Zoe M. Oxley

Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance

Framing is the process by which a communication source, such as a news organization, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy. Two experiments examined the effect of news frames on tolerance for the Ku Klux Klan. The first presented research participants with one of two local news stories about a Klan rally that varied by frame: One framed the rally as a free speech issue, and the other framed it as a disruption of public order. Participants who viewed the free speech story expressed more tolerance for the Klan than participants who watched the public order story. Additional data indicate that frames affect tolerance by altering the perceived importance of public order values. The relative accessibility of free speech and public order concepts did not respond to framing. A second experiment used a simulated electronic news service to present different frames and replicated these findings.

Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects

Framing is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience. While many observers of political communication and the mass media have discussed framing, few have explicitly described how framing affects public opinion. In this paper we offer a theory of framing effects, with a specific focus on the psychological mechanisms by which framing influences political attitudes. We discuss important conceptual differences between framing and traditional theories of persuasion that focus on belief change. We outline a set of hypotheses about the interaction between framing and audience sophistication, and test these in an experiment. The results support our argument that framing is not merely persuasion, as it is traditionally conceived. We close by reflecting on the various routes by which political communications can influence attitudes.

Issue Framing Effects on Belief Importance and Opinion

Students of public opinion have increasingly recognized issue framing as an important influence on political attitudes, but the precise means by which frames affect attitudes is not well understood. We argue that one distinctive way in which frames affect attitudes is by influencing the importance individuals attach to issue-relevant beliefs. We contrast this mechanism with the more familiar means of persuasion via change in belief content. Data come from two laboratory experiments. In each, a controversial issue was framed in one of two ways. We measured framings influence on belief content, belief importance, and issue opinion. In both experiments, framing significantly affected issue opinion. Causal analysis shows that framing independently affected belief content and belief importance, and that each contributed to issue opinion.

Gender Stereotyping in State Executive Elections: Candidate Selection and Success

Research on gender stereotypes has found that voters ascribe certain beliefs and traits to candidates based on the candidates sex. Most of this research relies on experimental data and examines stereotyping solely in terms of voter decision making. In contrast, we examine state executive office elections to determine if stereotypes influence both candidate selection and success. State executive elections are ideal for studying gender stereotypes as many of the offices focus on specific policy issues that correspond with stereotypical competencies of male and female candidates. We find considerable support for our expectation of an interaction between candidate sex and office type in candidate selection: women are less likely to run for offices that are inconsistent with their stereotypical strengths and, beginning in 1990, somewhat more likely to run for stereotypically consistent offices. In terms of candidate success, however, we do not find that womens likelihood of winning varies strongly across off...

Women in Executive Office: Variation Across American States

The number of women serving in state-level executive office varies tremendously across the American states. Drawing upon a comparative politics framework developed by Pippa Norris and findings from analyses of women in U.S. state legislatures, we derive a set of hypotheses to explain this state variation. Our analysis of elections held between 1979 and 1998 demonstrates that women are more likely to run for executive office in states where more women are in the eligibility pool of candidates, and where the demands of gatekeepers and recruiting practices of political parties favor women’s candidacies. Furthermore, the likelihood that women win these elections is influenced by the supply of candidates, the demands of gatekeepers, and the characteristics of a state’s political system. We also conclude that the predictors of women in executive office have changed over time and that our explanations for state variation of women in these positions are more thorough for elections occurring before 1991.

Online Discussions Across Three Universities: Student Participation and Pedagogy

From PowerPoint presentations to web-based quizzes to entire classes taught online, technological changes have had a strong influence on pedagogical practices. The initial research into the pedagogical effectiveness of these emerging technologies suggests there are many ways in which they might be useful ( Boschmann 1995 ; Hiltz 1994 ; Palloff and Pratt 2001 ). In this paper, we examine student participation on a structured online discussion group that spanned three universities and address two research questions: what explains student participation in online discussion groups and how effective are these groups as pedagogical tools? To address these topics, we draw upon our use of online discussions as a class assignment during the fall semester of 2000. First, we examine previous research and generate several expectations about student behavior and attitudes.

Learning through Publishing The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics

Publishing a research journal can be a rewarding and useful learning experience for undergraduate students. Drawing upon our experiences with The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics, we describe the benefits of producing a peer-reviewed journal. Among the benefits we highlight are gains in political science knowledge, increased understanding of research methodologies, refinement of writing and debating skills, and development of interpersonal skills. We close with a call for professors to encourage their students to submit papers to the journal. most undergraduate students, exposure to political science research and the research process occurs only in the context of their coursework, via assigned readings, class lectures, and writing assignments. To be sure, some students do engage in political science scholarship by conducting their own original research projects, and others are hired as research assistants for faculty. In a handful of political science departments, however, undergraduate students are publishing research journals, giving them the opportunity to become even more engaged with political science research. Working on a peer-reviewed journal presents students with a unique educational experience, one that provides continuous learning beyond the classroom setting and helps to refine research and editing skills. How many undergraduate journals exist in colleges and universities throughout the United States? To our knowledge, no listing of such journals exists. We know, though, that 11 student journals receive financial support from Pi Sigma Alpha, the Between September 2007 and June 2008, Benjamin Bauer was a senior at Union College and co-editor of The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics. Whitney Ogas was a co-editor of The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics^rom September 2007 to June 2008, during her senior year at Union College. OmarShakt was the deputy editor of The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal ofPolitics^rom September 2007 to June 2008, during his senior year at Union College. Zoe Oxley is an associate professor of political science at Union College. She currently serves as the faculty advisor of The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics. She can be reached at oxleyz@union.edu. Rosalee Clawson is an associate professor of political science at Purdue University. She was the faculty advisor of The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics from the fall 0/2004 through the spring of 2007. She can be reached at dawsonr@purdue. edu. national political science honor society (Pi Sigma Alpha 2007). Undoubtedly there are other journals published by undergraduates than these (see Barrios and Weber 2006 for one example), so 11 is merely the minimum number. In this article, we discuss one of the journals that Pi Sigma Alpha supports: The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics. This is a student-run, refereed journal dedicated to publishing outstanding undergraduate political science research from across the nation. After providing a brief description of this publication and its reviewing procedures, we turn to a discussion of the pedagogical benefits gained by students who work on the journal. More specifically, we detail the academic, intellectual, and interpersonal learning that occurs through working on a peer-reviewed journal. We conclude by asking professors to encourage their students to submit papers to The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics and to consider hosting it in the future. THE PI SIGMA ALPHA UNDERGRADUATE

Bridging a Disciplinary Divide: The Summer Institute in Political Psychology *

Like many other social scientists, political scientists often incorporate theories and findings from other academic disciplines into their research. In fact, many research questions posed by political scientists can be answered adequately only by linking political science theories with insights from other disciplines. How, for example, do voters decide which candidate to support on election day? We could answer this question by focusing only on the economic interests of the voters. Our answer