Garrett at Colloquium on Friday

For those who aren't out of town attending the NCA conference, Kelly Garrett will be giving a talk on Friday during colloquium that will be of interest to COPS members.

Social media and the U.S. Presidential Election

In the wake of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, controversy about the role of social media in the political process has been intense.  These technologies have been blamed for promoting disinformation and incivility, contributing to political polarization, and creating echo chambers.  This talk will bring empirical evidence to bear on these sometimes hyperbolic claims. Using three-wave panel data collected from representative samples of Americans in 2012 and 2016, I examine evidence of both the harms and benefits of social media, paying particular attention to the role of Facebook.

New Research from Chip, Osei, and Paul Beck

New work by Drs. William Eveland, Osei Appiah, and Paul Beck appearing in the journal Social Networks modified the often-used name generation technique and, through this modification, found that people’s social networks are more diverse than previously considered. Their article entitled “Americans are more exposed to difference than we think: Capturing hidden exposure to political and racial difference” is free to download here until the end of the year. Congrats on this Derby Hall collaboration!

Upcoming Conference: The 2016 U.S Presidential Election: Tumult at home, retreat abroad?

The Mershon Center for International Security Studies is hosting a conference on the 2016 U.S Presidential Election at OSU on November 3rd and 4th. 

The conference provides the opportunity to attend political communication presentations led by prominent scholars from varying universities. In addition to hearing from visiting scholars, our very own Kelly Garrett and Erik Nisbet will be speaking.

The schedule, complete with the titles of the presentations and a list of scholars, is listed here:

https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/eventcalendar/eventdetail/632/-/the-2016-u-s-presidential-election-tumult-at-home-retreat-abroad.html

Registration is required for the conference, so don't forget to say you're going!

Congrats to Hillary and Matt!

Check out this forthcoming (already available online!) article by COPS folks Dr. Hillary Shulman and Ph.D. student Matt Sweitzer in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology. The paper, "Varying Metacognition through Public Opinion Questions: How Language Can Affect Political Engagement," found was that when you ask students political survey questions using very simple language (using easy words and avoiding political jargon where possible), students report liking politics more and report being confident in their political abilities. This has implications for greater engagement of otherwise disengaged citizens in our democracy, and is part of an expanding program of research Hillary and Matt are working on. Check out this in press paper here: 
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X17707557

Former COPS Member Interviews Biden, Kasich

Former COPS member and OSU Ph.D. Dr. Lindsay Hoffman is interviewing Joe Biden and John Kasich today. Watch the live stream at 1pm: http://sites.udel.edu/udlive/

Joe Biden & John Kasich, Bridging the Divides

Join Joe Biden and John Kasich for a conversation on divides facing the nation. In partnership with the Biden Institute, the Center for Political Communication presents a special National Agenda “As We Stand | Divided” program featuring the former Vice President and Gov. Kasich of Ohio. They will discuss how to bridge the many political and partisan divides that exist in Washington, DC, today.

COPS Mini Retreat

Members of the COPS group attended a mini-retreat, organized by Dr. Hillary Shulman, during OSU's fall break this past Thursday. 

The mini-retreat contained long-form presentations and a high-density panel, during which graduate students and faculty members shared projects at various points of completion. Presenters elicited feedback on a range of topics including identifying the most compelling framing of complete pieces, how to code complex qualitative data, how to frame a piece for communication journals, and how to build a comprehensive research plan for future job talks.

The retreat also featured small-group discussions. One discussion focused on in-progress study ideas for members to bounce off others with different expertise and to also seek potential collaboration. The other small-group discussion concerned the future of political communication studies.

The itinerary of the mini-retreat is listed below.

Long form presentations: approx 20 minutes with 10 minutes of questions

9:00-9:30: Robert Bond, faculty

9:30-10:00: Jacob Long, graduate student

High-density panel: approximately 5 minutes, 15 minutes of feedback

10:00-10:20: Olivia Bullock, graduate student

10:20-10:40: Matt Sweitzer, graduate student

10:40-11:00: Daniel Sude, graduate student

Lunch (featuring delicious pizza)

Small group discussions:

11:45-12:15: In-progress study ideas, brainstorming excercises

12:15-12:45: The future of political communication- what is the next big idea? Next hurdle for the discipline to tackle? Areas of opportunity?

Recap: Closing thoughts

12:45-1:00: Ending thoughts and group picture.

PhD student Olivia Bullock presenting during the high-density panel

PhD student Daniel Sude sharing the variables used in his past studies

Garrett on The Conversation

Check out Dr. Kelly Garrett's new piece that just appeared on The Conversation about how people make decisions about the truth of information. The piece references work done in collaboration with former OSU School of Communication PhD student Brian Weeks. Read it here: https://theconversation.com/should-we-worry-that-half-of-americans-trust-their-gut-to-tell-them-whats-true-84259

Cooper & Nisbet on Climate Change Documentaries and "Edutainment"

Check out OSU Ph.D. student Kaatie Cooper and Dr. Erik Nisbet's chapter on climate change documentaries and edutainment programs. http://climatescience.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-373

Morey Dissertation Study Appears in Political Communication

Dr. Alyssa Morey (University at Albany, Department of Communication), a former OSU School of Communication Ph.D. student and COPS member, recently published an interesting paper based on her OSU dissertation in the journal Political Communication. The study, which evaluated learning of negative and positive TV ads, employed innovative electroencephalography (EEG) recordings ("brain waves" to the uninitiated), may be of some interest to current COPS members. You can check the study out here:  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2016.1266534

Katherine Cramer to Visit OSU, Deliver Lecture on the Politics of Resentment

Katherine Cramer, a Professor and Director of the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will visit OSU on Wednesday, September 27 to deliver a lecture on her recent, highly publicized book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. During her lecture, Dr. Cramer will discuss the nature of current right-wing populism in the United States, drawing on her extensive examination of rural voters in Wisconsin. The talk, held from noon to 1:30 p.m. in room 165 of Thompson Library, is hosted by the Democracy Studies Program and is open to the public. Please plan to attend and join many members of the COPS group there!

Rockin' Politics

If you're interested in considering the role that music may play in politics, check out the talk next week over at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies on "Rockin' the Free World: How the Rock and Roll Revolution Changed America and the Free World." https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/eventcalendar/event-calendar/eventdetail/636/-/sean-i-kay.html

Former COPS members doing neat things!

Former OSU School of Communication doctoral student and COPS member Dr. Lindsay Hoffman is Associate Professor at the University of Delaware and also the Associate Director of the UD Center for Political Communication. You might find this video interesting as one of many in a speaker series Lindsay runs dealing with understanding and addressing difference in our society. 

COPS Doctoral Candidate Pens Column Analyzing Clinton and Trump's Convention Speeches

COPS member and Doctoral Candidate David Clementson wrote a column for the journalism website The Conversation comparing the language intensity of Clinton and Trump's contrasting convention speeches.  A must read!  Congrats Dave!

https://theconversation.com/clinton-vs-trump-whose-acceptance-speech-hit-the-right-note-62948

First-Authored Published Research by Current and Former COPS Students

Over the last month, some current and former COPS students have had several peer-reviewed manuscripts published or accepted for publication.

Golnoosh Behrouzian (first author) and Aysenur Dal had their paper "Resisting Censorship: How Citizens Navigate Closed Media Environments" accepted for publication to the International Journal of Communication.  Drawing upon survey data from Turkey, the paper outlines a news theoretical construct based on reactance theory, motivated resistance to censorship, that influences individual's use of alternative online sources of information in censored mass media environments.

COPS Alumnus Elizabeth Stoycheff, now an assistant professor at Wayne State University, has had her first authored paper "Differential Effects of Capital-Enhancing and Recreational Internet Use on Citizens’ Demand for Democracy" published, prior to print, online at Communication Research.  Her paper examines how different forms of Internet use are associated with citizen attitudes about democratization in Russia and Ukraine based upon surveys she conducted as part of her doctoral dissertation in each country.

Stoycheff also recently had a paper first-authored accepted for publication to the International Journal of Public Opinion Research entitled "Priming the Costs of Conflict? Russian Public Opinion about the 2014 Crimean Conflict."  This study employed an online survey experiment with Russian Internet users to examine how different  informational cues interact with Russian nationalism to influence support for the Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula. 

Congrats to Golnoosh, Aysenur, and Elizabeth!

Citations:

Behrouzian, G., Nisbet, E.C., Dal, A., Carkoglu, A. (in press) Resisting Censorship: How Citizens Navigate Closed Media Environments. International Journal of Communication

Stoycheff, E., Nisbet, E.C., and Epstein, D. (in press). Differential effects of capital-enhancing and recreational Internet use on citizens' demand for democracy. Communication Research.

Stoycheff, E. & Nisbet, E.C. (in press). Priming the Costs of Conflict? Russian Public Opinion about the 2014 Crimean Conflict. International Journal of Public Opinion Research

COPS Students win Chaffee-McLeod Top Student Paper award from the Communication Theory & Methods (CT&M) division of AEJMC

It is great pleasure that I announce that three of our OSU students: Golnoosh Behrouzian, Aysenur Dal, and Emma Fete were awarded the Chaffee-McLeod Top Student Paper award from the Communication Theory & Methods (CT&M) division of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC).  Their co-authored paper submission was entitled "Defying censorship: A framework for reactance and learning in the face of media control."

They will receive their award at the 2016 annual meeting of AEJMC in August. Congrats on a job well done!