the new class of graduate students. We love it here and we hope you will too. I think you will find what we already know ......you have selected the best education possible and the greatest grad students to work with :)

COPS student publishes in Public Opinion Quarterly

Congratulations to Teresa Myers for "Twenty years of public opinion about global warming" just accepted for publication in Public Opinion Quarterly. This paper was a collaborative effort between Teresa and American University professor Matthew Nisbet. Pieces such as this that track public opinion over decades tend to be well received and highly cited. This paper illustrates what our students are capable of right out of the starting gate (Teresa was a first year M.A. student when this paper was first drafted) and what can be accomplished when you immerse yourself in the kind of research culture that is OSU and COPS.

Welcoming the First New Student for AU '07 to COPS

She has already joined the COPS blog, but I wanted to give a formal welcome to Laurel Gleason as a new PhD student in the School of Communication starting in Autumn 2007. Laurel is the first of what I expect to be several students who choose OSU for graduate study. Laurel's interests lie in how individuals construct political meaning out of the information and cues the media disseminates, and how such constructed meaning relates to political engagment. Please welcome Laurel, and look here for future announcements as we receive commitments from students who will be joining us next year.

Another COPS Award Winner at ICA

In addition to the paper by Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson on the top student paper session in the Mass Communication division at the ICA conference in San Francisco in May, I have just learned that Myiah Hively will be presenting a co-authored paper in the top faculty paper session in the Mass Communication division. Having COPS students involved in both the top student and top faculty paper sessions in Mass Communication should be no surprise, given that School of Communication at OSU has recently been ranked in the top three programs in the country in Mass Communication. Congratulations Myiah!

The COPS family grows with the addition of Dr. Kelly Garrett

COPS has grown in size again. In addition to Lance Holbert, who is joining the faculty and COPS as an Associate Professor in the Fall (see an earlier posting on this blog), the School of Communication has recently hired Kelly Garrett as an Assistant Professor. Kelly is a 2005 graduate of the University of Michigan's School of Information and 2006 winner of NCA's prestigious G. R. Miller Outstanding Dissertation award. Kelly studies political polarization, contentious politics, and the use of information technology in the political process. He is a welcome addition to the faculty and the group, and we know he'll quickly feel at home here. Until he arrives at OSU, he can be contacted at garrettk@exchange.uci.edu. For more information, visit his web page here.

COPS Members Take Home Another Paper Award

This May COPS members Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson will be presenting a paper in the Top Student Paper session of the Mass Communication division at the 2007 International Communication Association conference in San Francisco. Their paper was based on Wave I of the political socialization study discussed in the Dec. 29, 2006 post to this blog. Tiffany is also using other aspects of these data as part of her dissertation this year, so stay tuned for more good news to come.

Recent OSU Grad's Forthcoming Book

Some of you may be interested in this forthcoming book (should be out in February) by Juliann Cortese, a Ph.D. advisee of mine from a few years ago who is now an assistant professor at Florida State. The book is based on her dissertation, and includes some interesting extensions of our work on the implications of Web site design on learning of factual information and knowledge structure density. The content area Juliann writes about in the book is not politics, but the underlying ideas are clearly relevant to the sorts of work done by folks in COPS. It also goes to show you what may come of hard work toward a solid dissertation. You can order the book on Amazon.com here.

COPS Students to Begin National Online Data Collection

Thanks to the generosity of two COPS faculty members, Andrew Hayes and Chip Eveland, four COPS students will soon be gathering data from a national sample. Teresa Myers, Kristen Landreville, Chris Shen and Myiah Hively are using a survey software provider, Qualtrics, to collect data simultaneously on four different surveys. Teresa is gathering data examining an extension of the Extended Parallel Process Model as it relates to global warming; Kristen is examining how emotional responses to advertisements are linked to media use, issue attention, and issue knowledge; and Chris and Myiah are collaborating with Chip on two surveys that look at how to best measure media use and media's relationship to several political attitudes, knowledge and engagement. Stay tuned for the interesting findings sure to follow.

Founding COPS Member Accepts Job at SUNY-Albany

Mihye Seo, a founding student member of the COPS group and recent OSU graduate, has accepted a tenure-track job offer in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York - Albany campus. Mihye defended her dissertation on knowledge-based approaches to media priming in December 2006 with COPS faculty Eveland (adviser), Hayes and Kosicki, as well as political science professor Tom Nelson, as committee members. She has been working as a visiting assistant professor at SUNY since September 2006 and will begin as a tenure-track assistant professor in Fall 2007. Congratulations, Mihye!

OSU Ranked in the Top Three for Study of Mass Communication

A recent study of faculty productivity among programs in mass communication, reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, shows OSU's School of Communication ranked as #3 in the nation in 2005. Among the top ten schools, we have the highest rate of citation of our work. We have the highest number of journal article publications per faculty member among the top ten schools as well, and we are tied for the highest percentage of faculty with journal publications. This is further demonstration of the strength of our program, which will be only better with the addition of new faculty like Lance Holbert starting in the fall. For more information on this study, click here.