The Media Dork

I have updated the Connection page as a result of some of my current research on Perceived Network Connection. I have had some really encouraging findings recently and am excited to move forward on this project. I believe the measurement to be in very good shape for measuring individual-level connection to voluntary groups. In the up-coming months, I am going to be testing out the measure in other types of group, strengthening the theory behind PNC, and setting boundary conditions.

Please e-mail me if you have any questions about my PNC research.

Uncategorized PNC, research

An invited piece that I co-authored with Prof. Lance Holbert was just published in the latest issue of Communication Studies. Here is the abstract:

This essay makes the argument that political communication researchers would be well served to look to communication theories developed in other communication subfields as a means by which to advance a number of different research agendas. A series of events or issues that came to light during the 2008 Presidential election are highlighted and specific theories from communication subfields, other than political communication, are isolated in order to show the utility these theories would bring to political communication scholarship. Five communication subfields are focused on in this essay: Interpersonal communication, persuasion, communication information technology, media effects, and strategic communication. The 2008 election topics covered in this essay include face-to-face political discussions of race and gender, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube, Saturday Night Live, and lifestyle political campaigning.

The full article can be found here.

APA Citation: Holbert, R. L. & Geidner, N. (2009). The 2008 election: Highlighting the need to explore additional communication sub-fields to advance political communication. Communication Studies, 60, 344-358

Uncategorized 2008 election, holbert, publishing, research

Tomorrow I will be presenting my 2nd year Ph.D. talk to the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. My talk is the first of three studies, which attempts to create a valid and reliable measure for Perceived Network Connection. In this presentation, I present a 19-item measure for PNC, shows it reliability, and begin to show its validity.

PNC 2nd Year Talk – Full Presentation

Uncategorized PNC, 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.

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

Below is an idea for a content analysis I started kicking around about 2 years ago. It is based around the idea is that local media creates and reinforces community, so why don’t newspapers become cognizant of it and start designing their websites around this principle. If they do they will create all kinds of positives. First, it has been shown that newspapers can create increased civic participation and social capital in a community. It then stands to reason that if a newspaper explicitly tries to increase civic participation and social capital they will be able to do it more effectively. The more people care about their community the more likely they are to read news about their community. Hence this is a reinforcing spiral. Community reinforcing media creates people who care more about the community. People who care more about the community use more local news media.

But how do we do this. I think there are three important concepts that we need to think about. First, the reader/user must be engaged in the content. Once they are engaged in the content feelings of connection to the community and the news organization must be cultivated. News source must also provide the mobilizing information to allow people to get involved in the community. This is my modest idea.

Read more…

Uncategorized Community, journalism, research

This afternoon I will be presenting the latest incarnation of my work on perceived network connection to the Communication, Opinion, and Political Studies Group at The Ohio State University. The biggest change to the presentation from my last talk on this topic is a update and slight modification of the model. The definition that I am trying out tomorrow is more precise than the definitions I have used in the past. The model is in the graphic below and then you can go to the “Connection Research” tab to see the full presentation.

The full presentation can be found here.

Uncategorized PNC, research

Current research I am working on:

Content analysis of political discussion on Twitter
Myself, Adam Maksl and person to be named later
Design process

Content analysis of political videos on YouTube leading up to the 2008 presidential election
Ivan Dylko, Kristen Landerville, Myself and Micheal Beam
Data collection

Issue publics/Lifestyle politics: The effects of blackness on political participation
Troy Elias and myself
Design process

The Facebook Effect: Social media and the 2008 election
Erik Nisbet and myself
Data analysis

Perceived Network Connection: A second measurement paper
Myself
Design process

Debate Viewing, News Frames, and Opinion Expression
Ray Pingree, Myself and Megan Hill
Data Analysis

Uncategorized research