Research Insights

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Andrew Pilny, Katherine R. Cooper, Yannick Atouba Around the world, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), grassroots movements, governments, cooperatives, and universities are discovering that the fight against issues such as poverty, hunger, disease, pandemics, disasters, and environmental degradation requires new forms of organizing, self-organizing networks (Contractor, 1994; Fukuyama, 1999). The networked form of governance represents an empowerment approach to issues of poverty and development (Melkote, 2002),

View the Resource By Sophia Fu, Michelle Shumate Nongovernmental organization (NGO) hyperlink networks are institutionalized connective public goods. They influence which actors and what aspects of social issues are made visible to the public in search engine results. To understand how contextual forces and institutional pressures influence who hyperlinks to whom online, this research examines a hyperlink network of 410 NGOs with various social missions operating across China. It suggests

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Yannick Atouba, Katherine R. Cooper, Andrew Pilny Interorganizational communication describes the structures, forms, and processes created by the exchange of messages and the co-creation of meaning among organizations and their stakeholders. Research in this area has its roots in the study of organizational interlocks and boundary spanners and, more recently, in the field of communication, especially when conceptualized as networks. Several theories have been

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Andrew Pilny, Yannick Catouba, Jinseok Kim, Macarena Peña-y-Lillo, Katherine R. Cooper, Ariann Sahagun, Sijia Yang Communication network research is increasingly being used across the communication discipline. However, most social network research is limited in its generalizability because it focuses on either a single network case or ego-centric network data. In order to generate knowledge across network studies, a mechanism is needed to synthesize. This

View the Resource By Jennifer Ihm, Macarena Pena-Y-Lillo, Katherine R Cooper, Yannick Atouba, Michelle Shumate, Julia Bello-Bravo, Niango Malick Ba, CléMentine L Dabire-Binso, Barry Robert Pittendrigh Development campaigns designed to scale up effective agricultural solutions often rely on media. Information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) proponents argue that increased media penetration is necessary for such campaigns to succeed. Interviews of 63 extension agents and 200 farmers in Burkina Faso

View the Resource By Sophia Fu, Michelle Shumate This study examines a hyperlink network among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China. Using social media activity, indicated by the presence of a profile, length of time since social media adoption, number of accounts followed, and number of posts, we investigate NGOs’ hyper linking behaviors from a holistic media ecology perspective. Drawing from homophily and resource dependence theory, this research aims to understand NGOs’