COPS in New Orleans for AAPOR

And, to build on the ICA information, I do know that COPS will have a presence at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference in New Orleans a week or so before ICA. Although there are likely more COPS papers, I know that Laurel Gleason will be presenting her paper "Revisiting 'The Voice of the People': An Evaluation of the Claims and Consequences of Deliberative Polling" and Jerry Kosicki will present "Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism 2001-2007." And, I have to admit, I suspect that New Orleans will be more appealing in May than Canada... ;-)

COPS in Montreal for ICA

Decisions have been rendered on submissions to the annual conference of the International Communication Association held in Montreal this May. As always, research in political communication and public opinion by COPS will be well represented on the international research stage. Here is a partial list of papers COPS members will be presenting.

Beam, M. A.
The portal effect: The impact of customized content on news exposure.

Hayes, A. F., Glynn, C. J., & Huge, M. A.
Cautions in the interpretation of coefficients and hypothesis tests in linear models with interactions.

Hayes, A. F., & Myers, T. M.
Testing the "proximate casualties hypothesis": Local troop loss, attention to news and support for military intervention.

Hively, M. H. & Landreville, K. D.
The interaction between efficacy and emotion in predicting civic engagement.

Holbert, R. L., & Benoit, W. L.
A Theory of political campaign media connectedness.

Holbert, R. L., & Hansen, G. J.
Stepping beyond message specificity in the study of affect as mediator and inter-affective associations: Fahrenheit 9/11, candidate aversion, and perceptions of debate superiority.

Lamarre, H., & Knobloch-Westerwick, S.
Dark black rap and bright white rock: Effects of radical music on support of ethnic groups.

Landreville, K., & LaMarre, H.
Documentary and historical reenactment film: A comparison of transportation, emotion, interest, and learning.

Kim, Y.M., & Geidner, N. W.
Politics as friendship: The impact of online social networks on young voters' political behavior.

Min, S. J., & Feaster, J.
Missing children in news: Racial and gender representation of missing children cases in television news.

Shen, F., Lu, Y., Guo, Z. & Zhou, B.
News media use, perception, and efficacy: A multi-level analysis of media participation in China.

COPS Faculty in Public Opinion Research Handbook

The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research has now hit the market, and might be of some interest to students in the COPS group. The handbook includes chapters from three different OSU faculty -- Theories on the Perception of Social Reality by COPS members Eveland and Glynn and The Methodological Strengths and Weaknesses of Survey Research by political science professor Herb Weisberg.

Congrats to S.J. for his Publication!

Our own S.J. Min is the sole-author of a recent publication in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication entitled Online vs. Face-to-Face Deliberation: Effects on Civic Engagement. The paper, based on an experiment S.J. conducted here at OSU, concludes that both online and FTF deliberation about politics can increase knowledge, efficacy, and willingness to participate in politics.

Academic year off to a great start for COPS

First, congratulations to Myiah Hively for her sole-authored top-two paper at MAPOR, which continues the group's five year streak of wins at this public opinion conference. Graduate students Michael Beam, Nick Geidner, Laurel Gleason, Jay Hmielowski, Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville, Teresa Myers, and Chris Shen were all authors on MAPOR papers as well. Faculty members Chip Eveland, Lance Holbert, Young Mie Kim, and Mike McCluskey also had papers at MAPOR, as did COPS alumni Tiffany Thomson and Lindsay Hoffman. Way to make an impact at the group's main autumn conference everyone!

We also had some great student research presentations to the group this quarter by Jay Hmielowski; Myiah Hively & Kristen Landreville; Micheal Beam, Kristen Landreville, & Heather LaMarre; and Teresa Myers.

Opportunities for future research abound, as we heard in October from faculty members Lance Holbert, Kelly Garrett, Mike McCluskey, Chip Eveland and Andy Hayes about the many data sets available exclusively to COPS students and faculty for analysis.

Last but certainly not least, COPS was instrumental in attracting soon-to-be Cornell Ph. D. Erik Nisbet to join the School's faculty as an assistant professor in strategic communication starting Autumn 2008. Welcome Erik!

The group has a lot to be proud of already, and we're just getting started -- great work everyone!

Erik Nisbet to join OSU Fall 2008

I am thrilled to be able to report that Erik Nisbet will be joining the OSU School of Communication as an assistant professor starting in the Fall of 2008. Erik is completing his Ph.D. at Cornell University and conducts research in the intersection of politics, public opinion, public policy, and international media. Erik had multiple offers from good institutions, and his decision to come to OSU reflects the many positives we offer, not the least of which is COPS. So join me in welcoming Erik!

Another MAPOR Winner This Year

Congratulations to Myiah Hively for her placement in the top two of the MAPOR Fellows Student paper competition this year. I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone that OSU has had at least one student -- but often two -- win a paper award at MAPOR conference for the past five consecutive years. To refresh your memory, here they are:

2007

Hively, M. H. (2007, November). Testing the Gamson hypothesis: The interaction between efficacy and cynicism in predicting participation and protest. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2006

Myers, T., & Goodall, C. (2006, November). Fear appeals in political communication: An examination of public opinion about social security and global warming. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2005

Hoffman, L. H. & Reineke, J. B. (2005, November). Coorientation in a public opinion context: Predicting accurate perceptions of community opinion. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Reineke, J. B. (2005, November). Doing unto others as one does unto one's self: Exploring the association between support for public censorship and self-censorship.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2004

Hoffman, L. H. (2004, November). Mobilizing information as a link to political participation: A content analysis of online and print newspapers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Huge, M. (2004, November). Measurable hesitation as a precursor to self-censorship: Replication and extension of the minority slowness effect. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

2003

Hoffman, L. H. & Huge, M. E. (2003, November). Media frames of protest groups: The effects of exposure on perceived legitimacy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL.

Fun with rivalries

There are many rivalries between universities, some based on sports, some on academics, and then some a little of both. The COPS group was pleased to be able to host a number of faculty and grad students from the University of Wisconsin last weekend. Everyone was treated to fun on High Street before and after the OSU-UW football game, and we particularly enjoyed OSU asserting its dominance on the field. As you can see in the photograph, Dhavan Shah of Wisconsin went away convinced that OSU is where it is all happening! In fact, he taught his class this week wearing this hat. More photos to come.

Stats / Methods for WI 2008 and Beyond

As you all know, among communication programs we have one of the strongest internal methods/stats training programs available in the country. First year students will be enrolling in Andrew Hayes' second level required statistics course in the Winter. And, as enrollment time comes, I wanted to remind senior students about Lance Holbert teaching the COMM 801 Structural Equation Modeling course this Winter as well. Those of you who took COMM 801 last year (with Andrew Hayes as "Advanced Linear Models") are permitted to take this course again since the topic shifts regularly.

Also, you might know that both Andrew and Lance have forthcoming books on advanced stats / methods. Andrew, in addition to his book Statistical Methods for Communication Science, and being an Associate Editor for the journal Communication Methods and Measures, has another book (co-authored with our own Mike Slater) coming out this fall called The Sage Sourcebook of Advanced Data Analysis Methods for Communication Research. Lance's book, which is in progress, is entitled Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures and Analytical Techniques.

So, take advantage of the resources here (as well as in OSU's Quantitative Psychology program, our Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Survey Research headed by COPS' own Jerry Kosicki, and advanced courses in Political Science and Education as well) and become a methods and stats expert today!

COPS Alumnus on Local TV News

Recent OSU graduate and COPS alumnus Lindsay Hoffman, now an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, was recently interviewed by a local news station for a story on the use of YouTube by political candidates in local elections.

LaMarre Wins Criminal Justice Research Center Grant

Congratulations to Heather LaMarre! She was recently awarded a Graduate Student Research Grant in the amount of $1000 from OSU's Criminal Justice Research Center. The goal of her project "is to deepen our understanding of how adolescents learn from rap/hip hop music, as well as how the messages delivered through the music and by the artists influence adolescent opinions regarding social and political issues and at-risk behaviors (e.g., crime)."

Hoffman and Thomson Successfully Defend Their Dissertations

On consecutive days this week Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson succussfully defended their dissertations. Both students began the program as MA students in 2002, the first year of the new graduate curriculum. This makes three COPS members who successfully defended dissertations this year (plus two MA students who successfully defended theses). Lindsay will start as an assistant professor at the University of Delaware in August.

Congrats to Andrew and Teresa

Congrats to Andrew Hayes and Teresa Myers for receiving a $2000 research grant in the open competition recently held by the Mass Communication & Society division of AEJMC. Their project will examine the interaction between state-level variation in media reports of deaths in Iraq and news attention as predictors of variations in public opinion toward the war.

Fei "Chris" Shen wins MC&S Top Student Paper Award!

I learned today that Chris Shen has won the Mass Communication & Society division of AEJMC's Top Student Paper Award. His paper, which discusses what he calls "intra-media interactions," will be presented at AEJMC in August. Congratulations Chris for helping keep our COPS streak of award-winning AEJMC papers alive for four (or is it five, Andrew) straight years!!!

Paper for my COPS presentation

Here is my paper from the recent Midwest Political Science Association meeting. I'll be discussing this during the June 1st episode of COPS. I'd be glad to receive comments.