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.

Eveland Given 2007 Krieghbaum Under-40 Award

In the field of communication, there are a couple of awards that are given to scholars who represent the essence and spirit of scholarship and service to the field. One of those awards is the Krieghbaum Under 40 Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. I am pleased and excited to report that this year, Chip Eveland is being honored with this award at the 2007 conference in DC. This award "honors AEJMC members under 40 years of age who have shown outstanding achievement and effort in all three AEJMC areas: teaching, research and public service" (AEJMC call for nominees). Congratulations to Chip! Chip is the second COPS member to receive this award (Carroll Glynn was given this award in 1992).

Reineke Wins Comm Day Research Award

Congratulations to COPS member Jason Reineke for winning the School of Communication's Morgan Award last week during our Comm Day festivities! This award was given to Jason for his excellence in research during his time here at OSU, which includes multiple papers currently in press, three different top student paper awards, and a dozen conference papers in his four years (two M.A., two Ph.D.) with us so far. Keep up the great work Jason!

Best Published Paper in Political Communication 2006

COPS has another winner. I've just learned that the Political Communication divisions of ICA and APSA have named Young Mie Kim's recent Journal of Politics paper the 2006 top paper in political communication. This is of all papers published in the area of political communication during 2006, not just all papers submitted to these two association conferences. This is a very prestigous award. Congratulations Young Mie! You might recall that a paper co-authored by Chip Eveland won this award last year.

Here is the full reference:

Althaus, S. L., & Kim, Y. M (2006). Priming effects in complex information environments: Reassessing the impact of news discourse on presidential approval. Journal of Politics, 68, 960-976.

Grant Competition

From an email I recieved today from Diana Mutz:

SPECIAL CALL DEADLINE: July 1st, 2007

ATTENTION ALL SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCHERS:
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR ORIGINAL DATA COLLECTION VIA TESS!

The National Science Foundation, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, is funding opportunities for original data collection for research that has potential relevance to the concerns of DHS. Three broad substantive areas have been identified as relevant and likely avenues for research:

1. Risk communication and its effects on disaster preparedness
2. Government and individual attributions of responsibility and perceived responsiveness; and
3. Inter-group threat and cooperation

Other areas of research with relevance to terrorism, disaster preparedness, or related public health and medical issues will also be considered.

Data collection for these projects will be paid for and conducted with the assistance of Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). As with other TESS applications, only a short, 5 page proposal is required.

TESS offers researchers opportunities to test their experimental ideas on large, diverse, randomly selected subject populations, or on specific subsamples of the population (based on geographic location, demographics, or other criteria). For more information on this special call or on TESS opportunities more generally, and for examples of TESS studies completed in the past, please visit our home page at www.ExperimentCentral.org.

PLEASE NOTE: For those with other areas of interest, TESS continues to fund data collection for survey-experimental work in all areas of the social sciences, and for graduate student and faculty investigators in all disciplines. These proposals are accepted on a rolling basis, and we will continue accepting new proposals as our funding allows.

Forum on Media and Participation

It is with some hesitancy that I post this link to a forum in Political Communication Reports (the newsletter of the ICA Political Communication division) about the link between media and participation. The hesitancy is because of self-interest, as I was a participant in the roundtable, discussing some of the research I've done with COPS members. Nonetheless, you may be interested in reading about it, so I post it here for you:

http://www.unr.edu/organizations/pcr/1702_2007_spring/roundtable.html

Alyssa Morey Picks OSU

Alyssa Morey, a University of Wisconsin undergraduate, is the latest in the long line of students from around the country to commit to OSU and to become part of the COPS group. Alyssa has interests in media perceptions (especially the hostile media phenomenon), new technology, and political participation, among other topics. Please welcome her to our group! For now she can be reached at acmorey@wisc.edu

Teresa Myers Commits for PhD

Keeping the momentum going, I learned today that Teresa Myers, who completed her MA here in Winter quarter (Andrew Hayes adviser, Carroll Glynn committee member), will be staying on with us here at OSU/COPS for her PhD. Teresa, who was given early admission to the PhD after her first year in the MA program, has had a number of successes in research already, including a Top Three student paper at MAPOR this past fall and a forthcoming publication in Public Opinion Quarterly. Following in the footsteps of other MA students who have chosen to stay at OSU rather than leave for other programs -- including Lindsay Hoffman, Tiffany Thomson, and Jason Reineke -- it further demonstrates that the supportive yet challenging environment we offer produces both satisfaction and success. Glad to have you staying with us Teresa!

...and one more

I am happy to report that Jay Hmielowski will be joining us in the Fall of 2007 to begin his Ph.D. If you are keeping track, you will know that so far, not a single potential COPS student who visited us at the end of March has decided to go elsewhere. We credit that to not only the resources OSU and the School provide to graduate students, but also to the friendly, collaborative environment that COPS provides to all of its members and that is so apparent to all who pay us a visit. Jay comes to us from Washington State University, where he is completing his Master's degree. Please welcome Jay with a comment, or directly by email to jhmielowski@wsu.edu

COPS grows with the addition of Caryn Ragin

Please join me in welcoming Caryn Ragin, who will be joining OSU and COPS as an M.A. student beginning this Fall. Most COPS members would have met Caryn at our recent visitation day. She comes to us from Washington State University, where she did her undergraduate degree. She can be contacted at cragin_wsu@yahoo.com.

Nick Geidner commits to OSU

I am happy to report that Nick Geidner, after visiting us during our recent graduate student recruitment day, has decided to commit to OSU to pursue his Ph.D. Nick joins Laurel Gleason in the list of new COPS students who have chosen OSU, and we expect that list to grow over the next several days as more and more students realize that other institutions simply cannot match the resources and work environment OSU offers. We look forward to seeing Nick at our weekly COPS meetings and around the halls of Derby. Until he arrives at OSU, he can be contacted at ngeidner@gmail.com