Topics in Mainstream Media:
A Dynamic Network Visualization
My doctoral dissertation (defended a few months back) studies a dynamic network of news outlets and the topics they cover over time. It implements a measure of media fragmentation and uses actor-based modeling to evaluate the impact of economic, political, organizational, and structural forces on certain properties of the media agenda. The key factors I look into include popularity, ownership, …
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Intro materials: network analysis software (UCINET, NodeXL, Gephi, Statnet, ERGM, RSiena)
In fall 2012, I got to design & lead the weekly labs for a network seminar at USC. I also worked on the methods portion of the syllabus for the class. COMM 645: Communication Networks is a PhD-level course taught by Peter Monge. The labs cover a range of network tools – from the classic UCINET program through NodeXL and …
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Political Efficacy on the Internet: A Media System Dependency Approach
Just presented at the NCA 2012 Convention, Orlando FL, Top Papers in Political Communication panel. This study takes an MSD approach to look at the impact of the Internet on political efficacy. The results show that online political efficacy is associated with the perceived comprehensiveness and credibility of online news. Efficacy is also linked to the ability of online tools …
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Our FCC Briefing: Critical Information Needs of the American Public
In the last few months, I’ve been working with a great team of scholars putting together a study commissioned by the FCC. The project provides a critical review of existing research on the information needs of communities in the US. Major points include defining individual and community critical needs, examining the extent to which they are served by local media …
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Social Movements and Network Theory: ANN International Conference
Once a year, the Annenberg Networks Network (ANN) at USC and the Science of Networks in Communities Laboratory (SONIC) at Northwestern University convene an international seminar on network science. The conference organizers include Manuel Castells, Noshir Contractor, Janet Fulk, and Peter Monge. The seminar that took place at USC this April was dedicated to the application of network science to …
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Communication, Networks, and Visualization RSS Feed Bundles
If like me you’re getting most of your daily news from RSS, you may find this post helpful. Google Reader allows its users to put together and share bundles of feeds. Here are a few useful thematic collections of academic and blog RSS streams. You can find more of my bundles on communication, media, technology and data visualization here.
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Research & Community Media: Alhambra Source
Just finished & uploaded to YouTube: a slidecast for our Alhambra Source project. The Source is a participatory news platform aimed at enhancing civic engagement at the community level. Its development was largely based on grounded communication research. The site was launched in 2010 as a collaboration between the COMM & journalism departments at USC Annenberg. Garrett Broad helped out …
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Actors and Links in the Media System:
Taking a Network Perspective
Exploring the structure of relationships between news organizations, issues, and audience members is key to understanding the media system. The paper I’m posting here (just presented at ICA 2011, Boston) looks into a range of network types available to media researchers: inter-organizational, semantic, issue, hyperlink, and social graphs. It discusses important predictors of tie formation and dissolution – and the theoretical …
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New Media & Civic Engagement
The Alhambra project is a collaboration between Metamorphosis and the USC Annenberg Journalism School. The project looks at the potential of new media to promote civic engagement and intergroup interactions. The product of it all – Alhambra Source – is a community news website serving a diverse city in LA County. The quick visual overview of the project that Nancy …
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Truth, beauty, geeks and nerds:
Ngram & Google Insight
Google’s recent launch of Ngram – a service that shows the frequencies of phrases appearing in indexed books – opened up new possibilities for data exploration fun. A game that data geeks can now play involves comparing the popularity of phrases in books vs. the frequency of their appearance as search terms. Google Insight provides one decent way to trace …
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The Future of Journalism:
A Network Visualization
This semantic map takes a cue from Chris Anderson‘s The-Future-of-Journalism visualization post @ Nieman Lab. CWA makes the fair point that any time we see a dramatic event / scientific discovery /technological innovation occurring, someone will invariably cry out “Oh, but what could that possibly mean for journalism?”. The network below is based on data from online sources that have …
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