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