Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper challenges the assumption, advanced in recent survey data published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, that young audiences are abandoning traditional news as a source of election information in favor of late-night comedy programs. Instead, we offer evidence, consistent with Baum’s “gateway” hypothesis (2003), that exposure to late-night comedy increases attention paid to the presidential campaign in national network and cable news. Insofar as campaign news provides the context for the political jokes featured in late-night comedy monologues, late-night television appears to serve a socializing function, such that it motivates viewers to pay more focused attention to the campaign in hard news sources—perhaps so that they feel better equipped to enjoy the comedy. This analysis uses data collected via the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) during the 2004 presidential primary season, between October 30, 2003 and June 4, 2004. As hypothesized, cross-sectional results demonstrate that viewers of late-night comedy pay more attention to the campaign in national and network cable news than non-viewers, controlling for a variety of factors. Time series analysis also reveals that the rate of increase in hard news attention over the course of the primary season is greater for viewers of late-night comedy than for non-viewers.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Late lustration policies look different and are designed to do different things than early lustration policies. The laws have expanded the size, scope, duration and transparency measures associated with vetting practices. They target larger numbers of individuals for screening, and different types of positions. While early lustration measures focused on politicians, late lustration policies expanded to include members of the clergy, journalists, academics, teachers and principals, business leaders, and others in “positions of public trust.” In some cases this has meant targeting private sector positions that work closely with the public sector. This reflects a substantial change in the purpose of lustration. It has been argued that the potential benefits of lustration laws would be undermined by late lustration. However, more than 15 years after the 1989 revolutions both Poland and Romania have embarked on new or renewed lustration policies. This paper argues that rather than undermining the trustworthiness of public institutions, late lustration in these cases helps to break cycles of distrust. Late lustration is targeted at the continued privileging of former communist elites across academic, business, political and media industries. The policies have become linked to anti-corruption programs and are aimed at larger, pervasive cycles of distrust plaguing the post-communist transitions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This is an experimental study looking at how candidate appearances on late night television talk shows affect the relative saliency of image considerations in candidate evaluations and vote choices.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper utilizes feminist postmodernist and postcolonial frameworks in the examination of strategies by which a coercive ideology of gender roles has been created and preserved in Western art, producing depictions of women as being in men’s power that impacted the artistic representations of white as well as colored women. The paper conveys critical thoughts about the ways in which Western, patriarchal and racialized gender roles have been reinforced and at points contested in late 18th to late 19th century painting, discussing some ways in which the paintings of this epoch diversify the images of white women while preserving colonial standards.