Announcements

See the calendar on the right for the full schedule.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Publishing of Political Communication Methods Sourcebook


"The Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures, and Analytical Techniques" has been published by Routledge (2011 publication date). COPS member R. Lance Holbert is a co-editor for the volume. In addition, this work is littered with contributions from former and current COPS members. COPS-related chapter topics include survey panel designs (Eveland and Morey), current trends in survey research (Hoffman), secondary analysis (Holbert and Hmielowski), structural equation modeling (Holbert and LaMarre), mediation (Hayes and Myers), and general methods trends within the field (Kosicki).

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

COPS Publication: "E-Democracy writ small: The impact of the Internet on citizen access to local elected officials"

COPS member Kelly Garrett has a co-authored article in Information, Communication & Society that is now available online.  Below is the citation and abstract. 

Garrett, R. & Jensen, M. J. (2010). E-Democracy writ small: The impact of the Internet on citizen access to local elected officials. Information, Communication & Society

Abstract
This article examines how elected officials' interactions with neighborhood groups, business interests, issue groups, and other stakeholders are shaped by their use of the Internet and by characteristics of local e-government infrastructure. The study utilizes data from a nationwide survey of local elected officials and from an analysis of corresponding local government websites. Results show that Internet use is associated with a significant increase in contact with stakeholders and with increasingly diverse types of communication partners, even after controlling for officials' general propensity to communicate. Both time spent on official duties and city size moderate the influence of Internet use. However, local government web sites do not appear to have a substantive influence on citizen's participation in policy making.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Geidner heading to University of Tennessee

Please join me in congratulating Nick Geidner on accepting a tenure-track assistant professor position within the School of Journalism & Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee. Nick has been a member of COPS since joining the OSU PhD program in 2007. Nick and his wife, Shelby, will be heading down to Knoxville this summer after Nick wraps up the last stages of his doctoral program. He will be missed within our School of Communication, but we are very pleased that he will begin the next stage of his career in a fine program. With this being stated, we hold some reservations about his becoming affiliated with the SEC, especially given Ohio State's recent track record in football when coming up against opponents from that conference. Nick, we hold out much hope that you will remain true to the scarlet & gray within the sea of orange you are about to become enveloped within. Congrats on accepting the UT position! It is a fitting end to what has been a most exciting year.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

AAPOR Student Paper Competition Deadline

Seymour Sudman Student Paper Competition
2011 American Association for Public Opinion Research Annual Conference
Arizona Grand Resort
Phoenix, Arizona
May 12-15, 2011

http://www.aapor.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Sudman_Student_Paper_Competition_Information&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2678

Thursday, December 02, 2010

COPS Student Publications in November

Current and former student members of COPS have peer-reviewed publications that recently appeared in November. Current COPS doctoral candidate Ivan Dylko has an article appearing in the November issue of International Journal of Public Opinion Research entitled "An Examination of Methodological and Theoretical Problems Arising from the Use of Political Participation Indexes in Political Communication Research." Teresa Myers, a former student member of COPS who is now a post-doctoral researcher, has a co-authored article in the November issue of Political Communication entitled "Challenging the State: Transnational TV and Political Identity in the Middle East." Congrats to both!

COPS Profs at "Political Communication: The State of the Field in the 21st Century" Conference

COPS professors Andrew Hayes, Lance Holbert, and William "Chip" Eveland are attending the "Political Communication: The State of the Field in the 21st Century" three-day conference at the Annenberg Public Policy Center this week. This conference is designed to produce a subsequent handbook of political communication that will benefit not only from a large group of scholars working independently, but also by working together to make each individual contribution better through deliberation and feedback from the larger group.

Hayes is part of a group on "Interpersonal and Small Group Political Communication" and will be writing a subsequent chapter on the "Spiral of Silence." Holbert is part of a group on "Psychological Theories of Media Effects" and will be writing a subsequent chapter on "Uses and Gratifications." Eveland is part of the group on "Political Information Processing and Processing Models" and will be writing a subsequent chapter on "Communication Modalities and Political Knowledge." In total, approximately 60 scholars from communication, political science, psychology, and sociology are attending this event and contributing to the resulting book to be published by Oxford University Press.