Month: August 2017

Two of Magda Giurcanu’s research papers were published during summer 2017. The first was a book review of “Trouble on the far right. Contemporary right-wing strategies and practices in Europe” published in East European Politics. A second was a co-authored paper (with Juliana Fernandes and Ji Young Kim) titled “Documenting the Emergence of Grassroots Politics on Facebook: The Florida Case,” published in Journal of Social Media in Society, 6(1): 5-41.

The Department of Political Science’s Magda Giurcanu traveled extensively over the summer to Germany, Czechia, the UK, and Romania. In Germany, she spent about a month as a Visiting Scholar at the GESIS Eurolab Institute, where she delivered a talk on “The Emergence of New Anti-EU Parties in EP Elections: Strategic Elite Calculations and European Union Debates”.

In the UK, she participated in the Council for Europe (CES) 2017 conference at the University of Glasgow, where she presented two papers on 1) “New Party Politics in European Parliament Elections” and 2) the electoral linkages in European elections, “In Search for an Electoral Link Between the EU Electorate(s) and the EU Proposals: Reality or Wishful Thinking?” (Co-authored with Petia Kostadinova, University of Illinois at Chicago).

In Glasgow, she also served as discussant for two panels on European Union politics and Party Systems in Europe. In Romania, she spent one week in the National Archives in Bucharest to collect data on new party manifestos. In Czechia, Magda met with faculty from the Charles University to coordinate visits of Czech scholars at ECU under the Visegrad in the 21 Century grant. She also met with faculty from the Anglo-American University to set up a new Study Abroad program for ECU students, which is currently under review at the Office of Global Affairs.

Although many developments surrounding the Internet campaign are now considered to be standard fare, there were a number of new developments in 2016. Drawing on original research conducted by leading experts, The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign attempts to cover these developments in a comprehensive fashion. How are campaigns making use of the Internet to organize and mobilize their ground game? To communicate their message? The book also examines how citizens made use of online sources to become informed, follow campaigns, and participate. Contributions also explore how the Internet affected developments in media reporting, both traditional and non-traditional, about the campaign. What other messages were available online, and what effects did these messages have had on citizen’s attitudes and vote choice? The book examines these questions in an attempt to summarize the 2016 online campaign.

Dr. Jody Baumgartner, East Carolina University professor of political science, was named Distinguished Professor at the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences 54th annual convocation on Aug. 18. Baumgartner is the 19th member of the faculty to be honored with the title of Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.

“This is quite an honor; an unexpected honor, at that. It is truly humbling,” said Baumgartner.

The THCAS Distinguished Professorship is the highest honor within the college and is conferred upon a professor whose career exemplifies a commitment to and a love for knowledge and academic life, as demonstrated by outstanding teaching and advising, research and creative productivity, and professional service.