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.