New Facebook study by Garrett and Poulsen in JCMC

Kelly Garrett

Shannon Poulsen

In their new paper "Flagging Facebook falsehoods: Self-identified humor warnings outperform fact checker and peer warnings" in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Kelly and Shannon present two studies evaluating the effectiveness of flagging inaccurate political posts on social media. In Study 1, they tested fact-checker flags, peer-generated flags, and a flag indicating that the publisher self-identified as a source of humor. Conducting a 2-wave online experiment (N=218), they found that self-identified humor flags were most effective, reducing beliefs and sharing intentions, especially among those predisposed to believe the post. They found no evidence that warnings from fact checkers or peers were beneficial. Compared to the alternatives, participants exposed to self-identified humor flags exhibited less reactance to and had more positive appraisals of the flagging system. The second study replicated the findings of the first and provides a preliminary test of what makes this flag work.

COPS Today: Context in Pol Comm Research

Today we will talk about an issue that is particularly salient at this moment in the United States: the role of context in the study of political communication effects. A new Forum was just released in the journal Political Communication which focuses on just this topic. For instance, Rojas and Valenzuela make the argument that research in the United States should have the same expectation of taking explicit consideration of the context of research conducted here as scholars studying other political contexts must make regarding any particular idiosyncrasies of those contexts. Let's talk about this, but perhaps expand the idea to the particular temporal context or geographic context of the research that we conduct in the U.S. For instance, what are the implications of gathering data at the current political moment, as the U.S. House of Representatives pursues an impeachment inquiry against the president, and roughly 20 Democrats vie for their party's nomination to run for president in 2020? And, would it matter if one were conducting a study a politics at this time in Iowa compared to Columbus Ohio compared to Montana?

Catching up: COPS Students take major School of Communication Research Awards

Matt Sweitzer

Olivia Bullock

For those out of the loop at the end of Spring 2019 (as I was due to being on sabbatical...), I wanted to share this news:
Last spring at the School of Communication’s annual "Comm Day" celebration and awards banquet, two COPS members won awards for their outstanding research. Matthew Sweitzer won the Doris Gildea Morgan award for top senior researcher, and Olivia Bullock won the Walter B. Emery award for top junior researcher in the School. Belated congrats to them both!

Garrett, Bond, and Poulsen on Satirical News

Robert Bond

Kelly, Rob and Shannon had an interesting piece in The Conversation back in August on belief in satirical news. It contributes to a larger debate: should Snopes fact check satirical website The Babylon Bee? With data from a 6-month panel, they found that a number of people believe satirical articles are truthful. They argue that making the satirical intentions of the source more clear would help minimize unintended belief in inaccurate information.

Congrats to Hillary Shulman!

Hillary Shulman

Congratulations to Assistant Professor, and COPS faculty member, Hillary Shulman! 

Hillary and her colleague, Associate Professor Daniel Bergan (Michigan State University), won a $20,500 grant from the North Central Regional Center For Urban Development for their project titled "Local policymakers' perceptions of the opioid crisis and the efficacy of extension communications.” 

As noted on the OSU School of Communication website, their project “aims to identify message strategies that affect how policymakers engage with the opioid crisis in their communities.” 

Keep up the awesome work Hillary!