Former COPS Member Lindsay Hoffman Quoted in New York Times

A shout out to founding COPS member Lindsay Hoffman, now associate professor at the University of Delaware, who was quoted today in an article in the New York Times on the role of Facebook in political campaigns.

OSU puts out news release about new COPS study in the Journal of Communication about Climate Change

The OSU Research Communications office put out a news release yesterday about a new study by current and former COPS members Erik Nisbet, Teresa Myers, and Morgan Ellithorpe (Sol Hart from University of Michigan is also a co-author). The study focuses upon competitive framing message environments, open-/closed-mindedness, and support for government intervention on climate change mitigation. The study is in press at Journal of Communication and is fully available online. The full release is available from the Research Communication website.

The citation and abstract appears below:

Nisbet, E.C., Hart, P.S., Myers, T., & Ellithorpe, M. (in press). Attitude change in competitive framing environments? Open/close-mindedness and framing effects about climate change. Journal of Communication.

Abstract: Framing scholarship on policy issues has primarily focused on how competitive message environments alter framing effects or how individual differences moderate the impact of frames. This study combines both of these focal areas by examining how individual open-/closed-mindedness moderates framing effects about climate change within competitive and noncompetitive framing contexts. Contrary to previous scholarship, our experimental study finds effects on attitudes in the competitive framing condition, but not the noncompetitive framing condition. The framing effects found in the competitive condition were contingent upon individual differences in open-/closed-mindedness. Analysis shows that individual open-/closed-mindedness influences framing effects in part by altering the effects of frame exposure on the perceived costs and benefits of government climate policies.

Harvard Journalism project highlights recent work by Weeks and Holbert

Today the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard profiled Brian and Lance's recent Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly article, "Predicting dissemination of news content in social media: A focus on reception, friending, and partisanship".  Each month the Journalism Lab publishes a summary of what its editors consider to be the most interesting new research about digital media.  Glad to see this work getting some well deserved attention!

Abstract:
Social media are an emerging news source, but questions remain regarding how citizens engage news content in this environment. This study focuses on social media news reception and friending a journalist/news organization as predictors of social media news dissemination. Secondary analysis of 2010 Pew data (N = 1,264) reveals reception and friending to be positive predictors of dissemination, and a reception-by-friending interaction is also evident. Partisanship moderates these relationships such that reception is a stronger predictor of dissemination among partisans, while the friending-dissemination link is evident for nonpartisans only. These results provide novel insights into citizens’ social media news experiences.

COPS alumnus in the news

COPS alumnus Jason Reineke is an Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University, and he is the Associate Director of MTSU Poll.  Jason recently received nice coverage on a local television news station for some gay-marriage polling conducted by MTSU.  Watch the interview here:

http://oo.gl/YxZNA

Congratulations, Jason!

Garrett published rumoring paper in Human Communication Research

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Hayes and Myers podcast from Boston University

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.

COPS Scholars In the News: Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers

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

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

Colbert Study reported on by Huffington Post, Keith Olbermann

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

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

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

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.