Thanks, Ben!

Exclusive: retraction-prone editors identified at megajournal PLoS ONE Study says small editor group handled many problematic manuscripts — and a Nature investigation finds out who they are.

"45 editors handled only 1.3% of all articles published by PLoS ONE, but accounted for more than 30% of retractions. Twenty-five of these editors also authored papers in PLoS ONE that were later retracted."

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Fantastic new paper by @reeserichardson.bsky.social et al.

An enormous amount of work showing the extent of coordinated scientific fraud and involvement of some editors.
The number of fraudulent publications grows at a rate far outpacing that of legitimate science.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Often we only have "crap" to put down 😅, but be it as it may. I think Becker talked about it in one chpt: jotting down ideas in whatever form allows your thinking to flow first. It takes many iterations for a good sentence to take shape (and that sentence may likely be deleted in the final draft 🤣).

I also remember reading Howard Becker's "Writing for Social Scientists" helped back in those days. It is a fun little book to read, and a perfect way to procrastinate. ;)

Not that this solves any problem (don't remember where I saved it from), but good to keep in mind that everybody struggles... 😅

The "Standard Error error," which confuses SE and SD in computing effect sizes, is not uncommon, unfortunately. I've noticed those when re-analyzing some meta-analyses. It's actually easy for a meta-analyst to avoid such errors-- when an ES looks a bit too big to be true, re-examine your analysis.

Comm Job Spreadsheet 2025-2026 - Grist A modern, open source spreadsheet that goes beyond the grid

For anyone on the Communication job market this year S. Rutherford McEwan has put together an excellent spreadsheet for 2025-2026 openings. Highly recommend checking it out (whether you're applying or hiring):

docs.getgrist.com/rHppfvPrMDQd...

#commsky #academicsky #communication

Assistant Professor in Media Studies APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

🚨 We are hiring at Penn State! My college (@bellisariograded.bsky.social‬) is hiring an Assistant Professor in Health/Science Communication (emphasis on social scientific approaches).

I'm leading the search, so feel free to reach out with any questions.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

Special Issue – Call for Papers Guest Editor R. Lance Holbert University of Pennsylvania

📣 CFP: Special Issue at Human Communication Research

📌 Theme: Advancements in the Study of Causal Mechanisms across Communication Contexts

👤 Guest Editor：R. Lance Holbert

🗓 September 15, 2025: Extended Abstracts Deadline

🔗 academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/ca...

A Lay Theory of the Successful Graduate Student/Academic Just recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece on what it takes to be successful in an academic career.  It was a pleasant essay, which emphasized some of the usual suspects like indu…

As I am going over old blog posts, here is a nice blog by @bwroberts.bsky.social on qualities in graduate students that, in his opinion, lead to a successful career in academia. Still very good advice. pigee.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/a...

"Reform is hard partly because we have to reform everything at once—what good is it to train students to do better science when better science won’t be rewarded? Are we just setting them up to exit academia?"

I struggle with this a lot and sometimes feel like a drag on their career.

Ye Sun, Zhongdang Pan, Lijiang Shen, Understanding the Third-Person Perception: Evidence From a Meta-Analysis, Journal of Communication, Volume 58, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 280–300, https://doi-org.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00385.x

Even with evidence to "solve the issues," though, self-correction is hard. A previous meta-analysis on third-person effect that we corrected got included in a meta-analysis book years after we published our paper. It is still cited, sometimes together with ours, which shows our paper wasn't read 😆

Indeed, when rigorous evidence of error is provided, especially for a meta-analysis (which tends to get cited more and carry more influence), it is enough to warrant attention-- Timely damage control is important.

They said our statements "are speculative and could lead to possible legal implications"-- our "statements" they referred to actually only cited Nuiijten et al. (2016) to make the point that errors were prevalent and may sometimes reflect conscious or unconscious bias of the researchers :).

We were also threatened by one of the reviewers, who was obviously an author of the meta-analysis that we critiqued. That was quite an experience for me :).

A great model article for replication studies. Glad to see it published in JOC!

I won't be there but Tobias will represent us well! Looking forward to everyone's feedback 💬

A key axiom in media effects research is that effects are nuanced, varied, and indirect. Although this is true ontologically, asking for ever-more ’nuanced’ analyses of media effects is problematic epistemologically as it stands in the way of more insightful, falsifiable, and robust theorizing. For this reason, we advocate a shift in research priorities and propose four guidelines for future research: 1. Value description; 2. Prioritize regularities; 3. Formalize models; 4. Unify theories. A collective effort along these lines will allow for better cumulative theorizing and, in turn, a stronger understanding and explanation of media effects.

New Preprint: "A Simple Future For Media Effects"

@lennertcoenen.bsky.social, @yesuncomm.bsky.social, & I critically discuss our field's current emphasis on complexity.

Instead, we argue to value description, prioritize regularities, formalize models, and unify theories.

osf.io/preprints/os...