New publications by COPS members

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!