Ohio State Communication, Opinion, and Political Studies Group

Merolla and Zechmeister to speak on terrorism and public opinion

2012-01-26T11:39:00.000-05:00

Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister will speak about "Terrorist Threat and Democratic Public Opinion" at 3:30 p.m. Friday (2/3) at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave. Merolla is associate professor of politics and policy at Claremont Graduate University. Zechmeister is associate professor of political science and associate director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University. They are co-authors of Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (Chicago, 2009). The book examines how worry about terrorism alters individual attitudes toward others in society, their evaluations of political leaders, and their foreign policy preferences. To register, contact powers.108 [ at ] osu.edu by Thursday (2/2).

What makes a good review

2012-01-13T10:04:00.003-05:00

There's a great post on orgtheory.net that is relevant to our topic today. Titled "the editors speak: what makes a good review", the post includes observations, recommendations, and wish lists from 11 past and current editors of major journals, including the American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and others. Although neither communication nor political science journals are represented, most of the advice offered transcend disciplinary boundaries. I highly recommend reading it.

http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/the-editors-speak-what-makes-a-good-review/

Symposium to examine Arab Spring revolution in Egypt

2012-01-04T13:59:00.002-05:00

The Mershon Center is starting off the new year with a two high-level visitors from Egypt who will be giving us the inside scoop on the Arab Spring revolution during a two-part event on Monday, January 9. See the announcement below:

Please register now for a two-part symposium on "Egypt and the Arab Spring Revolution" to take place on Monday, January 9, 2012. First, Gouda Abdel-Khalek, Egyptian minister of supply and domestic trade and professor of economics at Cairo University, will speak at noon about "The Political Economy of Egypt and the Arab Spring: International Support Packages" at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave. To register, contact powers.108@osu.edu. Then, Karima Korayem,professor of economics at Al-Azhar University, will speak at 5 p.m. about "The Challenges of the Arab Spring Revolution in Egypt" at the Barrister Club, 25 W. 11th Ave., with discussion by Gouda Abdel-Khalek and Hassan Aly, professor of economics at Ohio State. Register at http://karimakorayem.eventbrite.com.

Still Time to Submit to CY

2012-01-03T16:35:00.002-05:00

Deadline Approaching: Communication Yearbook 37A Publication of the International Communication Association

Editor: Elisia L. Cohen

CY 37 is a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. Specifically, we are seeking state-of-the-discipline literature reviews, meta-analyses, and essays that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts. Submitted manuscripts should provide a rigorous assessment of the status, critical issues and needed directions of a theory or body of research; offer new communication theory or additional insights into communication systems, processes, policies and impacts; and/or expand the boundaries of the discipline. In all cases, submissions should be comprehensive and thoughtful in their synthesis and analysis, and situate a body of scholarship within a larger intellectual context. For CY 37, the editorial board also welcomes commentary and essays that advance knowledge and understanding of communication research methodologies and applications.

Details

Submit manuscripts electronically via a Word attachment to Elisia L. Cohen, Editor, at CommYear@uky.edu
Submissions for CY 37 will be considered from October 15, 2011 through February 15, 2012
Use APA style, 6th edition
Include a cover letter indicating how the manuscript addresses the CY 37 call for papers
Prepare manuscripts for blind review, removing all identifiers
Include a title page as a separate document that includes contact information for all authors
Following Communication Yearbook's tradition of considering lengthier manuscripts, initial manuscript submissions may range from 6,500 to 13,000 words (including tables, endnotes, references).
Incomplete submissions not adhering to journal guidelines will be returned to authors for revision.
For more information about CY 37 or this call for submissions, please contact Dr. Cohen at commyear@uky.edu.

Recent publications by COPS members

2011-11-06T21:24:00.006-05:00

Several COPS members have recently had manusripts accepted for publication. Below are the citations and abstracts:

Eveland, W.P. & Kleinman, S. (in press). Comparing General and Political Discussion Networks Within Voluntary Organizations Using Social Network Analysis. Political Behavior

Abstract:
Political discussion networks are influenced by the opportunities for political interactions within our larger social environments and more general discussion networks. In this study we compare general and political discussion networks using full sociometric social network data from a probability sample of voluntary organizations –specifically, intact student activity groups from a large Midwest research university. We find that even within these “weak tie” voluntary associations, general discussion networks clearly constrain the characteristics of the political discussion networks. However, political discussion networks appear to be less dense and more likely to be broken up into disconnected components than the general discussion networks. But, general and political networks do not appear to differ in their structuring by perceptions of discussant knowledge.And, most interestingly, we find that on average neither general nor political discussionnetworks are characterized by political homogeneity.

Garrett, R. K., Carnahan, D., & Lynch, E. (In press). A turn toward avoidance? Selective exposure to online political information, 2004-2008. Political Behavior

Abstract:Scholars warn that avoidance of attitude-discrepant political information is becoming increasingly common due in part to an ideologically fragmented online news environment that allows individuals to systematically eschew contact with ideas that differ from their own. Data collected over a series of national RDD surveys conducted between 2004 and 2008 challenge this assertion, demonstrating that Americans’ use of attitude-consistent political sources is positively correlated with use of more attitudinally challenging sources. This pattern holds over time and across different types of online outlets, and applies even among those most strongly committed to their political ideology, although the relationship is weaker for this group. Implications for these findings are discussed.

Hayes, A. F., Matthes, J., & Eveland, W. P. (in press). Stimulating the quasi-statistical organ: Fear of social isolation motivates the quest for knowledge of the opinion climate. Communication Research

Abstract:
We tested an uninvestigated propositionfrom spiral of silence theory that fear of social isolation (FSI) prompts people to seek out information about the climate of public opinion. Taking atrait-based individual difference perspective, we develop and validate a measureof FSI that is less likely to produce the interpretational problems that plagueexisting measures. Then, using data from 8 countries spread across four continents, we examine whether those who fear social isolation to a greater extent are more likely to attend to a particular source of information in the social environment about public opinion—mass media reports of public opinion polls. Our results support spiral of silence theory’s prediction—FSI does appear to motivatepeople to ascertain what the public thinks. However, there may be some cultural boundaries to this process.

Nisbet, E.C., Stoycheff, E., & Pearce, K. E., (in press). Demanding democracy online: a multi-level model of Internet use and citizen attitudes about democracy. Journal of Communication.

Abstract:
A successful democracy requires citizens to prefer democratic governance over other political alternatives. In this context, we examine role of the internet in promoting political change through socialization into pro-democracy attitudes. Combining individual public opinion data from Africa and Asia with country-level indices, we test a multi-level model examining the relationship between internet penetration, individual internet use, and citizen demand for democracy across 28 countries. We find internet use, but not national internet penetration, is associated with greater citizen commitment to democratic governance. Furthermore, greater democratization and internet penetration moderates the relationship between internet use and demand for democracy. Implications for understanding how ICT diffusion and internet use may be associated with citizen attitudes about democracy are discussed.

Shapiro to speak on ideological segregation in news consumption

2011-10-20T11:17:00.002-04:00

Jesse Shapiro, professor of economics at University of Chicago, will speak on "Ideological Segregation Online and Offline" at 3:30 p.m. in 437 Arps Hall, 1945 N High St. In his research, Shapiro finds that ideological segregation of online news consumption is higher than offline news consumption but significantly lower than segregation in face-to-face interactions. To attend, contact powers.108@osu.edu by Tuesday (10/25). Read more

Workshop Series: Planning Ahead for an Academic Job Search

2011-10-05T09:22:00.002-04:00

I'd like to encourage doctoral students to consider attending this workshop series. Whether you're just starting, or are collecting data for your dissertation, it's a good time to think about what it means to be on the job market.

http://t.co/kYEEWHIp

This series of events addresses many aspects of the academic job search process. You are welcome to attend all sessions or just the ones that fit your needs and schedule. All workshops are held at 150 Younkin Success Center.

The Academic Job Search
Thursday, October 6, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Stephanie Rohdieck, UCAT

This workshop will provide useful information about the job search process in academia. Information will be provided about helpful tips when starting your job search, where and how to look for openings, as well as what materials need to be prepared.

Vitae and Cover Letters
Thursday, October 13, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Career Connection

This workshop will address how to write vitae and cover letters when searching for jobs in academia. Importance will be placed on both their format and content while highlighting career tips useful when applying for positions with a teaching and/or research emphasis.

Teaching and Research Statements
Thursday, October 20, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Stephanie Rohdieck, UCAT

This workshop will provide an overview of each type of statement, describe how they are used in the academic job search process, and provide guidance on how to write them. There will be opportunities in the session to start the process of writing these statements.

The Interview
Thursday, October 27, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Career Connection

This workshop will highlight what to do before, during, and after an interview for positions in academia. Emphasis will be on career strategies and interviewing techniques as well as familiarity with the academic interview expectations. Samples of questions and practice opportunities will be provided, as well as useful suggestions to enhance confidence skills.

Highly cited works by COPS affiliates

2011-09-30T08:21:00.003-04:00

Several COPS faculty and alumni are listed in Routledge Taylor & Francis's list of "Highly cited communication studies articles". The articles listed are among the top cited of all T&F journals, and the publisher is recognizing this accomplishment by providing free access to the works. Featured authors include Eveland, Hayes, Hoffman, and Hutchens. Congratulations!

Esralew, Weeks win conference paper awards

2011-09-21T13:04:00.002-04:00

Please join me in congratulating COPS members Sarah Esralew and Brian Weeks for their award-winning conference papers. Sarah received the 2011 Timothy Cook Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for her paper, "The influence of parodies on political schemas: Exploring the Tina Fey-Sarah Palin phenomenon". Brian's recieved a top-four paper from the Political Communication section of the International Communication Association for his paper, "Assessing belief in online political rumors and its impact on vote choice." Well done!

Esralew, S.E., & Young, D.G. (2010). The influence of parodies on political schemas: Exploring the Tina Fey-Sarah Palin phenomenon. Annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.: 2010.

Weeks, B.E., & Garrett, R.K. (2011, November). Assessing belief in online political rumors and its impact on vote choice. Paper to be presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Political Communication Division. New Orleans, LA.

First COPS of the quarter

2011-09-16T13:06:00.002-04:00

The first meeting of the quarter will be held on Friday, September 23 at 1:30 in JR106 (the ground floor conference room in the Journalism building). If you are interesting in political communication research (or even if you aren't sure what you're interests are), I hope that you will join us. /Kelly

Computer Science Talk May be of Interest to COPS Members

2011-04-20T14:42:00.002-04:00

Can Couch Potatoes be Collaborators?
Dr. Venugopal Vasudevan - Motorola Applied Research
Monday May 9th 1-3 pm
Location: CETI Lab Caldwell 400

Content and communication have converged towards collaborative media
– where media rather than people are the objects around which
collaborations & conversations are centered. The device and group
dynamics around collaborative media have similarly broadened: from
highly capable devices to pervasive devices (e.g. TV & mobile) and
from small, strongly connected groups to large collaborative groups
of people with weak inter-personal ties. This talk will address some
of the experiences and challenges in delivering a collaborative media
experience to pervasive devices such as TV and multi-screen
collaborative media. We will address the systems challenges in
scaling these experiences across large user populations, and creating
coherent crowdsourced experiences across large user populations.

Biography:

Dr. Venu Vasudevan is senior director of the Betaworks, an incubator
within Motorola's Applied Research with responsibility for
identifying technologically differentiating and commercially viable
opportunities in the spaces of mobile & pervasive computing, and
social media. Prior to this, Venu directed the Software Platforms Lab
with research focus on applying distributed computing technologies to
efficient and scalable media delivery architectures for advancing
television and mobile platforms – including several key Motorola
initiatives in the mobile/pervasive media space.

Venu holds a PhD from The Ohio State University, and has co-authored
over 50 papers in journals and international conferences, and is a
member of Motorola’s Science Advisory Board.

The Quest for "Significance" in Social Science

2011-04-08T09:43:00.001-04:00

Referred by a Monkey Cage post (prominent political science blog) I wanted to bring people's attention to a new article in the journal European Political Science critiquing how many social scientists search for and interpret "significance."

Determinants of Age in Europe: A Pooled Multilevel Nested Hierarchical Time-Series Cross-Sectional Model

Uchen Bezimenia, European Political Science (2011) 10, 86–91

Age is often found to be associated with a plenitude of socioeconomic, politico-administrative, biological and thanatological variables. Much less attention has been paid by scholars, however, to explaining ‘age’. In this paper we address this unfortunate scientific lacuna by developing a model of ‘age’ as a function of several factors suggested by (post)rational choice and social constructionist theories. Using state-of-the-art multilevel statistical techniques, our analysis allows the determinants of age to vary with the institutional characteristics of European countries. Our findings convincingly show that generalized trust in strangers, support for incumbent extremist political parties in provincial elections held in the month of January, and the percentage of overqualified women in the cafeterias of national parliaments are all statistically significant explanations of ‘age’. Our findings have obvious implications for conspiracy theorists, organizational advisors, spin doctors and ordinary charlatans.

Subscribing to the COPS email list

2011-04-01T16:20:00.006-04:00

Now you can subscribe to the COPS email list on the Web. Just point your browser here: https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/osucops

Social Networks Workshop in May

2011-03-28T09:32:00.003-04:00

FYI, for those interested in social network analysis you should sign up for this as soon as possible:

Network Analysis Workshop at Ohio State University

The Political Science Department, in conjunction with Complex Systems Innovation Group, Program in Statistics and Methodology (PRISM), and the National Science Foundation, is pleased to host a one day workshop on Network Analysis on Thursday, May 5th, from 9:00 - 3:00. The workshop will be taught by Bruce A. Desmarais, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (http://www.people.umass.edu/bruced/).

The course will provide an introduction to political network analysis and will cover the basics of network analysis including: terminology, data collection/storage and basic description. We will also consider advanced topics in description and exploration such as graphical representation and community detection. Additionally, the course will introduce methods of statistical inference with network data including regression with quadratic assignment procedure (QAP), exponential random graph models (ERGMs), and bilinear random effects models. All methods will be demonstrated in the R statistical software, and commented code will be made available in conjunction with the course.

There is limited space available for interested participants, so we ask all of those hoping to attend to RSVP as soon as possible (link below). If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please feel free to contact Janet Box-Steffensmeier (steffensmeier.2@osu.edu) or Jason Morgan (morgan.746@osu.edu). Additional information and a detailed schedule will be emailed to registered participants as soon as they become available.

RSVP here: https://secure.polisci.ohio-state.edu/networkshortcourse.htm

Ivan Dylko Accepts Position at New Mexico State

2011-03-17T10:27:00.001-04:00

Please join me in congratulating Ivan Dylko. Ivan recently accepted a position of assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at New Mexico State University. Ivan came to us for his MA degree, and then after a brief hiatus returned to earn his Ph.D. Ivan is currently wrapping up his dissertation project -- an explication of political user-generated content online combined with a content analysis using the mix of attributes framework -- and will be starting his position at New Mexico State in the fall.

In a very tough economy and academic job market, our students continue to demonstrate the benefits of their hard work by securing multiple interviews and great job offers. Congratulations Ivan!

Garrett published rumoring paper in Human Communication Research

2011-03-15T12:22:00.001-04:00

Congrats to Kelly Garrett for his publication in the April 2011 issue of Human Communication Research entitled "Troubling Consequences of Online Political Rumoring." You can read the abstract here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01401.x/abstract

ADDED BY KELLY:

Scientific American posted a short podcast on the study, too. Entertaining to hear the whole project distilled to 60-seconds.

Beam accepts position at Washington State U.

2011-03-05T15:32:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Michael Beam on accepting a position as an Assistant Professor in Digital media in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Michael has been actively involved in COPS for several years, and we will miss him, but he is joining a fine faculty where I'm sure he will do great things.

New publications by COPS members

2011-03-05T15:13:00.005-05:00

COPS members have several publications in print or in press this month. More details below:

Epstein, D., Nisbet, E. C. & Gillespie, T. (2011). Who's Responsible for the Digital Divide? Public Perceptions and Policy Implications. The Information Society: An International Journal, 27(2), 92-104. doi: 10.1080/01972243.2011.548695

Garrett, R. K. (2011), Troubling Consequences of Online Political Rumoring. Human Communication Research, 37: 255–274. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01401.x

Holbert, L., Hmielowski, J., and Weeks, B. (in press). Clarifying Relations between Ideology and Ideologically-Oriented Cable TV News Use: A Case of Suppression. Communication Research.

PCR profiles contemporary datasets

2011-02-17T10:42:00.003-05:00

Check out the latest issue (v21/i1) of the Political Communication Report (http://www.politicalcommunication.org/newsletter.html) for a concise summary of five large, publicly available political-communication datasets. Though learning to navigate these datasets takes time, the rewards can be significant. Even if you don't normally work with survey data, it's worth looking through these collections to get a sense of what's out there.

Erik Nisbet a Go-To Source in Articles on Egypt Protests

2011-02-14T13:14:00.002-05:00

I thought you all might be interesting in reading some of the articles in which our own Erik Nisbet has been quoted regarding the recent protests in Egypt that brought down Mubarak. As you know, Erik has done a considerable amount of research on political communication in the Middle East, making him an obvious pick to provide commentary and insight.

Big Think on al Jazeera and Egypt http://bigthink.com/ideas/26784

NPR talkshow interview (also on the front page of the main OSU Arts and Sciences webpage currently) http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2011/02/09/al-jazeera-english/

Reuters/Baltimore Sun story based on interview http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/07/industry-us-egypt-aljazeera-usa-idUSTRE71403T20110207

Monkey Cage write-up on our polcomm article and The Atlantic's Daily Dish reference to his research regarding Egypt http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/02/how_al_jazeera_shapes_politica.html and http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/the-al-jazeera-effect.html

Epoch Times interview http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/02/how_al_jazeera_shapes_politica.html

Article in Journalism section at About.Com based on interview http://journalism.about.com/od/trends/a/Is-Al-Jazeera-Anti-Semitic-And-Anti-American.htm

Article at Next Gov based on interview http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110210_2277.php?oref=topnews

Nisbet on anti-Mubarak protests in Egypt

2011-02-04T11:03:00.004-05:00

Erik Nisbet and Teresa Myer’s recent publication in Political Communication (available here) prompted GWU professor of political science John Sides to reflect on Al Jazeera's role in the current situation in Egypt. The post on the Monkey Cage also includes a thoughtful response from Erik on this issue.

On a related note, Erik has also discussed Al Jazeera’s impact on the Egyptian protests in a post of his own on bigthink.com.

Knobloch-Westerwick and Kleinman work accepted at CR

2011-01-21T13:17:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to COPS members Silivia Knobloch-Westerwick and Steve Kleinman for having their paper, “Pre-Election Selective Exposure: Confirmation Bias versus Informational Utility” accepted for publication at Communication Research. As many of you may remember, Steve and Silvia presented this work at COPS in April last year, and a provocative conversation followed.

Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Kleinman, S. (in press). Pre-Election Selective Exposure: Confirmation Bias versus Informational Utility. Communication Research.

Nisbet and Myers Have Lead Article in the New Issue of Political Communication

2011-01-19T18:51:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to Erik Nisbet and Teresa Myers for having their article as the lead paper in the new issue of Political Communication! For more details and access, see below:

Challenging the State: Transnational TV and Political Identity in the Middle East, Pages 347 - 366Authors: Erik C. Nisbet; Teresa A. MyersDOI: 10.1080/10584609.2010.516801Link: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1058-4609&volume=27&issue=4&spage=347&uno_jumptype=alert&uno_alerttype=new_issue_alert,email

Joint meeting with the Interpersonal Communication Research Group

2011-01-18T14:06:00.004-05:00

Please join us this Friday for a joint meeting between COPS and the newly formed Interpersonal Communication Research Group. Chip Eveland will be speaking about his current work in a talk titled, Moving Beyond Standard Practice in the Study of Informal Political.

More about the Interpersonal Communication Research Group:

A new group has been formed based on the growing number of faculty and graduate students with research interests in interpersonal communication. The goal of the group is to provide a relaxed opportunity to discuss recent developments in Interpersonal Communication theory and research as well as research in progress. Faculty and students are also invited to check out our new blog at www.ipcosu.blogspot.com. If you would like to be added as a contributor to the blog, please contact Chip Eveland with your gmail address. We plan to have periodic meetings—day, time, and topics will be announced.

Publishing of Political Communication Methods Sourcebook

2010-12-29T19:21:00.004-05:00

"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).

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

2010-12-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

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.

Geidner heading to University of Tennessee

2010-12-23T08:24:00.004-05:00

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.

AAPOR Student Paper Competition Deadline

2010-12-07T14:16:00.003-05:00

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

COPS Student Publications in November

2010-12-02T12:49:00.002-05:00

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

2010-12-02T10:10:00.001-05:00

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.

Nisbet and Garrett Research Ripped From, and Contributes to, Headlines

2010-10-21T13:16:00.003-04:00

The results of a survey just last month by COPS faculty Erik Nisbet and Kelly Garrett on rumors regarding the mosque near the site of the 9-11 attacks presents some timely and theoretically relevant input into a public opinion issue that has been widely covered in the news. Go here for the OSU press release, and here for a more detailed write-up.

Other News re: our Recent Graduates: Lindsay Hoffman

2010-10-14T10:11:00.004-04:00

Last night on CNN U.S. Senate candidates Coons and O'Donnell (the latter in the national news spotlight in recent weeks) debated each other in an event hosted in part by the University of Delaware Center for Political Communication. Aside from being my BA/MA alma mater, I was happy to see this because my former PhD advisee, Lindsay Hoffman, is now a faculty member at the University of Delaware and is involved in the Center as Coordinator of Research in Politics and Technology. We're all very proud of what Lindsay has accomplished since leaving COPS, and I wanted to give her a shout out!

Terrific Blog Post

2010-10-13T17:39:00.003-04:00

I have to share this terrific blog post from former COP (and current U of Wyoming Cowboy) Kristen Landreville. It's a great -- and honest -- portrait of what it's like going through a PhD program like ours. http://klandreville.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/whoot-whoot/

Congrats to Brian Weeks!

2010-10-05T13:06:00.003-04:00

I just received my September issue of Mass Communication & Society and noticed that Brian Weeks is the first author of the lead manuscript. Congrats, Brian!

UPDATE: The OSU Research Communications Office put out a press release about Brian's study.

Ohio State's School of Communication #1 in Research Production and #3 Overall in Field

2010-10-04T23:14:00.002-04:00

September 28, 2010 - The National Research Council (NRC) has released results of its extensive, five-year study of 83 doctoral programs in the field of communication. The reports reveals The Ohio State University' s School of Communication to be firmly situated among the elite communication programs in the country based on several metrics. The OSU School of Communication faculty achieved an absolute rank of #1 in research activity (e.g., average number of peer-reviewed publications per faculty member). In addition, the School as a whole achieved a #3 ranking in the field based on its achievements along twenty different criteria - these criteria reflected faculty research (e.g., % of faculty with grants), quality of graduate students (e.g., GRE scores), graduate student support (e.g., % of students with full financial support), and a broad range of diversity measures (e.g., % of female faculty, % of female students).

The extensive analyses conducted on the NRC data identified only five programs which could state with 90% certainty that they rank as one of the top 10 programs in the field. Joining OSU's School of Communication on this list are Stanford University's Department of Communication, the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Journalism & Mass Communication, and the Speech Communication program at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign (now the Department of Communication). This is truly elite company and the NRC rankings are a reflection of the significant advancements made by The Ohio State's School of Communication.

It is important to place the NRC rankings in some additional context. The 2010 NRC report is based on data collected only up through the 2005-2006 academic year. OSU's School of Communication has seen its level of research productivity grow exponentially since that time. A quick review of the broad range of works generated by the School 's faculty and graduate students and placed in the field's top peer-reviewed journal outlets offers much hope that the School of Communication is maintaining its steady progress toward becoming the single best place in the country to study communication.

Dr. Kelly Garrett Receives ASCoR Denis McQuail Award 2009

2010-09-29T15:29:00.001-04:00

Our fellow COPS member Kelly Garrett was recently awarded the 2009 ASCoR Denis McQuail Award and was named a 2010-2011 ASCoR Honorary Fellow by the Amsterdam School of Communication Research. The award is based on the best research paper advancing communication theory to be published in an international journal in the previous year. An international jury selected Kelly's 2009 paper in the Journal of Communication entitled "Politically motivated reinforcement seeking: Reframing the selective exposure debate" for the award.

COPS at MAPOR 2010

2010-09-09T10:42:00.001-04:00

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR) annual meeting and conference is held every year in Chicago. COPS always has a strong showing at this conference and many of our students have come away with honors and awards in the annual student research paper competition.

This year, COPS continues to be well represented at this conference with seven papers being presented by COPS members:

Eveland, W. P., Jr., & Kleinman, S. B. (2010, November). Differentiating the general and political discussion networks of bounded groups using social network analysis. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Eveland, W. P., Jr., Morey, A. C., Tchernev, J., & Landreville, K. (2010, November). The who, what, when, where, how, and why of informal political conversations in the United States. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Pingree, R. (2010, November). A novel method of correlation network visualization introduced and applied to mapping political space. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Quenette, A. & Kleinman, S. (2010, November). Revisiting the knowledge gap hypothesis: The influence of media content on political knowledge gaps. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Stoycheff, E. (November 2010). Let the People Speak: Citizens' Perceptions of a Free Press. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Tchernev, J. M., Holbert, R. L., & Hill, M. (2010, November). Comparing Landline versus Cellular Phone Samples: Focusing on Audience, Political Media Use, and the Prediction of Political Media Use. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

Walther, W. O., Holbert, R. L., & Hmielowski, J. D. (2010, November). Studying how and why young viewers are turning to politicla TV satire: Assessment of a moderated-mediation model. Paper accepted at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Chicago, Il.

AEJMC 2010 Conference Report

2010-08-17T12:57:00.001-04:00

COPS was well represented in Denver at the 2010 Association for Education in Mass Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Convention. Below is a list of conference presentations COPS members.

Beam, M. A. (2010). Modeling time in multilevel models. A paper to be presented at the the Communication Theory and Methodology Division at the Association for Education in Mass Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Convention. Denver, CO
Geidner, N. W. (2010). Group involvement and the spiral of silence: Using agent-based modeling to understand opinion expression. Paper presented at the Communication Theory and Methods Division of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Denver, CO Top Student Paper!
Hill, M. R. (2010). Fictional minds and symbolic interaction: How the act of communication facilitates understanding between characters. Paper presented at the Entertainment Studies Interest Group of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Denver, CO
Hoplamazian, G. and S. Knobloch-Westerwick. (August, 2010). Social Self-Esteem Responses to Race Representation in Advertising: Downward Social Comparison and White Guilt. Paper presented at the Advertising Division of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Denver, CO
Hoplamazian, G., & Holbert, R. L. (2010, August). Structural Equation Modeling and the Study of Advertising, 2004-2009. Paper to be presented at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication. Denver, CO.
McCluskey, M. Kim, Y.M. (2010, August). Polarization or Moderaterism? Activist Group Ideology in Newspapers. Paper presented at the Newspaper Research Division of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Denver, CO
Nisbet, E.C. and Meyers, T. (2010, August) Anti-Americanism as a media effect? Arab media, prior cognitions, and public opinion in the Middle East. Paper presented at the Communication Theory and Methods Division of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Denver, CO

In addition, Myiah Hutchens won the Promising Professors competition in the Mass Communication and Society Division and gave a presentation on her teaching philosophy at the conference.

Lastly, several past and present COPS members were elected to leadership positions within AJEMC for the 2011 annual convention. Former COPS member and OSU alumni Heather LaMarre was elected to be co-research chair of the Mass Communication and Society Division. Jason Reneike, another former COPS member and alumnus, was elected research chair of the Communication Theory and Methods (CT&M) division. Myiah Hutchens, who recently graduated and is now at Texas Tech, was also elected as an officer-at-large to CT&M. Erik Nisbet, a current COPS member, was elected to be the co-research chair for the new Political Communication Research Group at AEJMC.

Myiah Hutchens Wins "Promising Professors" Competition

2010-05-13T15:14:00.003-04:00

Please join me in congratulating COPS' own Myiah Hutchens for winning the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication's Mass Communication & Society division's "Promising Professors" competition. She will receive her Promising Professor award at this August's annual meeting. Myiah will take her new title with her as she begins her assistant professor position at Texas Tech in late August. Congrats Myiah!

Hmielowski to attend NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar

2010-04-29T21:08:00.003-04:00

COPS member Jay Hmielowski will be one of 30 communication doctoral students from around the country who will be attending the 2010 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar being held at the University of Utah on July 31-August 2. Jay's proposal, focusing on the role of intra-attitudinal ambivalence in public opinion formation and change, was accepted for presentation after a highly competitive review process. We are proud that Jay will be representing OSU and COPS at the gathering of some of the best young minds in the field. Well done, Jay!

Scholarship for the 2010 ICPSR Summer Program

2010-04-28T12:22:00.002-04:00

A scholarship fund has been established in honor of Warren E. Miller for participation in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) 2010 Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. The fund will provide financial support to outstanding pre-tenure scholars (assistant professors and advanced graduate students) in the social and behavioral sciences so they may attend one or two four-week sessions of the ICPSR Summer Program, held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Recipients of the Miller Scholarship will receive a fee waiver to cover Program enrollment and a stipend to help with expenses while staying in Ann Arbor.

Applicants to the Warren E. Miller Scholarship should have professional interests in one or more of the following areas of research (or in related fields):

Developing a common approach to understanding electoral behavior within or across nations

Understanding the process of democratization in electoral systems
Understanding the link between global politics and local electoral behavior
Understanding how context influences political behavior
Understanding how globalization causes change in political behavior

An application for the Warren E. Miller Scholarship should include:

A completed Summer Program application form, submitted through the online registration system on the Summer Program web site.
A vita
A cover letter from the applicant, explaining his or her scholarly interests, background, and future research plans.
Two letters of recommendation. For applicants who are faculty members, one of these letters should come from his or her Department Chair. For graduate student applicants, one of the letters should come from his or her faculty advisor.
An official transcript (for graduate student applicants only)

Application materials should be submitted electronically. The e-mail address for doing so is: sumprog@icpsr.umich.edu

Please be sure to put “MILLER SCHOLARSHIP AWARD” in the subject line of the message.

If necessary, hard-copy applications for the award also can be mailed to:

Miller Scholarship Award
ICPSR Summer Program
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI 48106

The deadline for applications is May 7, 2010.

Information about the 2010 ICPSR Summer Program, including the Program application form, is available on the ICPSR Summer Program webpage: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the Warren E. Miller Scholarship or the ICPSR Summer Program. E-mail: sumprog@icpsr.umich.edu

Political Communication-related Conference Calendar

2010-04-13T09:59:00.000-04:00

Month	Paper Deadlines	Conferences
January
February	NCA
March		ISA
April	AEJMC	BEA
		MPSA
May		ICA (in US)
		AAPOR/WAPOR
June	MAPOR / ISA	ICA (International)
July
August		AEJMC
September		APSA
October	MPSA
November	ICA	NCA
	AAPOR/WAPOR	MAPOR
December	BEA
	APSA

NCA Papers Accepted

2010-04-07T08:32:00.005-04:00

Several COPS graduate students recently received the good word that their papers have been accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the National Communication Association to be held in San Francisco (November). The COPS members include alumnus Heather LaMarre, now at the University of Minnesota, Kristen Landreville, who will soon be departing for a new position at the University of Wyoming, and current doctoral students Jay Hmielowski and Jayeon Lee. Congrats!

Garrett, R. K., Carnahan, D., & Lynch, E. A turn toward selectivity? Changes in Americans’ exposure to cross-cutting political outlets online. In Selective Exposure and Political Communication panel. Political Communication Division.

Landreville, K., D., Holbert, R. L., & LaMarre, H. L. The influence of late-night TV comedy viewing on political talk: A moderated-mediation model. Political Communication Division.

Hmielowski, J. D., Holbert, R. L., & Lee, J. Predicting the consumption of political TV satire: Affinity for political humor, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report. Political Communication Division.

Fishkin at Mershon

2010-04-06T11:49:00.004-04:00

Wednesday April 14^th from 12:00-1:30 at the Mershon Center (1501 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43201)

“Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation”

There is no paper for the talk.

Prof. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University. He is also professor of political science and communication, director of Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy, and chair of the Department of Communication. Fishkin is author of a number of books including Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (Yale University Press, 1991), The Dialogue of Justice (Yale University Press, 1992 ), and The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (Yale University Press, 1995). He is co-author with Bruce Ackerman of Deliberation Day (Yale University Press, 2004), and his most recent book When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation was published by Oxford University Press in 2009. Fishkin is best known for developing Deliberative Polling and has conducted them in the United States, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece and other countries.

To sign up for this event, please contact Beth Russell at russell.16@osu.eduby Monday, April 12, 2010.

Myiah Hutchens Accepts Faculty Position at Texas Tech

2010-03-17T09:26:00.004-04:00

Congratulations to COPS member Myiah Hutchens, who just yesterday decided to accept an assistant professor position at Texas Tech University! This is a terrific position at a doctoral-granting institution that has really been "on-the-move" in recent years and making very solid hires. Way to go Myiah!

Latest Issue of Journal of Communication

2010-03-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

The OSU School of Communication is well represented in the March 2010 issue of Journal of Communication. First, Lance Holbert, Kelly Garrett, and doctoral student Laurel Gleason published "A New Era of Minimal Effects? A Response to Bennett and Iyengar." Later in the issue School of Communication Director Carroll Glynn and former COPS member (and Andrew Hayes M.A. advisee) Mike Huge published "Hostile Media and the Campaign Trail: Perceived Media Bias in the Race for Governor." Congrats!

Course on Habermas in Poli Sci by Neblo

2010-03-04T09:20:00.003-05:00

Mike Neblo from Political Science has asked that I convey some information about his Spring 2010 graduate course (T/Th 3:30-6:18) on Habermas:

After several years here, I am finally getting to teach a course on Habermas (PS766), and wanted to reach out to any interested grad students in communications. I have not finalized the syllabus, but it is worth noting that I intend the course as an overview of his whole system of thought, not just his political philosophy. So we will be spending some time on his epistemology, theory of modernity and communication, and discourse ethics, before finishing up with his political thought and applications. If you think that this would be a good fit for any of your students, I would be eager to have them!

NSF awards $10 million for American National Election Studies

2010-02-26T20:20:00.000-05:00

The American National Election Studies (ANES) is one of the most important tools for political communication research in the United States. The project has collected data on voting, political behavior, and public opinion in every presidential election since 1948, as well as most midterm elections. The NSF just awarded $10 million to the project for the 2010 midterm and 2012 presidential elections which will allow the project to futher expand its data collection capabilities. This is great news for political communication researchers!

TODAY: Talk by democratic theorist Mark Warren

2010-02-19T08:52:00.004-05:00

Democratic theorist Mark Warren is giving a talk at 2:30 this afternoon (2/19) titled "Two trust-based uses of minipublics in democratic systems". The talk is sponsored by the Department of Political Science and will be held in Derby 2030. More information about Professor Warren is available here: http://www.politics.ubc.ca/index.php?id=2516 and a paper on the same subject is here: http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/intranet/poltheory/papers-2010/warren-Dec-2009.pdf

COPS ICA Achievements

2010-01-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

COPS members obtained a 100% acceptance rate for papers submitted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA) to be held this June in Singapore. The acceptance rate for the conference as a whole was substantially lower, 54%. Congrats to all COPS authors! Outstanding work! COPS members Holbert, Garrett, Geidner, and Hill will be attending the conference, and it appears that they will be quite busy during their time abroad.

Here is the list of accepted works (alphabetical order):

Garrett, R. K. (2010). The troubling consequences of online election rumoring. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Geidner, N. W. (2010). Perceived network connection: Measuring individual-level connection to voluntary groups. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Holbert, R. L. & Geidner, N. W. (2010). A theory of political campaign media connectedness (PCMC), part II: Clarifying the roles of debate viewing and online media. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Holbert, R. L., & Hill, M. R. (2010). The promotion of the American cable TV news personality and its influences. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Kline, S., & Hill, M. R. "Editorial Inkblots: A Comparative Analysis of Presidential Election Cartoons from 1960, 1980, and 2008." Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Matthes, J., Hayes, A. F., Rojas, H., Shen, F., Min, S. J., & Dylko, I. (2010). Testing the spiral of silence theory in nine countries: An individual difference perspective. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Slater, M. D., & Gleason, L. S. (2010). Theory Development Strategies in Communication Science. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Sohn, D. & Geidner, N. W. (2010). Collective dynamics of the spiral of silence: The role of quasi-statistical monitoring. Paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

COPS Alum Lindsay Hoffman Making Her Mark at University of Delaware

2010-01-15T13:03:00.002-05:00

OSU COPS alumnus Lindsay Hoffman was recently named the Coordinator of Research in Politics and Technology for the new Center for Political Communication just established at UD (www.udel.edu/cpc). She will be coordinating research funding for faculty and students, as well as organizing scholarly and public presentations of research associated with the Center. Moreover, Dr. Hoffman is co-P.I. on a $50,000 grant from the University of Delaware Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center for a project titled: “Political Communication and Engagement in the 21st Century.” http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2010/dec/ihrc121409.html

COPS Winter 2010 Schedule of Events

2010-01-13T10:26:00.004-05:00

1-8 Teresa Myers Job Talk

1-22 Erik Nisbet, “Anti-Americanism as Media Effect? Media selection, exposure and public opinion about the United States in the Middle East”

2-5 Ivan Dylko, “Explicating Political User-Generated Content and Theorizing About Its Effects on Democracy Using Mix-of-Attributes Approach”

2-19 Discussion of series of Journal of Communication works on the future of political communication effects research:

Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication, 58, 707-731.
Holbert, R. L., Garrett, R. K., & Gleason, L. S. (2010). A new era of minimal effects? A response to Bennett and Iyengar. Journal of Communication, 60, 15-34.
Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2010).The shifting foundations of political communication: Responding to a defense of the media effects paradigm. Journal of Communication, 60, XX-XX.

3-5 Jay Hmielowski, “Developing a Measure of Affinity for Political Humor” and Megan Hill, “Striking Similarities: Making the Match between Cable TV News Personalities and Interpersonal Communication Style”

3-12 Visitation Day for Prospective Graduate Students for Incoming 2010-2011 class

Recent COPS Alumnus Heather LaMarre Inaugural AEJMC Scholar

2010-01-04T10:16:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Heather LaMarre (Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota; PhD, OSU, 2009) for being among the inaugural recipients of the AEJMC Scholars Program. LaMarre's project, "Citizen Journalism and Social Media in the 2010 Election: A Multi-Method Approach to Understanding Emerging Trends and Innovations in Mass Communication Campaigns" has been funded with $2500 through the program.

Landreville accepts University of Wyoming position

2009-12-21T17:53:00.003-05:00

I am pleased to announce that PhD candidate and COPS member Kristen Landreville has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Wyoming. Kristen will continue with us at The Ohio State University as she finishes up her dissertation through the upcoming Winter and Spring quarters, but will then be heading out West to begin her career. Please join me in offering Kristen our best wishes. Congrats, Kristen!

Poli Comm @ AEJMC

2009-12-10T15:17:00.002-05:00

AEJMC tweeted the following last night:

"AEJMC has also approved the creation of a Political Communication Interest Group to start in October 2010."

A sport communication interest group was also created.

LaMarre and Landreville Manuscript Published in Mass Communication & Society

2009-11-25T09:53:00.003-05:00

The Autumn 2009 issue of the journal Mass Communication & Society just crossed my desk. In it is an interesting paper by COPS alumnus and current University of Minnesota professor Heather LaMarre and COPS' own Kristen Landreville. Their paper, "When is Fiction as Good as Fact? Comparing the Influence of Documentary and Historical Reenactment Films on Engagement, Affect, Issue Interest, and Learning" is part of a special symposium in the issue on documentary films. Congratulations Heather and Kristen!

A Whirly MAPOR

2009-11-25T09:41:00.007-05:00

COPS members returned from the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR) conference in Chicago this past weekend a little smarter -- and a little sore. In addition to the usual attendance at sessions and making paper presentations, some of us made a brief side trip Friday evening to play a game of "Whirlyball." I've appended a few photos below; in the photos are Kim Rios Morrison, Elizabeth Stoycheff, Whitney Walther, Katie Benski, and Ivan Dylko; other attendees were COPS members John Tchernev, Kyle Messer, and myself. Everyone had lots of fun playing Whirlyball -- despite issues of whiplash! Also, Ivan Dylko made an important impact with his presentation -- generating a posting on the Media Convergence blog acknowledging his contribution.

Hayes and Myers podcast from Boston University

2009-11-24T14:34:00.004-05:00

COPS members Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers were interviewed last week by Boston University's Jim Shanahan (Professor of Communication) about their two recent studies on war casualties and public opinion. The podcast can be listened to online or downloaded from iTunes. Click here.

Nov. 23: U.S. Census Bureau director to address Faculty Club gathering

2009-11-20T08:01:00.002-05:00

Robert M. Groves, director, U.S. Census Bureau will deliver "An Overview of the 2010 Decennial Census" from 1:30-2:30 p.m. Monday (11/23) at the Faculty Club Grand Lounge. President Gee will introduce Groves, who will speak briefly about the upcoming census, then take questions from the audience. The reception is open to the community, and is presented by the Initiative in Population Research and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs. Light refreshments will be served. Read more: http://ipr.osu.edu/announcements/events/

COPS Faculty panelists on "Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age"

2009-11-19T11:30:00.003-05:00

Two COPS faculty, Dr. Michael McCluskey and Dr. Osei Appiah, are panelists for "Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age," a symposium being held at the OSU Moritz School of Law on Friday, November 20th. The symposium is sponsored by Literacy Studies at OSU and will discuss the Report of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in Democracy (see www.knightcomm.org for more information). Dr. McCluskey will be on a panel discussing "Maximizing the Availability of Relevant and Credible Information" and Dr. Appiah will be on a panel focused on "Enhancing the Information Capacity of Individuals."

2009-11-16T09:30:00.010-05:00

COPS members head northwest to Chicago this week to attend the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research meeting. Those who attend the conference will see us bring the same kind of enthusiasm and excitement to Chicago as we brought to Ohio Stadium this weekend. Pictured here are COPS members Tucker Gordner (O), Chip Eveland (H), Andrew Hayes (I), and John Tchernev (O) after OSU beats Iowa to secure an invitation to the 2010 Rose Bowl.

OSU - Iowa Bet is On

2009-11-12T16:34:00.007-05:00

COPS members, the stakes for the OSU - Iowa game this weekend just got bigger. Not only will this game determine whether OSU or Iowa will represent the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl, but there is also public humiliation (or at least embarrassment) on the line. Please see above the wager I've made with friend Julie Andsager, Professor at the University of Iowa. In short, the loser must wear some team apparel of the winning team during a MAPOR presentation, and photos will be taken and publicly displayed. Since I have absolutely no desire to wear Iowa gear next week, please devote all your cognitive engergy to support a Buckeye win on Satursday. GO BUCKS! P.S. Here's a link to Dhavan Shah of UW-Madison wearing an OSU cap to teach his class after losing a similar bet a few years ago.

Congratulations to COPS Alum Fei "Chris" Shen

2009-10-23T09:09:00.004-04:00

After defending his dissertation proposal about this time last year, Chris Shen submitted a revised theory paper based upon it to Communication Theory. After some revisions, the manuscript was accepted and is now published. Congratulations, Chris! The manuscript is:

Shen, F. (2009). An economic theory of political communication effects: How the economy conditions political learning. Communication Theory, 19(4).

Mershon Center grants

2009-10-20T09:19:00.004-04:00

The Mershon Center for International Security Studies is currently accepting applications for grants for faculty and student research pertinent to international security. For details, see http://mershoncenter.osu.edu/grants/grants/grants.htm

COPS Scholars In the News: Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers

2009-10-16T15:35:00.007-04:00

COPS members Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers have two forthcoming papers examining the "casualty hypothesis" and support for war in Iraq, one in Mass Communication and Society and the other in International Journal of Public Opinion Research. OSU has put out a press release/announcement (see below) about their interesting and timely research.

Deaths to local soldiers matter in shaping war opinion
Americans think locally when they consider whether the loss of U.S. troops overseas warrants troop withdrawals, suggests a new nationwide study, co-authored by Andrew Hayes, associate professor of communication and Teresa Myers, a graduate student in communication at Ohio State. Researchers found that people were more likely to support withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq if one or more soldiers from their home state were killed there within the past two to three weeks, regardless of how many soldiers from other parts of the country had been killed recently. Read more: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/casualties.htm. They were recently interviewed by WOSU about this research. You can listen to the WOSU news report and interview online.

Cameo on The Colbert Report for Heather LaMarre

2009-10-09T14:45:00.007-04:00

The Colbert Report played a quick MSNBC clip of Heather LaMarre (recent OSU PhD grad and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota) describing a study about ambiguous message processing and satire.

Michael Beam and I co-authored the study with her, which earned Heather an interview with Keith Olbermann on May 1, 2009 (the interview that the Colbert Report is using in this clip).

The clip is comparing Glenn Beck to Stephen Colbert and their sincerity of opinion. Heather's cameo is about 3:30 minutes into the clip. Congrats to Heather for making the Colbert Report!

Link: http://tinyurl.com/ygkhfjo

NSF funding for Political Science

2009-10-09T10:57:00.001-04:00

Sen. Coburn (R-OK) has proposed an amendment to eliminate NSF’s political science program. Although the American Political Science Association (APSA) has not issued a formal statement on the issue at this time, the organization has created a page were you can learn more about the proposal: http://www.apsanet.org/content_67297.cfm. For his part, Sen. Coburn has released several documents explaining his motivation for drafting the measure, one of which can be found here: http://bit.ly/2osqCR.

COPS email list

2009-09-30T10:55:00.010-04:00

If you'd like to receive COPS emails, including copies of blog posts, you can now subscribe to the COPS email list. To subscribe, send an email as follows:

To: listserver@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [anything]
Message text: "subscribe osucops Firstname Lastname"

The quotes around the text aren't required, and the name that you type in the message text will be used to identify you to other list members.

Communication Idol

2009-05-20T13:35:00.001-04:00

Apparently three COPS faculty are viewed by the graduate students in an odd, pop-culture manner. Hayes, Holbert and Eveland are seen as three American (or Communication) Idol judges when evaluating and commenting on student presentations in the meetings. Hayes is Simon, Holbert is Paula, and Eveland is Randy. Thanks to Greg Hoplamazian for his excellent Photoshop skills in constructing this group photo of us... :-)

Myiah Hively Takes Not One, but TWO Top Student Paper Awards at AEJMC

2009-05-20T09:53:00.006-04:00

I'm thrilled to share with you that Myiah Hively has won not only the top student paper award in the Mass Communication & Society division for this year's AEJMC conference, but also the top student paper award (i.e., Chaffee-McLeod Award) in the Communication Theory & Methodology division. Terrific work Myiah!

This, combined with the Dylko et al. paper winning a top-3 paper award in the communication technology (CTEC) division and Nori Comello winning a top-3 paper in the CT&M division (giving us 2 of the 3 student paper awards in CT&M this year), means OSU is taking a large bulk of the student paper awards from the relevant divisions this year.

I should also note that this is the third year in a row that a COPS student has won the top paper award in the MC&S division; Chris Shen won the top student paper award in that division two years ago, then a top-3 paper award in the division last year. Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville, and Michael Beam won the top student paper in that division last year, so we had 2 out of the three winners in MC&S last year just as we have 2 of the top three papers in CT&M this year.

So, congratulations to Myiah and all the others who worked hard and produced some terrific papers! We are all very proud of you.

Oh, and by the way, Myiah, Ivan, and Nori will all be on the academic job market this year, so their paper awards are well timed!

Grad Students Earn AEJMC Top 3 Student Paper Award

2009-05-18T09:19:00.003-04:00

Four COPS graduate students, Ivan Dylko, Kristen Landreville, Michael Beam, and Nick Geidner, were notified recently that they received a Top 3 Student Paper Award from the Communication Technology Division (CTEC) of the AEJMC. The award-winning paper is entitled, "Gatekeeping and YouTube: News Filters and the Intermedia Dynamic in the Age of User-Generated Content." This paper will be presented in August at the annual meeting of the AEJMC in Boston, MA. Congrats to these graduate students for their fine scholarship. Well done!

Colbert Study reported on by Huffington Post, Keith Olbermann

2009-04-27T21:33:00.006-04:00

COPS members,

Check it out - the LaMarre, Landreville, and Beam IJPP study on The Colbert Report is being reported on by The Huffington Post (link offered below). In addition, Keith Olbermann referenced the article on his MSNBC program, Countdown (link offered below as well). Way to go Heather, Kristen, and Michael! Very exciting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/colbert-study-conservativ_n_191899.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbCvipi171s

Also see our own Heather LaMarre appearing on MSNBC for an interview with Keith Olbermann:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30527340#30527340

COPS Students - IJPP Publication

2009-03-27T10:43:00.004-04:00

OSU COPS graduate students (Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville, and Michael Beam) had their work, "The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report," published in the International Journal of Press/Politics. Congrats!

Reference:

LaMarre, H. L., Landreville, K. D., & Beam, M. A. (2009). The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report. International Journal of Press/Politics, 14, 212-231.

Recent COPS Graduates Publish Lead Article in JOBEM

2009-03-26T15:45:00.005-04:00

Recent OSU Ph.D. graduates and COPS members Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson have the lead article in the current issue of Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Their article, based on data gathered as part of the Kids Voting Central Ohio research project, is titled "The Effect of Television Viewing on Adolescents' Civic Participation: Political Efficacy as a Mediating Mechanism."

Shen Gets Sole-Authored Comm Theory publication, job offer

2009-03-11T16:55:00.005-04:00

Congratulations to Fei "Chris" Shen, who in the past week or so has received both an academic job offer and a sole-authored manuscript (based on the theory section of his dissertation) accepted for publication in Communication Theory ("An economic theory of political communication effects: How the economy conditions political learning"). Chris has accepted a job offer as assistant profesor at the City University of Hong Kong. Tell Chris "congrats" when you see him lurking the halls...

OSU COPS in Communication Research and Political Communication

2009-03-03T16:22:00.004-05:00

The new issue of Communication Research is out, and in it 4 of the 6 articles are authored or co-authored by School of Communication faculty. Two of those four articles are particularly relevant to COPS and were written by COPS members. Lance, Heather, and Kristen co-authored the first, "Fanning the flames of a Partisan Divide: Debate Viewing, Vote Choice, and Perceptions of Vote Count Accuracy." The other is by Young Mie: "Issue Publics in the New Information Environment: Selectivity, Domain Specificity, and Extremity."

Meanwhile, over in the current issue of Political Communication -- a special issue on communication and political socialization -- we have two articles by COPS members. First, Myiah and I authored "Contextual Antecedents and Political Consequences of Adolescent Political Discussion, Discussion Elaboration, and Network Diversity." And, Carroll Glynn, Mike Huge, and Carole Lunney authored "The Influence of Perceived Social Norms on College Students' Intention to Vote."

Congrats to all the COPS members keeping our journals full of interesting and high quality research!

OSU School of Communication Ranks Highly in Current CIOS Study

2009-02-04T16:16:00.005-05:00

I thought I'd share the current rankings through the quantitative CIOS study for areas relevant to the COPS group. We rank in the Top Five in the following research areas, based on this study using data on journal publications: Political Elections, News, Newspapers, Technology, Methodology, Theory, and Public Opinion. In fact, we're ranked #1 for Broadcasting & Media. Way to go COPS members for publishing your work and putting us up so high in the rankings! If you're interested in seeing the sorts of publications that led to this ranking, just view our list of COPS member publications.

Myers, Hayes, win separate ICA paper awards

2009-01-21T20:50:00.012-05:00

COPS Ph.D. student Teresa Myers has again won a top student paper prize, this time in the Political Communication division of the International Communication Association 2009. Her paper is titled "Communication and Foreign Policy Opinions: Attention to News, Policy Framing, and Willingness to Engage." At about the same time, I learned that a paper I submitted to the Information Systems division of ICA 2009 with Joerg Matthes of the University of Zurich, "A Primer for Communication Researchers on Probing Interactions in Linear Models, with SPSS and SAS Implementations" placed in the top 4 of that division as well.

LaMarre Accepts University of Minnesota Position

2008-12-22T15:39:00.004-05:00

Heather LaMarre, OSU School of Communication doctoral candidate and long-time COPS member, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. The position will begin on August 1, 2009 and Heather will be missed when she and her family make their way to the Twin Cities. However, there is much friendship and scholarship to share between now and then. Congrats, Heather!

Myers wins second MAPOR award

2008-11-24T22:38:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Teresa Myers for winning in the MAPOR Fellows student paper competition for her paper titled "Public Opinion About Public Opinion: An Examination of the Use of Public Opinion Polls as a Normative Political Communication Tool Between the Public and Representatives." This makes the second time Teresa has received a MAPOR student paper award and six consecutive years that an OSU COPS graduate student has placed in the top three in this competition. Good work Teresa!

Two Forthcoming Papers By Garrett Address Political Selectivity

2008-11-10T14:56:00.003-05:00

I thought you would like to know of two forthcoming papers by our own Kelly Garrett that address the issue of selectivity in political media consumption. Congrats, Kelly!

Garrett, R. K. (Forthcoming). Politically motivated reinforcement seeking: Reframing the selective exposure debate Journal of Communication.

Garrett, R. K. (Forthcoming). Echo chambers online?: Politically motivated selective exposure among Internet news users. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

The "Facebook Effect" and African-American Enthusiasm in 2008 Election

2008-11-03T16:50:00.003-05:00

The OSU Lantern has a couple more articles out today on the results from the CBS News/UWIRE 2008 Youth Election poll. One article focuses on trends in Internet and media use among college voters while the other examines the level of election enthusiasm and participation among African-American students. Unfortunately, the online editions of the articles are missing all the cool graphics and charts with all the data comparisons - you have to read the print edition to see those.

CBS/UWIRE Election Poll Results

2008-10-28T19:52:00.003-04:00

CBS News/UWIRE released the results of the their 2008 Election Youth Poll on political preferences, engagement, and mobilization among college youth yesterday (see previous posts on this project here and here).

The results for the OSU campus may be read in the Lantern. Overall, OSU Columbus students favored Obama over McCain 63 to 33%. UWIRE has a write-up on the overall results. The detailed topline results by state and the full questionnaire is available from CBS News.

Moving forward, COPS members will be analyzing these results, and a planned post-election panel survey to OSU and Cornell respondents, for academic publication.

Princeton Panel on Accuracy and Methodology of State Polling in 2008 Election

2008-10-23T00:38:00.006-04:00

On October 7th Princeton University held a panel on the accuracy and methodology of state polls in the election, composed of several notable methodologists and statisticians. The YouTube broadcast of the symposium is online and very engrossing.

Here is a brief description: Panelists- Christopher Achen, Professor of Social Sciences and Associate Chair of the Department of Politics at Princeton University; Andrew Gelman, professor in the Departments of Statistics and Political Science at Columbia University and director of the University`s Applied Statistics Center; and Larry Hugick, Chairman of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Moderator: Alan Krueger, the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School and Director of the Survey Research Center at Princeton. (Oct 7, 2008 at Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Co-sponsored by the Survey Research Center, the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, and the New York and New Jersey chapters of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.)

Early Voting Data at United States Election Project

2008-10-20T11:23:00.003-04:00

A great resource for secondary data on voting and elections is Dr. Michael McDonald's United States Election Project website at George Mason University. It includes data on turnout trends, voter registration trends, early voting, etc.

A recent post provides data on early voting in all 50 states for the 2008 election and in some cases provides the demographic and party breakdowns for early voters. A great resource for political junkies.

CBS News Poll Closes

2008-10-20T11:13:00.002-04:00

Last night at midnight, the CBS News 08 Youth Election Poll closed (see previous post on this project). Over 143,000 students were contacted in 47 schools across four states. The overall response rate was 18% for a total of 25,797 completed surveys. OSU was included in the sample, with 499 completed surveys and a response rate of 16.6%.

The full survey results will be released by CBS News, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the OSU Lantern (with a focus on OSU results compared to the rest of the schools) on October 27th. After the election a COPS team will be delving into the full survey results for academic analysis and publication. We will keep you posted on the findings.

The Future of Democracy

2008-10-20T09:22:00.000-04:00

nterested in learning about how technology is changing our democracy? How have YouTube debates, bloggers, iReporters, and political mashups impacted the presidential election? Can technology reinvigorate our democracy by connecting more people to the political process?

The Digital Union presents "The Future of Democracy," a panel discussion with Peter Shane, Professor of Law and a leading figure in the field of cyberdemocracy, and Dan Shellenbarger, director of the Ohio Channel and an Emmy award winning producer. This event will take place in the Learning Collaboration Studio (SEL 060) from 2:30-4 pm on Wednesday October 29th. RSVP to gjestvang.1@osu.edu.

Peter M. Shane, Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law: One the nation's foremost authorities on the law of the presidency, Professor Shane is also a leading figure in the newly emerging field of cyberdemocracy, which studies the use of the Internet and other information technologies to facilitate citizen participation in politics and government. His work in this field includes research funded by the NSF on the development of software to structure community-based discussions on complex policy issues. He has edited "Democracy Online: The Prospects of Political Renewal Through the Internet" and published widely on the topics of voting rights, redistricting, and reapportionment.

Dan Shellenbarger, The Ohio Channel: Dan Shellenbarger is an Emmy Award winning video director and editor who helped found and currently manages the Ohio Channel. A new concept in public affairs programming, the Ohio Channel combines Statehouse coverage with locally produced PBS programs to give a statewide perspective on issues that affect all Ohioans. In addition, the Ohio Channel encodes, hosts, and streams all coverage of state government proceedings for distribution on the Internet. Using Flash, RSS, and web tools, the Ohio Channel seeks to provide vitual access to all aspects of state government. Shellenbarger also serves as a technical editor and reviewer for the video publishing industry and is a video arts instructor for the art department at The Ohio State University.

More on Rivalries

2008-10-13T16:21:00.005-04:00

Last fall there was a post about rivalries, which included a photo of University of Wisconsin professor Dhavan Shah wearing an OSU cap while teaching an undergraduate class at UW -- the result of a wager made when several Wisconsin faculty and students came to Columbus for the big OSU-UW game. This past weekend I went to Gainesville, FL to watch the Florida Gators battle the LSU Tigers. As most of you know, these are the two teams our Buckeyes have lost National Championship games to the last two years. My logic -- other than taking an opportunity to go to the game with my brother, who lives in Florida -- was to get to see, up close and personal, one of those two teams lose. ;-) Anyhow, I post this shot mostly for COPS' own Kristen Landreville, who earned her BA and MA from Florida. Oh, and to show OSU representing inside The Swamp. BTW, the Gators won 51-21.

Ohio Again "THE" Battleground State in 2008

2008-10-09T12:46:00.002-04:00

A report in the Columbus Dispatch today indicates that Ohio is once again the major target for the presidential candidates in 2008. Last week, more money was spent on political ads in Ohio than in any other state in the country when the McCain and Obama expenditures are combined. That puts us in a fantastic position to not only observe the election, but to study it as well.

Read more here.

OSU/COPS Participates in CBS News '08 Youth Election Poll

2008-10-06T12:07:00.003-04:00

The OSU Lantern ran a front-page story today about the CBS News/WIRE Youth '08 Poll today. The survey queries full-time undergraduate students at 45 universities and colleges, including OSU, about their electoral preferences, campaign activities, new media use, and campaign information sources. Approximately 16,000 students across four battleground states (OH, PA, CO, and NC) are expected to complete the survey. The topline results of the survey will be released October 27th.

Based on an arrangement with CBS News, members the COPS team including myself, Michael Beam, Myiah Hively, and Nick Geidner will have access to the data once the survey is completed for academic analysis and publication. We will keep you posted on the results.

Eveland receives UD Presidential Citation award

2008-10-02T13:48:00.005-04:00

Congratulations to Chip Eveland for his recent receipt of the University of Delaware's Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement award. This award goes to graduates of the University of Delaware (where Chip completed an M.A. and where one of his former Ph.D. students, Lindsay Hoffman, is now an assistant professor) who, according to their web page, "exhibit great promise in their professional career and/or public service activities"

Law School Winter Course

2008-09-30T18:33:00.001-04:00

The message below was sent to me by Peter Shane. Some of you may be interested in this course...

As promised, I am writing in the hope that you might be able to publicize to your students my winter quarter (for them) course in The Internet, Democracy, and the Law. The course description appears below. Many thanks, Peter

THE INTERNET, LAW AND DEMOCRACY
Professor Peter Shane

Since the advent of the Internet, hopes have loomed large for its potential role in invigorating the quality of democratic life in both developing and post-industrial countries. This course will analyze the ways in which the production, consumption, and legal regulation of Internet speech and digital technologies shape the Internet's political impact on democracy, with special, but not exclusive reference to the experience of the United States.

The course will begin with an introduction to the Internet as a technological and political phenomenon, plus a brief survey of democratic theory. We will then consider the Internet as an information medium, as we might consider newspapers or broadcast journalism. A third section of the course will look at the Internet as a vehicle for governance and political action.

Our readings will introduce the idea of "e-democracy," and the challenges posed for e-democracy by issues of access, inclusion, and the digital divide. We will then consider the uses of the Internet for mobilizing interest groups, conducting electoral campaigns, as well as the phenomenon of "e-government." Following this survey, we will consider how law treats the Internet in its capacity as a "public square"or general forum for free speech. Specific topics will include fighting words, national security limits on speech, the regulation of obscenity, and defamation. We will then discuss the legal regulation of digital technologies as its affects their democratic prospects. Of particular concern will be debates over treating internet service providers as common carriers, mandating "net neutrality," promoting broadband deployment, and regulating technologies for sharing information. We will take a brief look at copyright issues and their potential impact on democracy, and then survey political and legal perspectives on data mining, data protection and freedom of information.

In order to accommodate potential enrollment by graduate students from other departments, the course is offered during the College of Law spring semester, but compressed into thirty 70-minute sessions taught over the ten-week winter quarter. Grading will be based 70 per cent on an all-essay take-home final examination, 20 per cent on student contributions to an online discussion forum, and 10 per cent on class participation. Because the College of Law spring semester begins one week later than Winter Quarter, 2009, graduate students from other departments will start this course during the second week of the quarter, and will be responsible only for the material in Classes 1-27. They will be welcome to attend the last three classes, which focus on the law of privacy, but attendance will be optional and the exam for non-law students will not cover this material. Law students and non-law students will be graded on separate curves.

Our primary texts will be Andrew Chadwick, Internet Politics: States, Citizens and New Communication Technologies (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Madeleine Schachter and Joel Kurtzberg, Law of Internet Speech (Carolina Academic Press, 3d ed., 2008).

COPS alumnus in the thick of TN election polling

2008-09-30T09:11:00.008-04:00

COPS Ph.D. alumnus Jason Reineke, only a few months after graduation, is already getting attention with his work running the MTSU Poll. Here we seem him interviewed by local news discussing findings from a recent poll regarding the race between Obama and McCain in Tennessee. While completing the Ph.D., Jason also completed the graduate interdisciplinary specialization in survey research, which no doubt increased his value on the job market and helped him secure this position.

COPS Globetrotters

2008-09-24T11:28:00.003-04:00

In the past couple of weeks COPS members have been traveling the globe sharing their research with colleagues and students in the U.S. and abroad. For instance, Andrew Hayes just returned from a trip to England and Amsterdam. In England, he presented the paper "Self-Censorship as a Psychological Syndrome" to the Morrell Centre for Toleration Workshop on Self-Censorship at the University of York. He then hopped a plane to the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCOR) to deliver a workshop on applied statistics. Meanwhile, Lance Holbert -- feeling the first chill of autumn in Columbus -- flew south to the University of Texas at Austin to participate in a gathering of 20 political communication scholars to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landmark agenda setting study of McCombs and Shaw.

Fortunately, as we start the first day of the autumn quarter, our friends are back in Columbus safe and sound.

Meta Analysis of Election Polls 2008

2008-09-22T15:34:00.001-04:00

Princeton is at it again this year, with its meta-analysis of election polls. COPS members with an interest in politics, public opinion, and methodology (i.e., every single one of you) will find their web page very interesting, and even addicting.

Football, of sorts

2008-09-12T19:49:00.006-04:00

In spite of the OSU vs. USC hoopla of late, it isn't all about football at OSU. Ok, maybe football matters, but sometimes of a different kind. The Columbus Cre w is currently #1 in the MLS, and we have a number of soccer fans, students and faculty, who enjoy attending the Crew games. For instance, here we see Jorg Matthes, Erik Nisbet, Andrew Hayes, and Ray Pingree watching the Crew win again. Maybe it doesn't look that exciting from this photo, but it is. Granted, if you really want to have fun, you have to hang with the grad students in the fan section.

Young Mie's article in Journal of Communication

2008-09-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

You may be interested in reading the press release related to the paper published by Young Mie Kim and former graduate student John Vishak in the Journal of Communication. This study, about the relative informational effects of network news and late night comedy programs, taps into a topic that has received a lot of attention in recent years. I expect that this study is going to generate some news coverage both locally and nationally. Congrats to Young Mie and John on their interesting study being published!

More Forthcoming Faculty and Student Publications

2008-09-10T10:16:00.004-04:00

Here are just a few of the forthcoming faculty publications from COPS group members that I have learned about. I'm sure there are more to follow!

William Eveland and Myiah Hively, "Political discussion frequency, network size, and 'heterogeneity' of discussion as predictors of political knowledge and participation" in Journal of Communication.

Myiah Hively and William Eveland, "Contextual antecedents and political consequences of adolescent political discussion, discussion elaboration, and network diversity" in Political Communication.

Lance Holbert, Heather LaMarre, and Kristen Landreville, "Fanning the flames of a partisan divide: The role of debate viewing in the formation of partisan-driven post-election evaluations of personal vote count accuracy" in Communication Research.

Young Mie Kim, “Issue publics in the new information environment: Selectivity, domain-specificity, and extremity” in Communication Research.

Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers, “Testing the 'proximate casualties hypothesis': Local troop loss, attention to news, and support for military intervention” in Mass Communication and Society.

LaMarre, Beam and Landreville Paper and Shen Paper Accepted at Press/Politics

2008-09-10T10:07:00.002-04:00

The LaMarre, Beam and Landreville paper that won the top student paper award in AEJMC's Mass Communication & Society division last month -- "The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report" -- was recently accepted for publication in the journal Press/Politics. Congrats Heather, Michael, and Kristen! This follows up the acceptance of Chris Shen's #2 student paper award winner in the same division -- "Staying alive: The impact of media momentum on candidacy attrition in the 1980-2004 primaries" -- also accepted for publication in Press/Politics. Congrats Chris!

A Successful AEJMC

2008-08-12T17:00:00.004-04:00

I wanted to express my pride in our COPS graduate students who attended AEJMC this year. In addition to the #1 student paper by Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville and Michael Beam and the #2 student paper by Fei "Chris" Shen (both in the Mass Communication & Society division), a number of excellent papers were presented by our students. Moreover, I know that our COPS PhD students who are on the job market this year -- Heather, Chris, and S. J. Min -- all made favorable impressions with faculty at the various schools that were recruiting at AEJMC. So, congratulations to all of you who were there and presenting -- and let's keep the momentum going!

Oh, and a shout out to Osei Appiah, who not only presented a Top Three paper in the Communication Theory & Methodology division (with Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick), but also pledged his allegiance to the COPS group during the presentation. Go Osei!