Myers wins second MAPOR award

Congratulations to Teresa Myers for winning in the MAPOR Fellows student paper competition for her paper titled "Public Opinion About Public Opinion: An Examination of the Use of Public Opinion Polls as a Normative Political Communication Tool Between the Public and Representatives." This makes the second time Teresa has received a MAPOR student paper award and six consecutive years that an OSU COPS graduate student has placed in the top three in this competition. Good work Teresa!

Two Forthcoming Papers By Garrett Address Political Selectivity

I thought you would like to know of two forthcoming papers by our own Kelly Garrett that address the issue of selectivity in political media consumption. Congrats, Kelly!

Garrett, R. K. (Forthcoming). Politically motivated reinforcement seeking: Reframing the selective exposure debate Journal of Communication.

Garrett, R. K. (Forthcoming). Echo chambers online?: Politically motivated selective exposure among Internet news users. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

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.

Princeton Panel on Accuracy and Methodology of State Polling in 2008 Election

On October 7th Princeton University held a panel on the accuracy and methodology of state polls in the election, composed of several notable methodologists and statisticians. The YouTube broadcast of the symposium is online and very engrossing.

Here is a brief description: Panelists- Christopher Achen, Professor of Social Sciences and Associate Chair of the Department of Politics at Princeton University; Andrew Gelman, professor in the Departments of Statistics and Political Science at Columbia University and director of the University`s Applied Statistics Center; and Larry Hugick, Chairman of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Moderator: Alan Krueger, the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School and Director of the Survey Research Center at Princeton. (Oct 7, 2008 at Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Co-sponsored by the Survey Research Center, the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, and the New York and New Jersey chapters of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.)

Early Voting Data at United States Election Project

A great resource for secondary data on voting and elections is Dr. Michael McDonald's United States Election Project website at George Mason University. It includes data on turnout trends, voter registration trends, early voting, etc.

A recent post provides data on early voting in all 50 states for the 2008 election and in some cases provides the demographic and party breakdowns for early voters. A great resource for political junkies.

CBS News Poll Closes

Last night at midnight, the CBS News 08 Youth Election Poll closed (see previous post on this project). Over 143,000 students were contacted in 47 schools across four states. The overall response rate was 18% for a total of 25,797 completed surveys. OSU was included in the sample, with 499 completed surveys and a response rate of 16.6%.

The full survey results will be released by CBS News, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the OSU Lantern (with a focus on OSU results compared to the rest of the schools) on October 27th. After the election a COPS team will be delving into the full survey results for academic analysis and publication. We will keep you posted on the findings.

The Future of Democracy

nterested in learning about how technology is changing our democracy? How have YouTube debates, bloggers, iReporters, and political mashups impacted the presidential election? Can technology reinvigorate our democracy by connecting more people to the political process?

The Digital Union presents "The Future of Democracy," a panel discussion with Peter Shane, Professor of Law and a leading figure in the field of cyberdemocracy, and Dan Shellenbarger, director of the Ohio Channel and an Emmy award winning producer. This event will take place in the Learning Collaboration Studio (SEL 060) from 2:30-4 pm on Wednesday October 29th. RSVP to gjestvang.1@osu.edu.

Peter M. Shane, Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law: One the nation's foremost authorities on the law of the presidency, Professor Shane is also a leading figure in the newly emerging field of cyberdemocracy, which studies the use of the Internet and other information technologies to facilitate citizen participation in politics and government. His work in this field includes research funded by the NSF on the development of software to structure community-based discussions on complex policy issues. He has edited "Democracy Online: The Prospects of Political Renewal Through the Internet" and published widely on the topics of voting rights, redistricting, and reapportionment.

Dan Shellenbarger, The Ohio Channel: Dan Shellenbarger is an Emmy Award winning video director and editor who helped found and currently manages the Ohio Channel. A new concept in public affairs programming, the Ohio Channel combines Statehouse coverage with locally produced PBS programs to give a statewide perspective on issues that affect all Ohioans. In addition, the Ohio Channel encodes, hosts, and streams all coverage of state government proceedings for distribution on the Internet. Using Flash, RSS, and web tools, the Ohio Channel seeks to provide vitual access to all aspects of state government. Shellenbarger also serves as a technical editor and reviewer for the video publishing industry and is a video arts instructor for the art department at The Ohio State University.

More on Rivalries

Last fall there was a post about rivalries, which included a photo of University of Wisconsin professor Dhavan Shah wearing an OSU cap while teaching an undergraduate class at UW -- the result of a wager made when several Wisconsin faculty and students came to Columbus for the big OSU-UW game. This past weekend I went to Gainesville, FL to watch the Florida Gators battle the LSU Tigers. As most of you know, these are the two teams our Buckeyes have lost National Championship games to the last two years. My logic -- other than taking an opportunity to go to the game with my brother, who lives in Florida -- was to get to see, up close and personal, one of those two teams lose. ;-) Anyhow, I post this shot mostly for COPS' own Kristen Landreville, who earned her BA and MA from Florida. Oh, and to show OSU representing inside The Swamp. BTW, the Gators won 51-21.

Ohio Again "THE" Battleground State in 2008

A report in the Columbus Dispatch today indicates that Ohio is once again the major target for the presidential candidates in 2008. Last week, more money was spent on political ads in Ohio than in any other state in the country when the McCain and Obama expenditures are combined. That puts us in a fantastic position to not only observe the election, but to study it as well.

Read more here.

OSU/COPS Participates in CBS News '08 Youth Election Poll

The OSU Lantern ran a front-page story today about the CBS News/WIRE Youth '08 Poll today. The survey queries full-time undergraduate students at 45 universities and colleges, including OSU, about their electoral preferences, campaign activities, new media use, and campaign information sources. Approximately 16,000 students across four battleground states (OH, PA, CO, and NC) are expected to complete the survey. The topline results of the survey will be released October 27th.

Based on an arrangement with CBS News, members the COPS team including myself, Michael Beam, Myiah Hively, and Nick Geidner will have access to the data once the survey is completed for academic analysis and publication. We will keep you posted on the results.

Eveland receives UD Presidential Citation award

Congratulations to Chip Eveland for his recent receipt of the University of Delaware's Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement award. This award goes to graduates of the University of Delaware (where Chip completed an M.A. and where one of his former Ph.D. students, Lindsay Hoffman, is now an assistant professor) who, according to their web page, "exhibit great promise in their professional career and/or public service activities"

Law School Winter Course

The message below was sent to me by Peter Shane. Some of you may be interested in this course...

As promised, I am writing in the hope that you might be able to publicize to your students my winter quarter (for them) course in The Internet, Democracy, and the Law. The course description appears below. Many thanks, Peter

THE INTERNET, LAW AND DEMOCRACY
Professor Peter Shane

Since the advent of the Internet, hopes have loomed large for its potential role in invigorating the quality of democratic life in both developing and post-industrial countries. This course will analyze the ways in which the production, consumption, and legal regulation of Internet speech and digital technologies shape the Internet's political impact on democracy, with special, but not exclusive reference to the experience of the United States.

The course will begin with an introduction to the Internet as a technological and political phenomenon, plus a brief survey of democratic theory. We will then consider the Internet as an information medium, as we might consider newspapers or broadcast journalism. A third section of the course will look at the Internet as a vehicle for governance and political action.

Our readings will introduce the idea of "e-democracy," and the challenges posed for e-democracy by issues of access, inclusion, and the digital divide. We will then consider the uses of the Internet for mobilizing interest groups, conducting electoral campaigns, as well as the phenomenon of "e-government." Following this survey, we will consider how law treats the Internet in its capacity as a "public square"or general forum for free speech. Specific topics will include fighting words, national security limits on speech, the regulation of obscenity, and defamation. We will then discuss the legal regulation of digital technologies as its affects their democratic prospects. Of particular concern will be debates over treating internet service providers as common carriers, mandating "net neutrality," promoting broadband deployment, and regulating technologies for sharing information. We will take a brief look at copyright issues and their potential impact on democracy, and then survey political and legal perspectives on data mining, data protection and freedom of information.

In order to accommodate potential enrollment by graduate students from other departments, the course is offered during the College of Law spring semester, but compressed into thirty 70-minute sessions taught over the ten-week winter quarter. Grading will be based 70 per cent on an all-essay take-home final examination, 20 per cent on student contributions to an online discussion forum, and 10 per cent on class participation. Because the College of Law spring semester begins one week later than Winter Quarter, 2009, graduate students from other departments will start this course during the second week of the quarter, and will be responsible only for the material in Classes 1-27. They will be welcome to attend the last three classes, which focus on the law of privacy, but attendance will be optional and the exam for non-law students will not cover this material. Law students and non-law students will be graded on separate curves.

Our primary texts will be Andrew Chadwick, Internet Politics: States, Citizens and New Communication Technologies (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Madeleine Schachter and Joel Kurtzberg, Law of Internet Speech (Carolina Academic Press, 3d ed., 2008).

COPS alumnus in the thick of TN election polling

COPS Ph.D. alumnus Jason Reineke, only a few months after graduation, is already getting attention with his work running the MTSU Poll. Here we seem him interviewed by local news discussing findings from a recent poll regarding the race between Obama and McCain in Tennessee. While completing the Ph.D., Jason also completed the graduate interdisciplinary specialization in survey research, which no doubt increased his value on the job market and helped him secure this position.

COPS Globetrotters

In the past couple of weeks COPS members have been traveling the globe sharing their research with colleagues and students in the U.S. and abroad. For instance, Andrew Hayes just returned from a trip to England and Amsterdam. In England, he presented the paper "Self-Censorship as a Psychological Syndrome" to the Morrell Centre for Toleration Workshop on Self-Censorship at the University of York. He then hopped a plane to the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCOR) to deliver a workshop on applied statistics. Meanwhile, Lance Holbert -- feeling the first chill of autumn in Columbus -- flew south to the University of Texas at Austin to participate in a gathering of 20 political communication scholars to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landmark agenda setting study of McCombs and Shaw.

Fortunately, as we start the first day of the autumn quarter, our friends are back in Columbus safe and sound.