Essays
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Diffusion: From Facebook to (Management) Fashion - Strang, David
Diffusion refers to the spread of ideas and behaviors across a population. The field does not cohere around a central question whose solution would clarify fundamental issues. Instead, what we see is the constant and fruitful exploration of new social worlds, and the adaptation of research methods and theoretical concepts to capture central realities of these worlds. We begin by describing two lines of diffusion research whose core assumptions and analytic strategy are diametrically opposed: network models of online behavior and translation studies of organizational fashion. We then survey contemporary trends in organizational research that broaden the scope of diffusion studies, focusing, in particular, on the study of politically contested practices that pit the interests of organizations and elites against various stakeholders such as current and prior employees, customers, and the public at large. -
Media Neuroscience - Mangus, J. Michael
Media neuroscience offers a unique window into how the complexities of human behavior emerge from the dynamic interaction of adaptive brain structures in response to environmental inputs. Rather than treating these dynamics as a black box or measuring them only indirectly through self‐report or behavioral observation, neuroimaging studies are uniquely able to provide theoretical insight into underlying brain processes and their evolutionary basis. This essay provides an overview of foundational research in the area of media neuroscience, evaluates key critiques of that research, and provides an outlook for how emerging trends may develop in the near future. -
News Framing Effects and Emotions - Schuck, Andreas R. T.
Framing research is thriving and has become ever more popular among researchers and students alike. This essay reviews some of the latest trends and developments in the field, explains key terms and concepts, identifies likely future research lines, and zooms in on one of these in particular, that is, the role of emotions in explaining news framing effects. We distinguish different theories on emotions and how they have been and can be used in the context of framing research. Furthermore, we present a basic model of how to investigate the role of emotions in framing effects research. Finally, we discuss some of the most promising future research lines with the potential for students or scholars to make their own contribution and present results of a small‐scale expert survey indicating what some prominent scholars consider to be the most important challenges and promising future trends in the field right now. -
Partisan News: A Perspective from Economics - Stone, Daniel F.
I briefly summarize the economics literature on ideologically slanted political media (which I call, for short, partisan news), and discuss directions for future research. In the literature review, I take a history of thought approach, describing how theory and empirical work have fed off one another and real‐world events. I also note ways in which the work of economists differs from comparable work from other disciplines. In the discussion of future research, I identify open questions and policy options, and assess the relationship between research from economics and other disciplines.