Tech openings at WSU

OSU CATS alumnus Michael Beam, who is on the faculty at Washington State University, tells me that WSU has a couple openings in digital media/social media this year. They're looking for candidates with evidence of a productive research agenda and the ability to teach digital courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The college has undergraduate focus areas in advertising, PR, journalism, broadcast, and communication & society. It also has MA and PhD graduate programs in communication.

More information about the positions is available here:

http://www.wsujobs.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=56709

Shapiro to speak on ideological segregation in news consumption

Jesse Shapiro, professor of economics at University of Chicago, will speak on "Ideological Segregation Online and Offline" at 3:30 p.m. on 10/27 in 437 Arps Hall, 1945 N High St. In his research, Shapiro finds that ideological segregation of online news consumption is higher than offline news consumption but significantly lower than segregation in face-to-face interactions. To attend, contact powers.108@osu.edu by Tuesday (10/25). Read more

World Usability Day

World Usability Day is November 10 this year, and Lextant is sponsoring a day-long event here in Columbus. The cost is $5 and registration is required. If you have any interest in working in HCI, usability testing, evaluation, etc., you should consider attending.

Use the link below to register.

http://www.worldusabilityday.org/node/14003

Workshop Series: Planning Ahead for an Academic Job Search

I'd like to encourage doctoral students to consider attending this workshop series. Whether you're just starting, or are collecting data for your dissertation, it's a good time to think about what it means to be on the job market.

http://t.co/kYEEWHIp

This series of events addresses many aspects of the academic job search process. You are welcome to attend all sessions or just the ones that fit your needs and schedule. All workshops are held at 150 Younkin Success Center.

The Academic Job Search
Thursday, October 6, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Stephanie Rohdieck, UCAT

This workshop will provide useful information about the job search process in academia. Information will be provided about helpful tips when starting your job search, where and how to look for openings, as well as what materials need to be prepared.

Vitae and Cover Letters
Thursday, October 13, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Career Connection

This workshop will address how to write vitae and cover letters when searching for jobs in academia. Importance will be placed on both their format and content while highlighting career tips useful when applying for positions with a teaching and/or research emphasis.

Teaching and Research Statements
Thursday, October 20, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Stephanie Rohdieck, UCAT

This workshop will provide an overview of each type of statement, describe how they are used in the academic job search process, and provide guidance on how to write them. There will be opportunities in the session to start the process of writing these statements.

The Interview
Thursday, October 27, 3:30–5 p.m.
Facilitated by Career Connection

This workshop will highlight what to do before, during, and after an interview for positions in academia. Emphasis will be on career strategies and interviewing techniques as well as familiarity with the academic interview expectations. Samples of questions and practice opportunities will be provided, as well as useful suggestions to enhance confidence skills.

Van der Heide coauthors most-cited HCR article of 2010

Congratulations to Brandon Van der Heide on coauthoring the top-cited article of Human Communication Research in 2010. "The role of friends appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on Facebook: Are we known by the company we keep?" was coauthored by Joseph Walther, Brandon Van der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, Stephanie Tong (all of Michigan State U) and David Westerman (of West Viriginia U). Published in Human Communication Research 34:1 in 2008, the article was cited 23 times in 2010 and has been cited 37 times to date. More info here: http://www.icahdq.org/about_ica/press/topcited_hcr.asp

Accessibility Summit

Environments for Humans 2nd Annual Accessibility Summit
When: Tuesday, September 27, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Where: 580 Baker Systems
Registration: https://registration.it.ohio-state.edu/node/412
Cost: Free!

Join us for a work-while-you-learn day focused on accessibility. Bring your laptops, your workload, and your lunch to 580 Baker Systems on Tuesday, September 27, where we will host an all-day meeting room to watch and participate in the Environments for Humans 2nd Annual Accessibility Summit.

Eight prominent web accessibility experts will present and take questions from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Come for the whole day or come for just the topics you are most interested in. WebAIM lead Jared Smith, Adobe accessibility evangelist Matt May, and HTML5 video guru and standardista John Foliot, among others will be giving one hour talks on a wide range of topics, including HTML5 accessibility, law, evolving standards, methodology on captioning, and cross-platform accessibility. A number of the presentations probe the elusive answer to the question: "Is this truly accessible?" See the link above for a detailed line up.

This event is sponsored by the ADA Coordinator's Office, the OCIO’s Digital Union, the Office for Disability Services, University Marketing Communications, and the Web Accessibility Center.

If you have questions about the event, please contact Ken Petri (petri.1@osu.edu) or Joni Tornwall (tornwall.2@osu.edu).

OSU student & faculty @ Persuasive Tech conference

Several SoC students and faculty will be presenting at "Persuasive Technology and Design: Enhancing Sustainability and Health", a conference held this weekend (June 3-4) at the Ohio Union. Other presenters are coming from all over the world. This is a great opportunity to see some interesting talks without leaving your own neighborhood. For more information see the full schedule, available online at https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/persuasive2011/program/

CATS-affiliated researchers in the news

John Dimmick, John Feaster, and Greg Hoplamazian's article in the current issue of New Media & Society is the subject of a recent post on Ars Technica, a popular tech-news site. In their article, Dimmick and colleagues take an ecological perspective when examining the potential displacement effects of mobile technologies on news consumers' consumption practices. They find that in 2007, when the time-diary data was collected, mobile technologies were being used to get news at times and in places where traditional media were largely absent. The journalist at Ars Technica summarizes the study and reflects on what this lack of displacement might mean.

Congratulations to the authors on the well-deserved attention to their interesting work.

Ars Technica - Mobile devices creating their own niche for news delivery

New Media & Society - News in the interstices: The niches of mobile media in space and time

Local conference - Persuasive Technology and Design: Enhancing Sustainability and Health

The Sixth International Conference on Persuasive Technology will be held at The Ohio State University from June 2-5th, 2011 at the new Ohio Union.

The Persuasive Technology Conference Series is for academics, practitioners, and policy makers with an interest in research, theory, technologies, design, and applications related to understanding and predicting persuasion processes and outcomes. Our interest is in how information and communications technologies might be used to help individuals and organizations better understand what people think, feel, and do. We are especially interested in how such technologies have been or are being used to enhance global human welfare. We are also interested in how the technologies might be used in the future.

http://persuasive2011.org/

CATS at ICA

CATS will be well represented at this year’s ICA conference in Boston. It’s especially nice to see so many of our graduate students participating! Here's a brief list of the works being presented. (If I’ve missed yours, please send me a note so I can post an update.)

Brookes, S., & Ewoldsen, D. (2011). The World’s Not So Scary Now: Applying the Event Indexing Model to Cultivation. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Brookes, S., Moyer-Gusé, E., & Mahood, C. (2011). Playing the Story: Transportation as a Mediator of Involvement in Narratively-Based Video Games. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

D'Angelo, J. D., Schumaker, E. M., & Van Der Heide, B. (2011). Cues in Context: Social Information and Impression Formation Through a Contextual Lens. Paper to be presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in Boston, MA.

Garrett, R. K. (2011). Beyond attributes: Expanding the framework for studying technologies’ influence on political communication. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Ortiz, M., Harwood, J., & Schumaker, E. M. (2011). Imagined Extended Contact Through Facebook Profiles. Paper to be presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in Boston, MA.

Van Der Heide, B., Schumaker, E. M., Johnson, B. K., Vang, M., & Peterson, A. (2011). The Effects of Product Photographs and Reputation Systems on eBay Consumer Behavior. Paper to be presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in Boston, MA.

Velez, J. A., Mahood, C., Ewoldsen, D. R., & Moyer-Guse, E. (2011). Ingroup versus outgroup conflict in the context of violent video game play: The effect of cooperation on increased helping and decreased aggression. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Wang, Z., & Tchernev, J. (2011). The Myth of Media Multitasking: A Dynamic Panel Analysis of Media Multitasking, Personal Needs, and Gratifications. Paper presented to the International Communication Association, June 2011, Boston, MA.

Westerwick, A. (2011). Effects of Sponsorship, Web Site Design, and Google Ranking on the Credibility of Online Information. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Westerwick, A. (2011). Wikipedia and Friends: Influences on Users’ Credibility Perceptions of Online Information on Wikipedia. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Comm Tech Journals

The list of publications we discussed at the last CATS meeting (2/11/11) is now online. (Link below and on the sidebar to the right). There are still some gaps where more information needs to be added, but it should give you a sense of what is out there. If you'd like to help update the document, let Kelly know and he'll get you access to edit the Wiki. There's also a list of organizations and conferences based on a meeting from last year if you're interested.

https://carmenwiki.osu.edu/display/10160/Journals

https://carmenwiki.osu.edu/display/10160/Organizations+and+conferences

Call for Abstracts: ACM Web Science Conference 2011

The Web Science Conference is another outlet that CATS members may be interested in. Although this is an ACM sponsored event, Scott Poole is one of the two program chairs, Barry Wellman (a sociologist) is giving the keynote, and the call is clearly oriented toward the social sciences.

A few details are posted below, and see http://www.websci11.org/ for more information.

Web Science is concerned with the full scope of socio-technical relationships that are engaged in the World Wide Web. It is based on the notion that understanding the Web involves not only an analysis of its architecture and applications, but also insight into the people, organizations, policies, and economics that are affected by and subsumed within it. As such Web Science, and thus this conference, is inherently interdisciplinary and integrates computer and information sciences, sociology, economics, political science, law, management, language and communication, geography and psychology. This conference is unique in the manner in which it brings these disciplines together in creative and critical dialogue and we invite papers from all these disciplines and those which cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Submission deadline for extended abstracts: 28 February 2011

Notification of acceptance: 21 March 2011

ICA's Communication and Technology Division Doctoral Consortium

The Communication and Technology Division of the ICA is sponsoring it's second annual doctoral student consortium. This is a great opportunity for students who have defended their dissertation proposal to get feedback from other students, and from leading scholars in the field.

This year's deadline is February 15, and the full call is available here:

http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2011/preconferences/CAT.pdf

New doctoral students: Keep this opportunity in mind as you plan your time here.