Professor: Danny Hayes
Department: Political Science
Title: Measuring the Erosion of Local Political News
Description: The local news environment in the United States has withered in recent years. As revenues have fallen, newspapers have devoted fewer resources to public affairs reporting or shut down altogether. According to a growing body of research, these trends have resulted in declines in civic engagement. Yet our understanding of changes to the local news environment – and their consequences – remains incomplete, largely because of the lack of longitudinal data. As a result, many questions remain unanswered: Has the erosion of local news been steady, or have there been a series of precipitous declines? Have the trends been similar throughout the country, or have some papers been able to weather the storm better than others? Do cuts in circulation result in less political coverage, or do other topics take the hit? In this project, we rely on two new data sets to document changes in the volume of local political news between 1980 and 2016. We start with an examination of four decades worth of circulation and newsroom staff data at the largest circulating newspaper in each state. We then turn to a content analysis of the local political coverage in these papers over time. Although the patterns across the papers are not entirely uniform, the results paint a picture of an increasingly impoverished local news environment. Given this evidence of the erosion of local news, observers’ concerns about political engagement in communities across the United States appear very much justified.
Duties:
– Help collect data from the Library of Congress on the newsroom staff of local newspapers around the country
– Help conduct a content analysis of local and state political news coverage, using newspaper archives in LexisNexis and other databases
– Help analyze data from the content analysis to contribute to an ongoing book project
* Please note that I am flexible about the time commitment. Below, I have estimated that a student would spend 4-6 hours per week on the project. But if a student would like to work more and thus gain additional credit, I am happy to discuss that. Likewise, if a student would prefer to work less, for 1 credit, I am open to that as well.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: dwh@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Category: Research Assistant Opportunity
Team REPRESENT [Research Assistantship]
Professor: Jenne Massie
Department: Psychology
Title: Team REPRESENT
Description: Team Represent is a dynamic interdisciplinary research team headed by Dr. Lisa Bowleg, Professor of Psychology. Using both qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, Team Represent’s conducts a variety of research projects focused on behavioral and structural aspects of HIV prevention with Black men, intersectionality, and Black lesbian, gay and bisexual health.
Duties: This student will assist with a variety of research-related tasks including but not limited to: quantitative data entry, data monitoring, qualitative codebook development, Endnotes library audit, and literature searches for manuscript preparation. The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate keen attention to detail and strong organizational skills. This student must be able to work independently with guidance from the Project Directors Dr. Jenné Massie (MEN Count Study) and Carolin Perez, MS (Menhood Study). Hours commitment and credit hour options can be discussed.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: massiej@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Knot Theory: Editing and Programming [Research Assistantship]
Professor: Jozef Przytycki
Department: Mathematics
Title: Knot Theory: Editing and Programming
Description: Knot Theory is a discipline of modern mathematics, part of
topology (geometria situs). Student(s) will assist me with editing programing and doing research in Knot
Theory.
Duties: Students under my supervision will be involved in tasks as below:
1. Student would assist in preparing/editing research paper for arXiv submission (and eventual publication). Student has to learn LaTeX and how to draw figures in xfig or other similar program.
2. Many invariants of graphs and knots require pattern testing which require to wrote simple (or not that simple) programs. Also programs are needed to analyze simple algebraic structures related to knots.
I assume student would assist me 4-6 hours a week (2 credit) but I am flexible, so more, or less is possible.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: przytyck@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Team REPRESENT [Research Assistant]
Professor: Jenne Massie
Department: Psychology
Title: Team REPRESENT
Description: Team Represent is a dynamic interdisciplinary research team headed by Dr. Lisa Bowleg, Professor of Psychology. Using both qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, Team Represent’s conducts a variety of research projects focused on behavioral and structural aspects of HIV prevention with Black men, intersectionality, and Black lesbian, gay and bisexual health.
Duties: This student will assist with a variety of research-related tasks including but not limited to: quantitative data entry, data monitoring, qualitative codebook development, Endnotes library audit, and literature searches for manuscript preparation. The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate keen attention to detail and strong organizational skills. This student must be able to work independently with guidance from the Project Directors Dr. Jenné Massie (MEN Count Study) and Carolin Perez, MS (Menhood Study). Hours commitment and credit hour options can be discussed.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: massiej@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
The How, What, and Where of News [Research Assistantship]
Professor: Nikki Usher
Department: Media and Public Affairs
Title: The How, What, and Where of News
Description: Work with Dr. Nikki Usher, a Faculty Fellow of UHP in Spring 2018. She is working on on “The How, What, and Where of News,” a book that will focus on the relationship between trust, authority, and the work that journalists do.
Duties: Research will involve assistance in building literature reviews, annotating/assisting with references, manuscript preparation, fact-checking, and coding. Sample tasks might involve going through field notes to check for dates, putting together a timeline of events, or preparing summaries of chapters/articles, or formatting endnotes. There will also be possible involvement in other research projects such as an in-progress study of beltway journalism and political communication. The student may be asked to do some research interviews after methods training and IRB certification. Possible for co-authorship on popular press and/or journal articles may be available depending on student’s capacity and interest (for a sample of this, see: http://www.slate.com/arti
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average, perhaps paid!?)
Credit hour option*: 3
Please submit CV and weekly schedule of class/extra curriculars to Dr. Usher at nusher@gwu.edu.
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Measuring the Erosion of Local Political News [Research Assistant]
Professor: Danny Hayes
Department: Political Science
Title: Measuring the Erosion of Local Political News
Description: The local news environment in the United States has withered in recent years. As revenues have fallen, newspapers have devoted fewer resources to public affairs reporting or shut down altogether. According to a growing body of research, these trends have resulted in declines in civic engagement. Yet our understanding of changes to the local news environment – and their consequences – remains incomplete, largely because of the
lack of longitudinal data. As a result, many questions remain unanswered: Has the erosion of local news been steady, or have there been a series of precipitous declines? Have the trends been similar throughout the country, or
have some papers been able to weather the storm better than others? Do cuts in circulation result in less political coverage, or do other topics take the hit? In this project, we rely on two new data sets to document changes in the volume of local political news between 1980 and 2016. We start with an examination of four decades worth of circulation and newsroom staff data at the largest circulating newspaper in each state. We then turn to a content analysis of the local political coverage in these papers over time. Although the patterns across the papers are not entirely uniform, the results paint a picture of an increasingly impoverished local news environment. Given this evidence of the erosion of local news, observers’ concerns about political engagement in communities across the United States appear very much justified.
Duties:
– Help collect data from the Library of Congress on the newsroom staff of local newspapers around the country
– Help conduct a content analysis of local and state political news coverage, using newspaper archives in LexisNexis and other databases
– Help analyze data from the content analysis to contribute to an ongoing book project
* Please note that I am flexible about the time commitment. Below, I have estimated that a student would spend 4-6 hours per week on the project. But if a student would like to work more and thus gain additional credit, I am happy to discuss that. Likewise, if a student would prefer to work less, for 1 credit, I am open to that as well.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: dwh@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Sexual Communication with Parents and Peers [Research Assistant]
Professor: Katrina Pariera
Department: Organizational Sciences and Communication
Title: Sexual Communication with Parents and Peers
Description: I have two related research projects that require additional assistance. One study, “Critical Moments In Sexual Communication: Young Women’s Memories Of Mother-Daughter Sexual Communication” is a content analysis of the messages young women remember receiving from their mothers about sexuality. This project will assess dimensions of successful and unsuccessful sexual communication from parents. The data for this study has been collected, but because it is a content analysis I need a research assistant to help me develop and assess codes. The second project, “A Diary Study of Daily Sexual Communication Among Emerging Adults” is an evaluation of everyday discussions with friends, partners, parents, and colleagues about sex and sexuality. The data for this study has also been collected, but not yet analyzed. A research assistant would help with content analysis development and coding.
Duties: My research assistant would mostly help with developing codes for content analysis, then coding data. This entail reading through data (in this case, research participants’ comments) and analyzing patterns among them. We would work together to come up with a set of codes. The research assistant would then go through each response and apply the appropriate code. For example, the research assistant and I might determine that many participants recall their mother emphasizing the importance of saving one’s virginity for marriage. The research assistant would then go through each statement and indicate whether or not this code applies.
Note. I have indicated that this could be a 1-credit opportunity. However, this is flexible and I am open to offering more credit and providing more work on these projects.
Time commitment: 1-3 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 1
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: klp@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Editing and Programming [Research Assistant]
Professor: Jozef Przytycki
Department: Mathematics
Title: Knot Theory: Editing and Programming
Description: Knot Theory is a discipline of modern mathematics, part of
topology (geometria situs). Student(s) will assist me with editing programing and doing research in Knot
Theory.
Duties: Students under my supervision will be involved in tasks as below:
1. Student would assist in preparing/editing research paper for arXiv submission (and eventual publication). Student has to learn LaTeX and how to draw figures in xfig or other similar program.
2. Many invariants of graphs and knots require pattern testing which require to wrote simple (or not that simple) programs. Also programs are needed to analyze simple algebraic structures related to knots.
I assume student would assist me 4-6 hours a week (2 credit) but I am flexible, so more, or less is possible.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: przytyck@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Diaspora Politics [Research Assistant]
Professor: Harris Mylonas
Department: Political Science
Title: Diaspora Politics
Description: Help me with my second book project – tentatively entitled “The Strategic Logic of Diaspora Politics” – analyzing why some states develop policies to cultivate links with and/or to attract back certain diasporic communities while others do not. Moreover, I study the variation in diaspora policies across various diaspora segments by the same state.
Duties: Transcription of interviews, summaries of articles and books, library research, coding of variables.
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: mylonas@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
Boston University Twin Project [Research Assistant]
Professor: Jody Ganiban
Department: Psychology
Title: Boston University Twin Project
Description: The Boston University Twin Project (BUTP) is a multi-method, multi-situation, longitudinal study of early child temperament and related behaviors. The first phase of this project focused primarily on activity level and comprised over 300 twin pairs assessed in the home and lab at ages 2 and 3. Subject recruitment, sample characteristics, and study procedures are described. A second phase broadens our focus to the development of multiple temperament dimensions and developmental outcomes in a new cohort of 300 twin pairs to be assessed at 3, 4, and 5 years of age.
Duties: Research assistants will be involved in the collection of data through analysis of videos of parent-child dyadic interactions. Each RA will be assigned videos weekly to code. Much of the work would be done independently and on the research assistant’s schedule. One hour each week would be dedicated to a meeting with other research assistants and the supervisor in order to discuss anomalies in videos and necessary modifications to the coding manual and procedures.
Time commitment: 7-9 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 3
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: ganiban@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
