Conference Deadlines Approaching

Major conference deadlines are approaching as we head into fall. The Southern Political Science Association abstract deadline for the January 2020 meeting is Sept. 1st. The Midwest Political Science Association submission deadline is October 3rd for the April 2020 conference. The International Communication Association deadline for the May 2020 conference is November 1st. Finally, the American Association for Public Opinion Research submission deadline is November 8th for the May 2020 conference. In a few weeks we'll be having a "socialization" session in which we'll discuss these and other conferences you may wish to consider for your work, the value of conference participation, and some ideas for getting the most out of your participation. Senior COPS Ph.D. students Shannon Poulsen, Jacob Long, and Matt Sweitzer will serve as panelists on that COPS session.

New paper by Bullock, Amill, Shulman, & Dixon

Olivia Bullock

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Olivia Bullock, MA student Daniel Amill, and faculty Hillary Shulman and Graham Dixon, on their recent publication "Jargon as a barrier to effective science communication: Evidence from metacognition" in Public Understanding of Science. The paper addresses some of the unintended consequences of jargon use on people's acceptance of scientific technology. Basically, they found that when descriptions of technology included scientific jargon, people reported that the technologies in question seemed riskier, participants were more likely to argue against and refute the information provided, and reported less support of these technologies, than when jargon words were replaced with easier to understand terms. This experiment shows the effects of complicated language extend beyond misunderstanding, and can affect people's feelings towards the topic at hand. This can be especially problematic when the subject matter lends itself to jargon (as in the case of politics, health, and law). The implication is that if you want people to engage with complex subjects, create messages that are easy to process. You can access the paper here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963662519865687

Social Media and Misperceptions

Kelly Garrett

Congrats to Kelly Garrett on his paper recently published on social media and political misperceptions! The bottom line conclusion is that "social media can alter citizens' willingness to endorse falsehoods during an election, but that the effects are often small." You can view the paper in Web format here or hit Kelly up directly for a PDF copy.

Garrett, R. Kelly (2019). Social media's contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. PLOS ONE, 14(3), e0213500. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0213500