NickGeidner.com

Paper accepted for presentation at AEJMC:

The primary purpose of this study is to refine gatekeeping theory, by examining it in the new context of user-generated news content. Videos from YouTube were utilized as an approximation of user-generated content, due to YouTube’s leadership position in the online user-generated video streaming market. A quantitative systematic content analysis of the most popular YouTube political news videos during the months preceding the 2008 presidential election was conducted to investigate: (1) if YouTube effectively enabled non-elite groups to partake in the mainstream public discourse and (2) to what extent the traditional media dominate the most popular news content on YouTube. Results offer support to both Internet pessimists and optimists by showing that both elite and non-elite groups find a meaningful way to utilize the user-generated media environment. The fact that the non-elites are able to do so, however, is notable and has important implications for journalism and democracy.

Citation: Dylko, I., Landerville, K. D., Beam, M. A., & Geidner, N. W. (2009). Gatekeeping and YouTube: News Filters and the Intermedia Dynamic in the Age of User-Generated Content. Paper submitted to the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Boston, Mass.

This paper was also in the top three for the Communication Technology Jung-Sook Lee Student Paper Competition.

Uncategorized AEJMC, beam, content analysis, dylko, landerville, research, youtube

I recently ran some data for my HLM class looking at student newspaper availability and political enthusiasm and participation. I had null findings everywhere. Here are more specifics:

Hypotheses
H1: The availability of a student newspaper on a college campus will positively impact individual-level enthusiasm towards the 2008 presidential campaign.
H2: The availability of a student newspaper on a college campus will positively impact an individual’s likelihood to attend a campaign event.
H3: The availability of a student newspaper on a college campus will positively impact an individual’s likelihood to volunteer for a campaign.

Sample estimates
Level 1: Survey of 25,000 college students at 50 colleges and universities in 4 battleground states during October 2008.
Level 2: Newspaper data, enrollment, public/private, and aggregate candidate contact data derived for 32 of the above schools.

Controls
Level 1: Sex, Age, Race, Candidate contact, Political ideology, Political party, news media use, and political discussion
Level 2: Enrollment, Public vs. private, and aggregate campaign contact.

IV
“Student newspaper availability” was created by multiplying the average print run for the paper by the number of times is pass printed per week and then dividing by undergraduate enrollment. This gave a value which was equivalent to the number of newspapers printed per undergrad per week.

DV’s
Enthusiasm: 4 point scale (ran as ordinal logit model)
Attend campaign event: Dichotomous
Volunteer for a campaign: Dichotomous

Findings
In none of the models did student newspaper availability have a significant effect on the outcome variable (p=.165 to p=.865).

Uncategorized 2008 election, HLM, journalism, newspaper, null, presidential, research

Here is an updated model of perceived network connection that will be used in a paper I am writing for my mass comm and society class. Basically the change is in viewing PNC as a higher order factor.

Uncategorized PNC, research

On Twitter @HardHead, @VincentR and myself have been discussing the Usenet and its use in communication research. Micheal Beam, or HardHead, posted his reaction paper from a political communication class we took together, so I figured I would follow his lead and put my reaction up. I take it in a completely different direction than him, but still interesting. To this I would also like to add there are also serious sampling issues in the Usenet pieces that I don’t directly address in the paper.

Anonymity and the Internet

The readings this week generally discussed how computer-mediated communication fits into deliberative theory. Specifically, a number of the authors examined the Usenet for its deliberative potential (Davis, 2005; Papacharissi, 2004; Wilhelm, 2000). Others more broadly examined the potential of CMC in general to spawn political communication (Ho & McLeod, 2008; Stromer-Galley, 2002). Lastly, Wright and Street (2007) looked at the design of CMC systems to understand the deliberative potential of those systems. Using these readings as a basis, this essay will argue for a greater understanding of the role of anonymity in online deliberation.

Read more…

Uncategorized anonymity, deliberation, research, usenet