COPS student Lindsay Hoffman takes job at U of Delaware

Congratulations to Lindsay Hoffman, who after going on several interviews (and experiencing a number of other contacts expressing interest) has decided to accept an offer to be an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. As a former BA/MA graduate from that program, I can attest to the strong quality of this program. Lindsay will still be with us through the end of the summer, but please take the time to congratulate her on getting this job so early in the search process.

COPS member brings home another one

Congratulations to Teresa Myers, for taking home a top 3 paper award from MAPOR 2006 for her paper with Cat Goodall, "Fear Appeals in Political Communication: An Examination of Public Opinion about Social Security Reform and Global Warming." For a more comprehensive list of COPS paper awards over the last couple of years, click the "Recent member awards" link to the right.

More election maps

Here are some interesting data maps reflecting the outcome of the recent congressional elections as created by Mark Newman of the University of Michigan.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2006/

Election data and graphics

For those who are into both political data and graphics, be sure to look at the extensive Election 2006 section of the New York Times website. Data are gathered there from the Senate, House and Governor elections. The House page is particularly extensive. You can select districts to look at that meet a variety of criteria, see them on a map, and then see a summary of data about them on the right. The sliding chart at the top that looks a bit like a bar code compares the 2004 and 2006 results is also awesome. Note that many of the maps can be weighted by population for a different view of their importance. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/elections/2006/House.html

Some Work and Some Play

Let's not forget another event that makes MAPOR weekend so enjoyable--watching the OSU-Michigan game with other Big Ten football fans. To get you in the spirit, relive last year's game by clicking here.

Response Latencies in Survey Research

Several COPS members have, over the years, been using response latencies in surveys and experiments. How long it takes a person to answer a question functions as an important window through which we can peer into the "black box" that is the human mind. A recent Washington Post article talks about some of the foundations of this research. Because of the increase in the number and types of empirical questions that can be answered when response latencies are measured, we are using "latent timers" (a methodology developed in part here at OSU in the Political Science department) in the TOPS survey this year. Analyzing these data should keep us very busy for years to come.

Ohio Center of Political Universe

Or, not far from it. A recent article reveals that campaign spending on federal-level races by "outside" groups is twice as high in Ohio as in any other state in the nation. Nice to be here locally studying it as part of our three-wave COPS/TOPS panel study (see previous post on this), which is now in the middle of Wave 2. Anyhow, read the article here.

COPS makes waves in Washington D.C.

You may be interested in reading a report in today's Washington Times newspaper discussing the research of COPS members Andrew Hayes and Mike Huge and its importance for politics and participation in the current election context. Just click the link here.

So Goes the Nation

The 90-minute documentary film by Endgame Entertainment about Ohio's central role in the 2004 presidential election is playing this week at the campus Gateway theaters.

Patriot Act Meets Content Analysis

The method of content analysis for assessing tone of media coverage has entered the terrorism age. See the NY Times story here...

Innovations in survey methodology

Former Ohio State professor Jon Krosnick is developing some exciting new methods for increasing response rates and reducing costs... read more about his NSF-funded 2008 election project at http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/september27/krosnick-092706.html

More data for polling junkies

SurveyUSA's coverage of the Ohio gubernatorial and Senate races includes a cool tracking feature that allows users to view respondent trends broken out by a decent list of key demographic variables as well as political leanings. They have three time points thus far.

Click on the large "T" in the crosstabs to sort and view tracking data.

COPS does TOPS

This year three COPS faculty (Eveland, Hayes, & Kosicki) and some COPS graduate students are working with faculty and graduate students in the Political Science department to field The Ohio Political Survey (TOPS). This year TOPS will be a three wave panel study plus a cross-sectional study of Ohio adults. Wave I of TOPS began today. Wave II will begin in early October, and Wave III (and the cross-section) will begin the day after the election. The study will examine a number of topics related to Ohio politics and the governor/U.S. senate campaigns, including election and political scandals, opinion perceptions, political discussion networks, and new forms of political media. Look for preliminary results posted here as the data become available, and more detailed findings to be submitted to future academic conferences.

Election 2006 Polls

If you're a popular public opinion poll junkie like me, you might enjoy spending some of your "time off" as summer winds down checking out some really top-notch Web sites that are serving as clearing houses for information on how the American public's answering today's big questions.

Slate's Election Score Card
Slate follows up on their excellent 2004 poll aggregation with a pretty comprehensive look at the nation's top senate and gubernatorial races, as well as a "generic candidate" look at the house. There's also an informative "momentum shift” feature.

Pollster.com
Slate basically provides the high points from this site, but you can get more detail here. Not to mention the "Mystery Pollster" blog.

Polling Report.com
Polling Report posts frequency analyses for virtually every major, popular, public opinion poll. As a result, it's updated on almost a daily basis.

While most of these aren't very "scholarly," they might spark some research ideas, or at least help provide a feel for what the nation's saying in the here and now. I’m sure there are other great sites out there; these are just the ones that I’m currently frequenting.

Research spaces for your use

As the new academic year starts, don't forget about the fantastic research facilities available for your use. A permanent link has been added to the right of this page, or you can just click here to view some images.