Research

Research: Event-Driven Environmental News in the U.S. and Canada

Published on November 15, 2012 by

Professor Stuart Soroka and Andrea Lawlor of McGill University, along with Lori Young of the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Stephen Farnsworth of the University of Mary Washington investigate the trajectory of environmental news in both the U.S. and Canadian media. Especially relevant in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, this research article explains how environmental news is event-driven in the two countries - and describes what the policy implications for such a news cycle might be.

Essay: The U.S. 2012 Presidential Election

Published on October 25, 2012 by Dr. David Paletz

Professor David Paletz of Duke University discusses the current presidential election, with particular emphasis on campaign ads in this new essay published in Electronic Media and Politics.

e-Citizenship: Trust, Efficacy, and Participation in the Internet Era

Published on July 17, 2012 by Sari Sharoni

Political trust and political efficacy are central to theories of citizenship. In this study, Sari Sharoni examines how internet and social media use interact with both of these concepts and the implications for political engagement.

Research Note: The White Picket Fence

Published on March 6, 2012 by Joshua Altman

The world wide web is an open platform where anybody can create a page using the standard hypertext markup language and users are free to move across locations on the web and visit any other site without restrictions. Openness and equality, which guided the early web, was lost in its later years to walled gardens which eventually fell.

The Digital Form of a Weekend Routine: A Research Note on the Weekly Presidential Address

Published on March 4, 2012 by Joshua M. Scacco

Barack Obama broke a presidential tradition on January 24, 2009. After almost three decades on the radio, he delivered the Saturday presidential address visually on the White House website and YouTube page. The medium transition presents an opportunity to examine the address’s evolving form as a genre of presidential rhetoric.

Don’t Ask: The Tea Party Nation’s E-Mail Strategy

Published on September 12, 2011 by J. Scott Willey

This study examines how a decentralized grassroots Tea Party group, Tea Party Nation, used e-mail correspondence to communicate with its members. The analysis shows that the group used e-mail to disseminate and foster a collective oppositional ideology.

A Weekend Routine: The Functions of the Weekly Presidential Address from Clinton to Obama

Published on August 19, 2011 by Joshua M. Scacco

Thirty speeches from the first year of President Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s administrations are analyzed to understand the functions and institutionally-sustaining power of the address’s routine use.

Political Media Fragmentation: Echo Chambers in Cable News

Published on July 18, 2011 by Rebecca Chalif

This paper looks at fragmentation and selectivity by news consumers on cable news, namely, MSNBC and Fox News, arguing that political media selectivity is largely driven by political belief systems.

International News Coverage of Barack Obama as A New President

Published on June 26, 2011 by Stephen J. Farnsworth, S. Robert Lichter, Roland Schatz

This study demonstrates a president’s limited ability to “spin” international news and underscore key differences among domestic and international news outlets regarding coverage of a new US president.

Civic Education and Social Media Use

Published on June 8, 2011 by Diana Owen, Suzanne Soule, Jennifer Nairne, Rebecca Chalif, Kate House, Michael Davidson

This study is the first to examine the possibility that formal civics training provides a foundation for civic engagement that is conducive to the use of novel methods of engaging the polity. The study found that each step toward greater interactivity in civics instruction predicted greater use of social media in the 2008 elections.