Communication and Technology Studies Group

Tech openings at WSU

2011-12-07T10:32:00.003-05:00

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

2011-10-20T11:22:00.003-04:00

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

2011-10-20T11:07:00.001-04:00

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

2011-10-05T09:16:00.003-04:00

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

2011-09-23T15:29:00.004-04:00

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

2011-09-21T09:28:00.002-04:00

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

2011-06-02T12:57:00.003-04:00

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

2011-03-18T10:33:00.003-04:00

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

2011-03-07T11:34:00.002-05:00

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

2011-03-06T20:43:00.001-05:00

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

2011-02-18T16:44:00.005-05:00

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

2011-02-16T10:51:00.002-05:00

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

2011-02-09T11:26:00.002-05:00

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.

Video Games' punch can last for a day

2010-11-18T10:19:00.002-05:00

The study conducted by Brad Bushman of The Ohio State University and Bryan Gibson of Central Michigan University, shows that at least for men, ruminating about the game can increase the potency of the game’s tendency to lead to aggression long after the game has been turned off.

Press Release

Washington Post

Reflections on life as an OSU grad student

2010-10-13T20:46:00.003-04:00

Kristen Landerville, an assistant professor at U of Wyoming and a recent OSU graduate, has posted a brief essay reflecting on her experiences here. It's short and light-hearted, but still manages to present a compelling picture of the graduate school experience. Enjoy.

http://klandreville.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/whoot-whoot/

Dr. Kelly Garrett is Recipient of 2009 McQuail Award

2010-10-11T09:40:00.002-04:00

Our CATS research group member Kelly Garrett is the recipient of the ASCoR Denis McQuail Award 2009 and has been named a 2010-2011 ASCoR Honorary Fellow by the Amsterdam School of Communication Research.

Ohio State's School of Communication #1 in Research Production and #3 Overall in Field

2010-10-05T15:30:00.002-04:00

The National Research Council’s (NRC) doctoral program assessments are out, and the results place The Ohio State University's School of Communication among the best in the nation. Among the 83 doctoral communication programs reviewed, our faculty was ranked #1 in absolute research activity. A composite ranking, based on 20 different criteria, placed the school at #3 in the field, alongside other top-ranked programs including Stanford University's Department of Communication, the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Journalism & Mass Communication, and the Speech Communication program at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign (now the Department of Communication).

For more information, see: http://www.comm.ohio-state.edu/NRC.aspx

You can download the data here: http://goo.gl/z5ix

Dr. Jesse Fox's research covered in Stanford Magazine

2010-09-21T12:37:00.003-04:00

Please find information about the study "Sexualized Avatars" by using the following link.

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2010/sepoct/features/avatars.html

Rand to conduct NetLogo workshop May 26

2010-05-25T08:54:00.000-04:00

The Complexity in Human, Natural and Engineered Systems Innovation Group is organizing a one-day workshop on agent-based modeling using NetLogo, from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday (5/26). Bill Rand, University of Maryland will lead the workshop in the Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Jennings Hall, third floor. The workshop is open to all. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Bring your own laptop. RSVP and address questions to: mailto:Virginia.Nivar@osumc.edu. Read more >

CFP - DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media

2010-04-21T10:52:00.001-04:00

Call for papers/presentations: due May 20, 2010

Plenary speakers include: Anne Balsalmo, Suzanne de Castell, Ron Deibert, Paul Dourish, Henry Jenkins, Jennifer Jenson, Natalie Jeremijenko, Steve Mann, Trebor Scholz.

Conference Organizers: Prof. Megan Boler, Associate Chair, Department of Theory and Policy Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto; Prof. Matthew Ratto Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto; Director, Critical Making Lab, University of Toronto

A renewed emphasis on participatory forms of digitally-mediated production is transforming our social landscape. ‘Making’ has become the dominant metaphor for a variety of digital and digitally-mediated practices. The web is exploding with independently produced digital ‘content’ such as video diaries, conversations, stories, software, music, video games—all of which are further transformed and morphed by “modders,” “hackers,” artists and activists who redeploy and repurpose corporately-produced content. Equally, communities of self-organized crafters, hackers, and enthusiasts are increasingly to be found online exchanging sewing and knitting patterns, technical guides, circuit layouts, detailed electronics tutorials and other forms of instruction and support. Many of these individuals and collaborators understand their work to be socially interventionist. Through practices of design, development, and exchange they challenge traditional divides between production and consumption and to redress the power differentials built into technologically-mediated societies.

“DIY Citizenship” invokes the participatory nature of these diverse “do-it-yourself” modes of engagement, community, networks, and tools—all of which arguably replace traditional with remediated notions of citizenship. The term “critical making” refers to the increasing role ‘making’ plays in critical forms of social reflection and engagement.

For the full conference call, see:

http://diycitizenship.com/

DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media
Centre for the Study of the United States, Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto
Nov 12-14, 2010

Library of Congress to host full Twitter archive

2010-04-15T08:15:00.002-04:00

According to the Library of Congress's blog, the library will be hosting a complete archive of Twitter posts dating back to the start of the service. Quoting from the post:

That’s right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.

That's a lot of research data...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google has simultaneously announced that it will be providing a search-based interface to the data.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow position at the UM School of Information

2010-04-14T09:09:00.000-04:00

Postdoctoral Associate

University of Michigan School of Information

Salary: $50,500 per year, plus a complete and highly competitive benefits package

Term: One year renewable pending funding

Frequent travel: Up to 4-5 weeks per year in total will be required

Position Description

The postdoctoral associate will assist a 3.5-year research project entitled "Scaling Up: Introducing Commodity Governance into Community Earth Science Models." The goal of the project is to understand and promote well-functioning sociotechnical infrastructure for governance of community Earth system models (climate models). The project team includes a mix of social scientists, software developers, and Earth system scientists from the University of Michigan, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Princeton), and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Working with School of Information professors Paul Edwards and Mark Ackerman as well as independently, the postdoctoral associate will first conduct a sociotechnical analysis of existing governance practices within the target modeling projects. This includes (but is not limited to) interviews with and surveys of project members regarding governance structures; observation of project activities, including on-site visits; review of historical documents and events; and analysis of modeling work in theoretical context. Methods and theories will be drawn, as appropriate, from computer-supported cooperative work; human-computer interaction; organizational studies; science and technology studies; the history of infrastructure; and ethnography. In the second and third years of the project, as the software developers and climate modelers begin to build and implement prototype governance software, the postdoctoral associate will assist with implementation and evaluation.

The postdoc will be an equal member of the research team. S/he will be expected not only to assist with the research but to lead in recruiting participants, conducting interviews, coding interviews and field notes, and communicating with the rest of the project team. The postdoc will be expected to contribute substantially to publications resulting from the project, including acting as first author on some and as a secondary author on others.

The position will start June 1, 2010, or as soon thereafter as feasible by mutual agreement.

Requirements

A Ph.D. degree in a relevant field, completed before the agreed start date.

The ideal candidate will be trained in some combination of ethnographic methods, science & technology studies, computer-supported collaborative work, and/or human-computer interaction. Some background in an Earth system science (climatology, oceanography, meteorology, etc.) or another physical science would be helpful, but is not required. Likewise, experience with NVivo or other qualitative data analysis software would be helpful, but is not required.

Professors Edwards and Ackerman will facilitate the postdoc's acquisition of any missing skills through coursework, independent reading, workshops, or individual tutorials.

How to apply

Candidates should submit the following materials electronically to Prof. Paul N. Edwards.

1) A statement of interest describing your relevant background and skills

2) A current curriculum vitae

3) Two publications or other writing samples

Email Prof. Edwards (pne@umich.edu) a single PDF file containing these documents.

In addition, please request that two reference letters be emailed to Professor Edwards. One of these letters should be from your doctoral advisor. These can also be submitted with the application materials.

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.

E-Democracy Panel on Thursday

2010-03-02T09:05:00.005-05:00

Some research group members may be interested an e-democracy panel held this Thursday on the Thompson Library (11th floor).

Abstract:

Scholars from different disciplines will discuss what it means to be a citizen in a digitized and globally connected community. What is a citizen? How do citizens participate? What are the boundaries of the community? How does technology help citizens be more engaged? What are the challenges to healthy, functioning democracy and community in a digital and globalized era?

The discussion will include audience participation. Panelists: Peter Shane, OSU Moritz College of Law; Jennifer Evans Cowley, OSU Department of City and Regional Planning; Philip Armstrong, OSU Department of Comparative Studies; and Patrick Losinski, Executive Director, Columbus Metropolitan Library.

http://library.osu.edu/blogs/librarynews/2010/02/24/e-democracy-panel-3-4/

Profile: Jesse Fox's work

2010-03-01T21:15:00.004-05:00

The Stanford News Service has posted an interesting profile of Asst. Professor Jesse Fox's research, titled "Can avatars change the way we think and act?" on its web site. If you're interested in the topic, or just want to know more about our new faculty member, please check it out.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february22/avatar-behavior-study-022510.html

Digital Media in a Social World -- Feb 19-20

2010-02-18T08:58:00.003-05:00

The DMSW conference, sponsored by the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW), takes place on Friday and Saturday. There are a half dozen sessions each day, with a number of program choices in each session. The program is online here: http://dmsw.osu.edu/program

TODAY: Talk addressing agent-based modeling

2010-02-15T08:10:00.003-05:00

If you are interested in agent-based modeling, or just want to know what it is, you might want to attend a talk this afternoon sponsored by the Complexity in Human, Natural and Engineered Systems group. Here's the full announcement:

Julie Field, Mark Moritz, and Rick Yerkes (Department of Anthropology) will discuss how anthropologists and archaeologists have integrated complexity, complex systems, complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling in their research. The seminar will be held from 1-2:30 p.m. today (2/15) in 525 Scott Laboratory. Contact: Mark Moritz at mailto:moritz.42@osu.edu. Read more: https://complex-systems.wikidot.com/

Clinton's Internet Freedom address

2010-01-22T09:06:00.006-05:00

I had the opportunity to attend Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s policy address on Internet freedom yesterday, and wanted to share a few of my notes. In her talk she identified several basic rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of worship, and freedom to connect with others (a digital update of assembly), that should be afforded to all people, and observed that fostering and sustaining free, secure, and reliable networks around the world is a priority for this administration.

With this goal in mind, she announced several initiatives that the State Department is spearheading. First, Clinton said that the US will be funding the development and deployment of tools for circumventing censorship. There were some comments during the post-address panel suggesting that this strategy may already be in play, but it certainly appears to be a more public endorsement than has been previously offered. Second, the State Department plans to begin funding partners in industry and academia to design and build software that can be used to empower citizen. She gave the example of a mobile phone application that would allow citizens to rate ministries in terms of responsiveness and corruption. Third, she announced an innovation competition that seeks to identify technologies that effectively connect people to services that they need. Winners will be awarded grants to facilitate building these technologies on a large scale. Fourth, she urged US companies to take an active role in challenging censorship requests from other states. Google’s recent decision to either remove restrictions on the results produce by its China-based search engine or to pull out of China, announced just a few days prior, is an obvious example. (And Yahoo’s decision to hand over emails and other information about Chinese dissidents back in 2005 is an obvious example of what the US would like to avoid.) Clinton also alluded to the recent cyber-attacks originating in China against Google and other technology firms, and said that the US wants the Chinese government to pursue a full and transparent investigation into the sources of these attacks.

One interesting omission, in my view, was any discussion of how the US will respond should it become evident that attacks on US-owned network infrastructure located abroad were actually state sponsored. Presumably this is because such action could constitute cyber-warfare, and the State Department does not want this particular hypothetical to distract from the broader emphasis on global Internet freedom.

Given the specific funding opportunities identified during the speech, CATS members may want to discuss whether we could play any role in these types of projects. We would certainly need to collaborate with people in other fields, e.g., computer science, but I expect that our expertise could be valuable.

Obviously, this is only a partial summary of the speech. More information is available online.

A transcript is available courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/internet_freedom

A video of the speech is available on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I2VUhHVToE

The Chinese government has already responded critically to Clinton’s address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012201090.html

Winter '10 schedule

2010-01-15T15:59:00.005-05:00

1-29 Computational Social Science: Accessing and analyzing real-world data from the Internet (reading will be circulated in advance of meeting)

2-12 Law School Youth and Social Media Symposium (http://www.is-journal.org/news.php)

2-26 Jon D'Angelo, Erin Schumaker, John Valez, Title TBA

3-12 Sarah Brookes, "Playing the Story: Transportation as a Moderator of Involvement in Narratively-Based Video Games"

February 12, 2010: Youth and Social Media Symposium

2010-01-13T13:51:00.003-05:00

I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society is hosting a free February 12, 2010 symposium on the value of social media for the lives of young people and the challenges and opportunities that social media present. Everyone is invited to the conference, which will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Saxbe Auditorium of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Co-sponsors include the Moritz College of Law, the Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies, and Literacy Studies @ OSU.

The symposium will bring together nationally and internationally recognized experts on law, media, technology, public health, and communication to discuss the implications of social media for young people’s safety, privacy, free expression, cultural engagement, sense of identity, and civic role. Keynote speaker Dr. danah boyd is a researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She is widely followed for her writings on the role social network sites like MySpace and Facebook play in everyday teen interactions and social relations.

For more information, please visit http://www.is-journal.org/socialmedia/index.php. A flyer for the symposium is attached. Feel free both to forward this notice widely and to print out and post the flyer wherever appropriate.

Facebook Fellowship

2010-01-11T14:10:00.003-05:00

Facebook has announced its '10-'11 grad student fellowships. Social computing, including social media, social search, and collaborative environments, is listed among the topics the company is interested in supporting. The application deadline is February 15, and decisions will be announced on March 29. The application is short -- just a couple pages explaining the research and how it relates to Facebook -- and the Fellowships are generous.

http://www.facebook.com/careers/fellowship.php

Jeffrey Bigham lecture 12/1, DL480 (CS)

2009-11-30T16:46:00.003-05:00

Jeffrey Bigham recently started as an assistant professor at the University of Rochester after completing his PhD from the University of Washington (Richard Ladner's group). His research improves web access for the blind. One of his tangible contributions is the WebAnywhere non-visual web browser () that provides convenient text-to-speech and speech-to-text browsing. He has also worked on the making visual touch screens (like the iPhone) accessible to the blind. Over the summer, he was named one of the 35 top young innovators by MIT Technology Review.

The lecture will be held on Dec 1 at 3:30pm in DL 480.

CATS email list

2009-11-04T09:07:00.002-05:00

If you'd like to receive CATS emails you can now subscribe to the CATS email list. To subscribe, send an email as follows:

To: listserver@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [anything]
Message text: "subscribe osucats [Firstname] [Lastname]"

The quotes around the text aren't required, and the [name] that you type in the message text will be used to identify you to other list members.

2009-10-09T09:32:00.011-04:00

Call for Manuscripts, Mass Communication and Society

2009-09-30T19:25:00.005-04:00

Deadline: January 12, 2010

“The Facebook Election: New Media and the 2008 Presidential Campaign”
Special Symposium

Tom Johnson & Dave Perlmutter, Guest Editors

Some political observers dubbed the 2008 presidential campaign as the Facebook election. Barack Obama, in particular, employed Online Social-Interactive Media (OSIM) such as blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to run a grassroots style campaign. Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul similarly campaigned using OSIM technology in their organizing efforts. The Obama campaign was keenly aware that voters, particularly the young, are not simply consumers of information, but conduits of information as well. They often replaced the professional filter of traditional media with a social one. OSIMs allowed candidates to do electronically what previously had to be done through shoe leather and phone banks: contact volunteers and donors, and schedule and promote events.

OSIMs changed the way candidates campaigned, how the media covered the election and how voters received information. In this special issue of Mass Communication & Society, we seek theoretically driven and empirically grounded manuscripts on the role of OSIMs in the 2008 election campaign. In particular, we seek submissions that explore the subject in one or several of the following ways:

• Candidates’ use of OSIMs: How did presidential candidates use OSIMs as a tool to present their message, recruit volunteers and to raise money? What effect did the OSIMs have on the way they ran campaigns?
• Voters’ use of OSIMs: How did voters use OSIMS to get information on the 2008 campaign? How credible and useful did they judge political information from OSIMs? What effect did OSIMs have on their political attitudes, cognitions and behaviors?
• Traditional Media and OSIMs: How did legacy media and their online counterparts cover the OSIM phenomenon? How did they employ OSIMs in their election coverage?

This special issue of Mass Communication and Society will appear at the end of 2010. Submitted papers should follow the standard submission procedures outlined in the inside back cover of the journal. Authors should specify in their submission letter that they wish their submission to be considered for the 2008 Campaign New Media Symposium and must be received by January 12, 2010.

First meeting today

2009-09-25T09:56:00.003-04:00

The first CATS meeting of the quarter is today at 2:30pm in JR106. Whether your a seasoned researcher or a new grad student, if you're interested in this topic we hope you will join us.

New tech lab space

2009-09-14T12:02:00.004-04:00

As many of you know, two new tech-oriented research spaces are being created in the Journalism building. Planning started more than a year old, and I understand that the work is now underway and that the spaces may be available soon. In the meantime, I thought everyone would like to see the floor plans. (I got a copy after asking about the status of another room.)

Twitter's long tail

2009-06-09T13:02:00.004-04:00

A new study coming out of the Harvard Business School concludes that very few Twitter users send messages using the service, suggesting that it is used more like a broadcast medium than a peer-to-peer communication network. Specifically, the authors found that although about 4 in 5 (80%) Twitter users are followed by at least one other person, "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets." These conclusions are drawn based on analysis of the activities of a sample of 300,000 Tweeter users in May 2009.

See: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8089508.stm

OSU CATS at AEJMC 2009

2009-06-09T10:08:00.006-04:00

We are very excited that CATS members have received important awards for their outstanding papers at the AEJMC 2009.

Dr. Dongyoung Sohn's paper "Anatomy of interaction experience: Distinguishing sensory, semantic, and behavioral dimensions of interactivity" has won the first place in the communication technology (CTEC) division - Faculty Paper Competition of AEJMC.

Also, a paper co-authored by four students (two of them, Michael Beam and Nick Geidner, are CATS members) has won the Top Three Student Paper Award in the CTEC division of AEJMC. Their paper title is "Gatekeeping and YouTube: News Filters and the Intermedia Dynamic in the Age of User-Generated Content."

The AEJMC 2009 convention takes place on August 5-8, Boston, Massachusetts.

Data.gov goes live

2009-06-05T13:54:00.004-04:00

There's a new website sponsored by the federal government designed to facilitate access to a vast assortment of government-collected data. The index/archive is still relatively small, but it is expected to grow over the coming months and years. Take a look for yourself:

http://www.data.gov/

From the site

"The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Although the initial launch of Data.gov provides a limited portion of the rich variety of Federal datasets presently available, we invite you to actively participate in shaping the future of Data.gov by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of your Federal data. Visit today with us, but come back often. With your help, Data.gov will continue to grow and change in the weeks, months, and years ahead."

OSU CaTS presentations at ICA 2009

2009-02-24T21:45:00.012-05:00

A list of OSU CATS presentations at ICA 2009, including times and abstract, is now available here. The complete ICA schedule can be found here. (If I've missed a presentation, please email the relevant info to me.)

HICSS Call for proposals

2009-02-24T17:49:00.005-05:00

Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Deadline: June 15, 2009
http://ekarine.org/news/hicsscommunities/
http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/

NOTE: This conference tend to have a more applied focus and a more technical audience.

Following the success of similar minitrack from the past seven HICSS conferences, we invite submissions to the 2010 mini-track on social networking and communities.
We call for papers that address technology and information in support of communities at society, work, school and home, supporting interests of business, learning, society and play. We encourage papers from multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.

HICSS conferences are devoted to advances in the information, computer, and system sciences, and encompass developments in both theory and practice. Invited papers may be theoretical, conceptual, tutorial or descriptive in nature. Submissions undergo a double-blind peer referee process and those selected for presentation will be published in the Conference Proceedings. Submissions must not have been previously published.

Conference details:
January 5 - 8, 2010 (Tuesday – Friday)
Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa
http://kauai.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/

Three upcoming conferences

2009-02-23T13:57:00.008-05:00

2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom-09)
Vancouver, Canada, August 29-31, 2009
Submission Deadline: April 15th, 2009 (March 1st for panel proposals)
Conference web site: http://cse.stfx.ca/~socialcom09/

Social Computing can be broadly defined as computational facilitation of social studies and human social dynamics as well as design and use of information and communication technologies that consider social context. Social computing has recently become one of the central themes across a number of information and communication technology fields and attracted significant interest from not only researchers in computing and social sciences, but also software and online game vendors, web entrepreneurs, political analysts, digital government practitioners. The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing provides a key forum for researchers and industry practitioners to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of social computing.

PRESENCE 2009: 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence
Los Angeles, California, USA,November 11-13, 2009
Submission deadline: July 1, 2009
Conference web site: http://ispr.info/conference

Academics and practitioners with an interest in the concept of (tele)presence are invited to submit their work for presentation at the 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence, to be held in Los Angeles, California on November 11-13, 2009. Often described as a sense of "being there" in a mediated environment, telepresence is broadly defined as a psychological state or subjective perception in which a person fails to accurately and completely acknowledge the role of technology in an experience. It is a rich, fascinating subject of scientific investigation, artistic exploration and diverse application, with increasingly important implications for the ways in which people work, play and live, and technologies are developed.

PRESENCE 2009 is co-organized by the International Society for Presence Research (ISPR; http://ispr.info) and The University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT; http://ict.usc.edu).

6th Conference of the Media Psychology Division (German Psychological Society)
Focus-Theme: "New Media and Interactive Systems"
Submission deadline: April 1, 2009
University Duisburg-Essen, Germany, September 9th to 11th, 2009
Conference web sites: http://www.sozialpsychologie.uni-due.de/tmp (not working as of 2/26)

http://www.sozialpsychologie.uni-due.de/tgm (not working as of 2/26)

The 6th Conference of the Media Psychology Division (German Psychological Society) will take place from September 9 to September 11, 2009 at the University Duisburg-Essen (Campus Duisburg), Germany, chaired by Prof. Dr. Nicole Krämer. The division chairs as well as local chair and the Department for Computer Science and Applied Cognitive Science cordially invite you to Duisburg.

This year´s focus theme is "New Media and Interactive Systems". By suggesting a focus theme we aim at concentrating results, advancing theoretical development in this area and fostering exchange with other psychological disciplines as well as with neighbouring disciplines. However, contributions on all areas of media psychology are welcome.

For the first time, the conference is to be held in English. We thus invite not only German media psychologists but also European and other international researchers to contribute. All contributions will be peer-reviewed. You can submit position and review papers (extended abstract of 1000 words each), research papers (300 word abstract including results) and posters (300 word abstract).

Contact
University Duisburg-Essen
Prof. Dr. Nicole Krämer
Social Psychology – Media and Communication
D-47057 Duisburg
eMail: nicole.kraemer@uni-due.de
Telefon: +49-(0)203-379-2482 / Fax: +49-(0)203-379-3670

Call for Nominations for the Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award

2009-02-13T09:44:00.001-05:00

The Communication and Technology (CAT) division of the International Communication Association (ICA) invites nominations for the Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award. This award honors the memory of Prof. Dordick by recognizing annually the most outstanding dissertation on communication and technology produced in the preceding year. The award will be presented this coming year at the Business Meeting of the CAT division during the 2009 ICA conference in Chicago. The rules for nominating a dissertation are:

1. Any CAT-related dissertation completed (i.e., successfully defended) between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2008 is eligible for consideration. Dissertation authors need not be members of CAT division to be considered, but must be ICA members to accept the award.

2. Dissertations may be nominated by the author, dissertation advisor or a professional colleague. Full contact information of the author and the nominee must be provided, including name, phone number, surface mail address, and email address.

3. Nomination materials should include: (a) the author’s contact information, (b) proof of completion of the dissertation along with date, (c) a one-page abstract of the dissertation, (d) a 1-2 page statement describing the significance of the work and why it is deserving of the award, and (e) a representative chapter, selected sections of the dissertation, OR a paper distilling it, up to 30 (double-spaced) pages maximum, excluding references, tables, and figures.

4. The deadline for receipt of nomination materials is midnight of February 15, 2009 (Greenwich Mean Time). Submissions must be made electronically in PDF form to ica.cat08@gmail.com. (Free PDF converters are available on the web including at http://cutepdf.com or http://www.primopdf.com).

CIOS ranks OSU #2 in technology research

2009-02-04T17:02:00.002-05:00

The Communications Institute for Online Scholarship (CIOS) has ranked the School of Communication second in the nation for research in the technology area. The ranking is based on publications included in the ComAbstracts database.

Clear here to see the full list of ranked research schools. More information about the ranking process is here.

Guest blogging for Discovery Tech

2009-01-22T17:54:00.001-05:00

A few months ago I received a note from a producer for Discovery Tech, a web site run by the Discovery Channel. She's start a guest blog, and wants to give student researchers an opportunity to tell the world about their work, what it's like being a student in this area, and so forth. She said she was open to single posts, or a regular series. You can see the blog here: http://blogs.discovery.com/guest_spot/. If you're interested, let me know and I'll see if she's still looking for people. -Kelly

New Faculty Member Hired

2009-01-22T13:16:00.002-05:00

We are very excited that Brandon Van Der Heide will join the School of Communication in fall 2009 as a new Assistant Professor in the field of communication technology.
He is a great fit for our research group with his interest in effects of communication technology on communicative processes and his recent research studies.
Brandon comes from Michigan State University.

Welcome to the CATS website!

2009-01-06T09:08:00.002-05:00

The research group CATS has two main goals:
1. “Stimulation”: The discussion of different research projects, theories, and methods should stimulate group members and give them new ideas for their own research projects.
2. “Synergy”: Group members have a better chance to find similarities of their work if they know the different research fields and projects. That should lead to new cooperation with/between graduate students/faculty members.

CATS provides many opportunities for discussions and presentations. You are very welcome to join our group as an activ member or attend regular meetings as an interested guest.
If you have questions or requests, please contact Dr. Axel Westerwick at westerwick.1@osu.edu.

CATS Program academic year 2008/2009

2008-12-13T16:02:00.005-05:00

CATS Program academic year 2008/2009

All meetings take place at 12:30 p.m., room DB3150

01/16/09: Dr. Kelly Garrett “Online communication in the context of contentious politics”
01/30/09: Dr. Joyce Wang “The Dynamics of Media Use and Gratification”
02/13/09: Dr. Axel Westerwick “The influence of organizational communication strategies on the use of communication technology”
02/27/09: Dr. Young Mie Kim “The Internet and the Transformation of Democracy”
03/06/2009: Jatin Srivastava and Dr. Osei Appiah "Ads as bait: a 'foot in the door' strategy to gain audiences' attention to magazine articles"
03/13/09: Dr. Dongyoung Sohn “Interactivity, Expected Interactivity, and the Issues
Remaining”
04/10/09: Dr. John Dimmick “The time-space diary”
04/24/09: Synergy meeting (based on presented and discussed topics)
05/15/09: ICA presentations (grad students)
06/05/09: Guest speaker (TBA)

Communication Technology Update vol 11

2008-09-02T21:00:00.001-04:00

The newest edition of Communication Technology Update and Fundamentals (Eleventh Edition) from editors Grant & Meadows is now out. I am the author of the videogame chapter. Feel free to direct any/all comments, annoyances, and hate mail in my direction.

Delphi Survey from EU on Creative Content Industry

2008-03-07T10:04:00.001-05:00

Since Dr. Dimmick participated in the June 2007 Delphi survey on the future of the creative content industry that the European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network conducted on behalf of the European Commission, we can see the results of the study.

The Delphi report as well as additional analytical reports from the project website.
are available to be downloaded from here:

http://epis.jrc.es/documents/Deliverables/EPIS%202-3-1%20Delphi%20Report.pdf

http://epis.jrc.es/Pages/deliverables.html

Here is what the survey is about from their own Executive Report:

In a nutshell the Delphi survey revealed a number of topics where experts have no consensus
about the likely development. They will serve as an input to the subsequent scenario development. Among these issues are
• Intellectual property rights (IPR), the relevance of current IPR concept under changing
conditions, new ways to protect IPR and the issue of technical protection means like DRM
systems.
• The structure of the Creative Content Sector is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation process. Of particular importance is the question how new, innovative enterprises that experts regard as the drivers of technological and business changes can be
supported in an environment that is currently dominated by a few globally active corporations.
• An open issue is the likely development and importance of virtual worlds (like second life)
and multiplayer online-games (like World of Warcraft).

The central result is the identification of five theses with a high relevance in all considered
dimensions (economic, techno-scientific, society, quality of life). These theses include:
• Most users are able to transmit and receive large amounts of media data (e.g. streaming
of high definition TV) from the Internet even at peak times of the day without recognizable
delay. The fact that this thesis is also considered to become reality quite soon (in 2014)
underlines the outstanding importance of widespread availability of a true broadband
infrastructure with seamless and universal access for all.
• Content creation for educational purposes (e-learning) reaches a 20% share of the entire
creative content market in Europe.
• Most media (including instructional software) used in education can be copied and redistributed without payment. Though judged as very relevant, there is a controversy if educational applications can profit from the ongoing transformation in the desired way because of the dominance of economic factors in the CC sector. In this respect this could be one of the priorities for future policy measures.
• A seamless exchange of audio-visual contents between mobile devices and personal
computers (regardless of the manufacturer) is routine. Interoperability and seamless
gateways are central requirements for universal and ubiquitous access, which is an often
unuttered assumption for the future success of media.
• Most media suppliers earn money by distributing content over the Internet even without
using Digital Rights Management. This thesis’ assessment is another evidence for the
central role of IPR and its protection (see above).

Niches of the News Media

2007-11-30T16:05:00.001-05:00

For those interested in niche theory as it is applied to the media industry, or studies of news consumption examining new (e.g. internet, web-enabled phone, iPod) and traditional media (e.g. TV, radio, newspaper), Dr. Dimmick, John Feaster, and Greg Hoplamazian are currently involved in research in this area. Below is an abstract from their paper submitted to ICA in November. If you have any questions about the study, or niche theory more generally, please let us know!

The use of mobile and traditional media for information: News in time and space

Dr. John Dimmick, John Feaster, and Greg Hoplamazian

The study was supported by a grant from the Knight Foundation and the Shorenstein Center for the Press and Public Policy at Harvard University

News content, once restricted to purely paper formats, is now accessible through 24-hour news channels, constantly updated websites, text messages sent automatically to cell phones, and newspaper sources available in several formats (print, online, e-mail). This growth from one channel to many seems to suggest great competition between these available news media, each diminishing the consumer need for the other. However, research on media use displacement and offers conflicting results regarding the impact of novel media (for review see Cai, 2005). This study employs the theory of the niche (Dimmick, 2003) to examine competition and coexistence between traditional and mobile news media. A time-space diary method was used to capture paticipants' news consumption during an assigned 24-hour peroid. Results suggest that new media are occupying niche spaces where traditional media are either unavailable or inconvenient. These findings offer insight into how various news media are able to coexist by occupying distinct niches in the news domain. Media were differentiated by demonstrating superiority over competitors based on time of day, location, or content offered.

Movie Fans Recruited by Producers to Spread Online Buzz

2007-11-13T14:47:00.000-05:00

Although Snakes on a Plane didn't do as well as all the media hype for it would have predicted, it was still an interesting piece of internet/movie lore, the first time it became very obvious how the rise of the internet could impact traditional media producing -- in this case, getting feedback from would-be fans (i.e. the potential consumer base) as to how the film should be structured. And apparently, they were the only ones really interested in seeing that movie.

So perhaps having such direct feedback from the masses doesn't guarantee a hit. The failure at the box office of SoaP has not deterred other Hollywood movie-makers to experiment with how to use the potential of the internet to their advantage. For the most part, these attempts have remained with the tried and tested method of marketing first created with The Blair Witch Project, which was the first movie to generate online hype or buzz. Since then, all major Hollywood movies, and basically all minor and independent ones, have created their own websites, to the point of advertising these URLs on their posters, TV ads and other traditional marketing techniques. For the most part, these online tie-ins have been rather pedestrian in how they have approached the potential of the internet -- they have treated the new mega-media more like an information source than an interactive medium.

There have been examples of more interactive sites, where directors and other creative talent will blog each day to let fans know about what is happening on set (how they find the time to do so is beyond my comprehension, having been on movie sets). Trailers and exclusive information may be released first online, and producers and studios may actively encourage feedback from the potential consumer base on what they are seeing in the promotion.

But these, still, are rather pedestrian in taking advantage of the full potential of the internet. With Web 2.0 the buzzword as to how the internet is now seen -- approaching a more dialogic nature as the traditional audience becomes its own media producer through websites, blogs, and YouTubing. Recognizing this rise in activity, some media producers are moving to co-opt it, by encouraging more participation from its fans -- Lost: The Experience and Heroes: Evolution are two examples where the producers created online-only content for fans of the TV shows to engage with. Heroes has even co-opted traditional fan activities of message boards and fan production under the aegis of NBC.

In the movie realm, a similar experience comes from the marketing design for the classified J.J. Abrams project "Cloverfield". Traditional film teasers have circulated, but teaser websites have also sprung up. What does a fake Japanese health drink company, Slusho!, have to do with a monster movie? No one is sure, but it has got the potential consumer base theorizing about what the monster is.

Yet it is the marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, that most exemplifies what the potential of the internet is for promotional purposes. Absolutely no aspect of the marketing campaign has been traditional. Any new images or information released has been online only -- and it has only been released after the fans -- the potential consumer base -- has engaged in either online or real world activities, where even the latter is influenced by online websites. Instead of just giving the consumer base information about the movie, the producers are asking people to play games and be rewarded with the information. It was in this method that we came to know what The Joker, arguable the most seminal DC supervillain, would look like.

The producers of The Dark Knight have created a truly interactive marketing campaign that utilizes much of the potential of the internet: interactivity, participation, consumer becomes producer, and instantaneousness. Whether or not this marketing campaign will ultimately benefit the movie remains to be seen. We shall know if the work of J.J. Abrams has succeeded sooner, as that movie premieres in January 2008, whereas Batman does not return to theatres until June 2008.

Also, it must be said, Batman already has his legion of fans -- this marketing campaign is not introducing people to something new, as was with case with Snakes, Blair Witch and the new "Cloverfield" project. But should these new movie project succeed, and should Heroes be kept alive with Evolution -- should the writer's strike force an early season finale -- then we can expect to see more of Hollywood utilizing these same tactics to market to a consumer base that is becoming increasingly sophisticated as to the full potential of the internet.