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.

Video Games' punch can last for a day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Read more here:

http://www.loc.gov/tweet/how-tweet-it-is.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/replay-it-google-search-across-twitter.html

Postdoctoral Research Fellow position at the UM School of Information

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

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

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