Month: August 2019

New Humor Research from Drs. Morris & Baumgartner

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Dr. Jonathan Morris, with Dr. Jody Baumgartner and Robert Lichter, recently published “Negative News and Late-night Comedy about Presidential Candidates” in HUMOR. 

Abstract: “In this paper we explore the creation of jokes told on late night talk shows targeted at major party nominees for president from 1992–2008. We hypothesize that the number of jokes told about candidates are related to variations in polling numbers, mainstream media coverage, and party identification of the candidates. Our results show a positive relationship between the number of jokes told at a candidate’s expense and the amount of negative news coverage about the candidate. In addition, we find that Republicans are targeted with more frequency than Democrats. Results suggest that favorability ratings and whether or not a presidential candidate is an incumbent has no effect on the number of jokes targeting a candidate.

See https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2019.32.issue-4/humor-2018-0067/humor-2018-0067.xml.

Dr. Samantha Mosier’s New Research: “Policies as species,” in Politics in the Life Sciences

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Dr. Samantha Mosier has a new article published in Politics in the Life Sciences titled “Policies as species: Viewing and classifying policy from an evolutionary biology perspective.”

“This article proposes equating policies as species to develop a better understanding of how policies emerge, change, and diffuse across policymaking environments. Scholars have long shown an interest in understanding policy change and reinvention, whether incremental or nonincremental. The two subfields of public policy that can answer how and why policies change are not unified, leading to difficulty in comprehensively assessing policy emergence and change. The policy species concept bridges knowledge of the policy process and knowledge in the policy process by creating an operationalized definition of public policy and suggesting a process for classifying policies to observe subsequent behavior. Drawing from the field of biology, the policy species framework outlines how policies possess genotypes and phenotypes, which dictate what a policy is and how it can change. In tracing genotypic and phenetic change over time, policy evolution and change is more easily discernible. In turn, a more precise picture of how policies function is painted.”

See https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/policies-as-species/7BF1B832C6BB839BC3C6FD5C65581288.

The Center for Survey Research July 4th Report: “More Than Money: Happiness in the United States 243 Years After Independence” 

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The Center for Survey Research issued a survey report for the July 4th holiday entitled, “More Than Money: Happiness in the United States 243 Years After Independence.” The report generated media attention on television, radio, and in several newspapers. I appeared on the radio program, “Talk of the Town,” to discuss the results of the report. I also was a guest on radio with Patrick Johnson of WTEM in July to discuss the CSR’s findings on public opinion in North Carolina towards sports gambling legalization and the legalization of recreational marijuana use.

Below are links to some of the coverage the report received:

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