Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Statistical analysis requires a probability model: commonly, a model
for the dependence of outcomes $Y$ on confounders $X$ and a
potentially causal variable $Z$. When the goal of the analysis is to
infer $Z$'s effects on $Y$, this requirement introduces an element
of circularity: in order to decide how $Z$ affects $Y$, the analyst
first determines, speculatively, the manner of $Y$'s dependence on
$Z$ and other variables. This paper takes a statistical perspective
that avoids such circles, permitting analysis of $Z$'s effects on
$Y$ even as the statistician remains entirely agnostic about the
conditional distribution of $Y$ given $X$ and $Z$, or perhaps even
denies that such a distribution exists. Our assumptions instead
pertain to the conditional distribution $Z \vert X$, and the role of
speculation in settling them is reduced by the existence of random
assignment of $Z$ in a field experiment as well as by
poststratification, testing for overt bias before accepting a
poststratification, and optimal full matching. Such beginnings pave
the way for ``randomization inference'', an approach which, despite
a long history in the analysis of designed experiments, is
relatively new to political science and to other fields in which
experimental data are rarely available.

The approach applies to both experiments and observational studies.
We illustrate this by applying it to analyze A. Gerber and
D. Green's New Haven Vote 98 campaign. Conceived as both a
get-out-the-vote campaign and a field experiment in political
participation, the study assigned households to treatment and
desired to estimate the effect of treatment on the individuals
nested within the households. We estimate the number of voters who
would not have voted had the campaign not prompted them to --- that
is, the total number of votes attributable to the interventions of
the campaigners --- while taking into account the non-independence
of observations within households, non-random compliance, and
missing responses. Both our statistical inferences about these
attributable effects and the stratification and matching that
precede them rely on quite recent developments from statistics; our
matching, in particular, has novel features of potentially wide
applicability. Our broad findings resemble those of the original
analysis by \citet{gerbergreen00}.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Empirically grounded theoretical debates, as to the validity of various assimilation models, rage on within the sociological discourse: Classical and segmented assimilation models square off face-to-face in the arena of migration in order to reveal which can best and most comprehensively describe, predict, and assess immigrants’ structural integration into the mainstream of American life (Portes and Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997; Alba and Nee, 1997Alba 1999). Both sides have missed a crucial historical structure invisibly working throughout time to mold the experiences of immigrants to this country: The white/black binary that powerfully works to shape immigrant assimilation into a race-stratified society. This paper adds to the discussion of assimilation and immigration by considering the assimilation prospects of immigrants, in terms of America’s powerful white/black social binary. I argue that by centering the consideration of the assimilation of today’s immigrants within the context of the history of the American white/black binary, a new coherence arises. This coherence lends support to the logic of the segmented assimilation model, while diminishing the support for straightline assimilation models.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I introduce a Bayesian method to estimate changepoint models for binary, orderded, and nominal response data with parameter specific breaks.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, I analyze the following question: how does the historic visibility and the establishment of gay identity and community change the rural/urban binary as a site for the production of gay identity? Data for this paper are twenty-five in-depth qualitative interviews with individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and who are either currently living in or grew up in and have since left rural towns in Michigan. I argue that people are being gay in rural space and outline the various ways respondents discuss being gay, out, and visible in their rural communities. Thus, I argue that the historical shift of increased visibility of gays and lesbians in the public sphere has created the possibility for the production of a gay identity in a rural space.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The "[fill-in-the-blank] 2.0" mentality has promised radical changes in our culture. First, O’Reilly announced "Web 2.0" as the next wave of Internet social networking. Hardt promised that "Identity 2.0" would change the way we interact with each other. And Merrin's "Media Studies 2.0" shows a radical reformation in media education, as new media classes emphasize technological developments. Whether our not our culture is radically changing, such prognostications assume an evolution of contemporary life. At the same time, companies like Microsoft and Google grow exponentially. With an announced bidding war for original Internet giant Yahoo, the monolithic Internet industry is monopolizing our screens. For whichever direction our culture is headed – towards radical decentralization online (the 2.0 emphasis) or away from it –there is a radical shift in the perception of where we're headed. One of the key communities in this change is that of cult media fans. Fans are often the first group of people to embrace a technology or a type of media. Fans are the 21st century hackers. Throughout conventional studies, fans are seen as challenging notions of consumerism by their productive output. What this paper will argue, however, is that it is not enough to argue that fans flip-flop the consumer/producer dichotomy. I want to show, instead, how the consumer/producer dichotomy is made moot in a "culture 2.0" world. Fans no longer "poach" texts; now they can rip and shred texts, recombine and rework them to create something entirely different. In reality, what we are living in is "fandom 2.0."