Panel: The Effects of One-Sided News Media – Political Communication

Paper: A Theory of Political Campaign Media Connectedness, Part II: Clarifying Debate Viewing and Online Media

Authors: R. Lance Holbert & Nick W. Geidner, Ohio State U, USA

Friday – 10:00-11:15 – Room 310

Panel: The Influence of the Media on Political Knowledge and Socialization – Mass Communication

Paper: Collective Dynamics of the Spiral of Silence: The Role of Quasi-Statistical Monitoring

Authors: Dongyoung Sohn & Nick W. Geidner, Ohio State U, USA

Friday – 13:00-14:15 – Gallery

Poster: Perceived Network Connection: A Reliability and Validity Assessment of an Individual-Level Measure of Group Attachment

Author: Nick W. Geidner, Ohio State U, USA

*************

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.

Much of human action occurs within groups (e.g., workgroups, family, social groups, society, etc.). Yet, the relationship between individuals and the groups they interact with has been a relatively understudied area. This paper presents perceived network connection as an important explanatory variable in understanding human action within groups. Specifically, PNC is defined as an individual’s assumptions and comprehensions about their cognitive, emotional, and communicative attachment to a bounded collective to which they belong. PNC is theorized to have three lower-order factors (perceived utility, affective evaluation, and communication connectedness). Using a 3-study design, this paper presents a valid and reliable 9-item measure for quantifying an individual’s perceived connection to a given network.

The second paper is co-authored with Prof. Dongyoung Sohn and examines the assumption of quasi-statistical sense within the spiral of silence. The paper uses agent-based modeling to propose a boundary condition for the spiral of silence. Here is the abstract:

The spiral of silence has persisted as one of the main explanatory mechanisms in mass communication research, which links individuals’ perception of opinion climate and their likelihood of speaking out. Since individuals’ opinions and likelihood of expressing them are shaped, altered, and/or reinforced constantly by the changing opinion climate, the outcome of this dynamic process cannot be inferred directly from the sum of individual traits at a particular point in time. This study, using computer simulations, examined the generative mechanism, through which individuals’ opinion sampling and monitoring translate into macro-level outcomes. Findings indicate that large scale spiral of silence is not a universal phenomenon, but occurs only when some macro-level boundary conditions are met — a critical mass of individuals who perceive the global opinion climate with the intermediate level of accuracy.

The final paper I co-authored with Prof. Lance Holbert and is a follow-up to his recent Communication Monographs piece on political campaign media connectedness theory. Here is the abstract:

Holbert and Benoit’s (2009) theory of political campaign media connectedness (PCMC) offers three axioms that allow for the positing of a series of causal associations between the use of two-sided political media information outlets, the use of one-sided political media information outlets, and debate viewing. The present study clarifies the specific role played by debate viewing as mediator and introduces the use of new media for political communication purposes to PCMC’s theoretical fold. Fourteen hypotheses serve as a foundation for this secondary analysis of 2004 National Annenberg Election Study (NAES) debate panel data (N = 1248). Debate viewing was found to play a key role as mediator, allowing for linkages to be established between seemingly disparate forms of political media use. In addition, multiple types of online political media engagement served as predictors of debate viewing and debate viewing also served as a mediator that linked new political media use with more traditional forms of media engagement within the context of a political election.

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

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

PNC 2nd Year Talk – Full Presentation

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.

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).

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.

As of late, online anonymity and Internet privacy have been fairly hot topics in both the legal scholarship (see Lessig, 2006) and the policy discussions (e.g. the creation of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force)(1). Yet we, as media scholars, don’t seem to have a firm grasp on the consequences and outcomes of anonymity on online discussion. The articles this week serve as example of how anonymity is often assumed to have an effect, but is rarely directly tested.

Like the numerous examples Wright and Street (2007) presented (e.g. the presence of a moderator), the relative level of anonymity(2) present in a CMC system is a function of design. For example, a CMC environment could allow complete anonymity. In this type of environment, an individual could post anything they want without any tracking or identifying information to connect the post to them, either their online or offline identity. At the other extreme, a CMC system could be designed to allow for completely clarity of the poster’s identity. For example, the wiki we use in this class is designed to allow every comment or alteration to be directly tracked to the author. The course wiki also goes beyond just connecting posts to an online identity. It connects every post to both an online and offline identity. Between these two extremes would be a number of alternative designs, which would allow for varying levels of anonymity(3). These varying levels of anonymity could lead to varying effects.

Ho and McLeod (2008) and Stromer-Galley (2002) both looked at the differences between face-to-face political discussion and computer-mediated political discussion. In both studies, they found that there are some people who don’t talk about politics in face-to-face settings, but might talk about politics online(4). Also in both studies, anonymity is assumed but never empirically examined. For example, in the Ho and McLeod piece it does not seem like the students were ever told whether they would be talking to people they knew or not or if they would be identifying themselves in anyway during the discussion. Maybe the difference Ho and McLeod found was not a function of the varying media, but a function of the varying perceived anonymity. The students in the face-to-face condition might have assumed they would be discussing gay marriage with other communication students. These discussion partners in a face-to-face environment would be able to easily identify the speaker. Whereas the students in the CMC condition might have assumed they would be anonymous and therefore would be more willing to express their opinions. Following this train of thought, the manipulation of the medium would make no difference it would be the participant’s perception of anonymity, which cause the findings. Ho and McLoed could have partially controlled for this by telling students who they would be talking to and how they would be identified in both conditions. A better way to test this would be to allow individual’s to discuss in different CMC and face-to-face anonymity conditions. This would be a simple 2 (CMC vs. F2F) by 2 (low vs. high anonymity) design(5). They could then tell if it is the medium causing the change or if it is really just one attribute of the communication system which is causing the increased willingness to express opinion.

The studies of the Usenet also suffer from not looking closer at anonymity and how anonymity could be involved in their findings(6). It is important to note that although all three of the Usenet studies discuss anonymity, none of the pieces clearly defined or directly tested anonymity. Davis (2005) is the only one that attempted to look at anonymity. He did this by looking at the names people used when posting. He found three groups of people: those that used clearly identifiable names, those who used aliases, and those who used no name at all. These three groups could be seen as theoretically matching the levels of anonymity described above. The first group, if they use clearly identifiable names that connect to their offline identity, could been seen as closely related to the low anonymity group (e.g. the course wiki).  The third group could be seen as a high anonymity group. Then the second group could vary a lot. Some people who use their alias a lot and comment on the Usenet newsgroup a lot might feel they have no anonymity. Whereas someone who just signed up for this user name and never uses this specific Usenet forum might feel a lot of anonymity. Unfortunately, Davis did not look at this in very much depth.

Neither Wilhelm (2000) nor Papacharissi (2004) looked at anonymity at all in their studies, although both could have used it. In both studies, the authors performed content analyses of Usenet newsgroups. Their choice of method obviously constrained their ability to look too critically at anonymity as a possible explanation, but they still use anonymity to explain part of their findings. Both of them seem to be theoretically arguing that the Internet is anonymous by its nature or that anonymity is a characteristic of the underlying infrastructure. This is untrue. Anonymity is a function of design and use. Anonymity through design has already been discussed. Anonymity is also a function of how individuals use a CMC system. The Usenet does allow for relatively high anonymity, but that does not mean all users are anonymous. Some will remain anonymous, but others will become completely identifiable. The perceived anonymity of the user could easily have effects on the levels of civility and politeness the user shows when engaging in discussions.
Anonymity is becoming important in the discussion about the future of the Internet, with some arguing for an identification layer built into the code of the Internet (Lessig, 2006). Therefore it is important that we, as communication scholars, understand the role anonymity plays in online discussions. I am not making any normative judgments about Internet anonymity here. It could clearly have both possible and negative aspects. High anonymity setting can be very positive by allowing people to meet in a safe-haven where they can discuss problems without having to worry about repercussion (e.g. anonymous AIDS chatrooms). Unfortunately, they can also be very negative, as we have seen in the reporting on Internet predators who target underage children.  Low anonymity settings also have positive and negative outcomes associated them. I am instead arguing that we must have a greater understanding of online anonymity, before its possibility is legislated away.

Notes

(1) In January 2008, MySpace announced a deal it had reached with 49 state attorneys general to create the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to examine issues of Internet privacy and safety. Primarily, it was created to protect children from Internet predators.
(2) For this essay, I am using a simple dictionary definition of anonymity. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines anonymity as a quality or state of being which lacks individuality, distinction, or recognizability.
(3) This view of anonymity could fit into Eveland’s (2003) “mix of attributes” approach to understanding media effects.
(4) I really have issues with the Ho and McLeod (2008) piece. I know they say that this happens a lot in spiral of silence literature, but I don’t like that they did a study of deliberation without any deliberation.
(5) The CMC/Hi could have no identifying information and have the participants talking to strangers. The CMC/Lo could have identifying information and classmates. The F2F/Hi could no introduction and stranger discussing. The F2F/Lo could have participants do introductions including name, profession, etc. and classmates. Not perfect, but a thought.
(6) I would also like to note that I had sampling issues with all three of the articles. My main problem is that I think when attempting to make claims about the whole USENET the unit of analysis should probably be newsgroups. These studies then have samples sizes of 4, 10, and 10. I have problems generalizing from these samples to the whole Usenet, let alone all of CMC.

References

Stromer-Galley, J. (2002). New voices in the public sphere: A comparative analysis of interpersonal and online political talk. Javnost: The Public, 9(2), 23-42.
Davis, R. (2005). Politics online: Blogs, chatrooms, and discussion groups in American democracy (pp. 35-67). New York: Routledge.
Wilhelm, A. G. (2000). Democracy in the digital age (pp. 86-104). New York: Routledge.
Wright, S., & Street, J. (2007). Democracy, deliberation and design: The case of online discussion forums. New Media & Society, 9, 849-869.
Papacharissi, Z. (2004). Democracy online: Civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups. New Media & Society, 6, 259-283.
Ho, S. S., & McLeod, D. M. (2008). Social-psychological influences on opinion expression in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 35, 190-207.
Eveland, W. P. (2003). A “mix of attributes” approach to the study of media effects and new communication technologies. Journal of Communication, 53(3), 395-410.
Lessig, L. (2006). Code version 2.0. New York: Basic Books.