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News Blotter |
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Making sense out of a lot of information online can be challenging. How do we understand multiple open-text reviews on Amazon alongside an aggregated product rating? Dr. Cameron Piercy and I worked to understand this sensemaking in the context of employer reviews. Findings reveal perceptions of an employers credibility and relevance are derived from qualitative reviews on GlassDoor, whereas evaluations of the organization as an employer are informed by the aggregated quantitative metrics.
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Ethical research is important; but do the consent documents IRBs mandate work to provide informed consent as-intended? Not if participants don't take the time to read them. New research by two brilliant graduate students, Daria Parfenova and Alina Niftulaeva, looks at how long participants spend on consent forms. Answer: Not long enough to read them.
Open Access for all to read, thanks to Milner Library!
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What happens when our conversations with friends becomes a game? New work with the brilliant Dr. Sarah Rosaen looks at the relathsips we maintain via Snapchat, finding that those who treat Streaks (multiple consecutive days of exchanging at least one message) as a game tend to send more 'black snaps' (those devoid of content) as a means of gaming the Streak, and report slightly lower relational qualities. If you're looking to keep that relationship in good standing, perhaps send something more than a blank image.
Open Access for all to read, thanks to Milner Library!
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Every Friday after work you go out with coworkers for a few drinks, and invariable end up posting a few pictures of your Friday Funzies to Instagram. Can the way you depict yourself in relation to alcohol actually change your relationship with alcohol? A registered report by Dr. Femke Geusens, myself, and Dr. Kathleen Beullens drew on identity shift theory to answer this question. Perhaps fortunately, neither posting pictures of alcohol or being social with alcohol affected participants' intention to drink in the future.
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Overview |
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The overarching theme of my research has been to look at
the nature of human interaction as it has been affected by computer-mediated channels. I am generally interested in mediated
communication, organizational communication, and group communication,
particularly when two or more of these fields combine. Though this research can (and has) taken many forms, currently I am interested primarily in two lines of research:
(1) Online identity and (2) Implications and applications of masspersonal communication.
Please click here for a html version
of my CV, including links to selected papers and to downloadable
copies of my CV.
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Online
Identity |
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"Back in the day" (which, most people are surprised
to learn, was a Tuesday) you got to know someone by talking
to them face-to-face. Erving Goffman has told us that was
often an unfortunate way to do things because we were forced
to interact with access to all cues of our communicative partners
available, which could quickly disclose individual stigma.
Computer-mediated communication has presented a radically
different means to communicate, both to construct our own
identities and to interpret the identity of others. My research into how we perform and interpret identity online has focused on two paths:
Identity Shift. First, I am interested in the process of identity shift, or how individuals transform their own selves through selective self-presentation. When you go online and say, "I'm outgoing," you tend to report feeling more extraverted afterwards. Explicating identity shift theory and conducting several empirical studies on how deliberate self-statements affect self-perceptions (including extraversion and brand affinty), I am interested in how the increasing amount of self-presentation in which we engage online may be influencing our self-constructs.
Within Hiring. Second, I am interested in how job candidates construct identities online for (or accidentally encountered by) employers, as well as how organizations create online identities to help attract qualified job applicants. As we increasingly turn to online searches as screening tools on both side of the hiring equation, how does who we (i.e., both the employer and the potential employee) present ourselves impact others' wilingness to advance the hiring process?
My current research projects explore how online interactions can intensify the attributional effects of identity cues, both for self-perception and of employers' perceptions of job applicants in the hiring process.
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Masspersonal Communication |
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Since its inception, the communication discipline has reflected a bifurcation of mass and interpersonal communication, both in its structure and its theories. Yet, scholars have increasingly called this separation a "false dichotomy" (Reardon & Rogers, 1988). Seeking to bridge these areas and perhaps negate that false dichotomy, O'Sullivan (2005) proposed the concept of masspersonal communication, denoting communication that is either: (1) mass communication via an interpersonal channel; (2) interpersonal communication via a mass channel; or (3) the convergence of mass and interpersonal communication. Though certainly masspersonal communication was possible via legacy technologies, social media have made masspersonal communication even more timely and relevant, and provides new opportunities for theories of both human and mediated (particularly "new" media) communication. Large parts of my work are now either explicating and directly testing the masspersonal model of communication, or are applying the masspersonal concept to understand how this under-researched convergence of previously distinct concepts affects interactions in several contexts, including advertising, education, and identity shift.
Current research projects into masspersonal communication further explicate and set boundaries for the concept and model alike, as well as explore how explore how SNSs and other online
social media tools may affect masspersonal messages and resultant perceptions and effects. |
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Research
Outlets |
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My work has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals
including the Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication, Human
Communication Research, Communication
Research, and the Journal
of Applied Communication Research. I have also authored an undergraduate textbook (including instructor support materials), Computer-mediated communication: A theoretical and practical introduction to human communication online; and have been fortunate to coauthor several chapters, including Strategic
use of social technology: An interactive perspective of social
psychology,
The dynamics of intergroup communication, and
The networked self: Identity, community, and culture on
social network sites.
I present regularly at the annual meetings of the International
Communication Association and the biennial meeting of the Media Psychology Division of the German Psychological Society; and also often present at and attend the
National Communication Association.
My work has been recognized by several awards at all three of these associations. I also occasionally
submit work to the Academy of Management,
Computer-Supported Cooperative
Work, and Computers and Human
Interaction. |
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