Education

B.A. with Honors, Political Science, Rhodes College
M.A., Communication, The Ohio State University
Ph.D., Communication, The Ohio State University

Research

Jacob Long studies political communication and quantitative research methodology with a special interest in partisanship and social identity. His work considers both mass and interpersonal communication and how the two affect one another. Recent research focuses on how routine media use and social relationships combine to prevent (and sometimes promote) change in political identities.

Long also researches and works to popularize statistical and computational methods for social science research. Among this work is a trio of popular packages for R, the statistical software, which help to analyze data and present one's results.

Teaching

Long teaches courses in mass communication and research methods. His courses are generally built around scaffolded and low-stakes assignments which lead to a final, more substantial project or paper. He emphasizes the development of scientific literacy and quantitative reasoning in students.

Recent Publications

Long, J. A. (2023). Stability as an outcome in communication research. International Journal of Communication, 17, 5954–5971.

Long, J. A. (2021). Improving the replicability and generalizability of inferences in quantitative communication research. Annals of the International Communication Association, 45(3), 207–220.

Long, J. A., Jeong, M. S., & Lavis, S. M. (2021). Political comedy as a gateway to news use, internal efficacy, and participation: A longitudinal mediation analysis. Human Communication Research, 47(2), 166–191.

Long, J. A., & Eveland, W. P., Jr. (2021). Entertainment use and political ideology: Linking worldviews to media content. Communication Research, 48(4), 479–500.

Long, J. A., Eveland, W. P., Jr., & Slater, M. D. (2019). Partisan media selectivity and partisan identity threat: The role of social and geographic context. Mass Communication and Society, 22(2), 145–170.

Personal

Long was born and raised in Pontiac, Illinois. He lived in Memphis, Tennessee, as an undergraduate before coming back to the Midwest to get his Ph.D. Long ago a college baseball player, he is a major sports fan and rarely misses a Chicago White Sox game on TV. When not at work, you will typically find him (with cats Felix and Oskar) looking out his window at the local birds.