AEJMC paper accepted
UPDATE: I recently received word that my paper was a top three student paper in CT&M.
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A paper I wrote was accepted for presentation in the Communication Theory and Methodology division at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference. The conference is in August this summer. Here is the abstract:
The spiral of silence is one of the primary social explanations of public opinion formation currently employed in social science research. In short, Noelle-Neumann (1974; 1993) argues that individual-level opinion expression is a function of the opinion climate of the society. This paper adds a macro-level boundary condition to by the theory by examining how group involvement can affect the spiraling process. Using agent-based modeling, a simulation, replicating the assumptions in the spiral of silence, was created. Two other models, which added groups to the simulated society, were also created. Through running and comparing the results of these simulations, it was found that the addition of groups allowed for the survival of the societal-level minority opinions in certain cases. Further research should enhance the models used in this paper and should use agent-based modeling to examine other social communication theories.
The paper is titled “Group Involvement and the Spiral of Silence: Using Agent-Based Modeling to Understand Opinion Expression” and hopefully will sent out for potential publication soon.