Elizabeth Shanahan | Montana State University - Bozeman (original) (raw)

Papers by Elizabeth Shanahan

Routledge eBooks, May 9, 2023

Public Administration Review, May 2, 2023

Policy entrepreneurs have traditionally been recognized for their ability to influence policymake... more Policy entrepreneurs have traditionally been recognized for their ability to influence policymakers by framing policy problems and pairing them with preferred solutions. Does their influence extend to the public? We examine this question in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States. We analyze whether an individual's perception of a visible, national‐level policy entrepreneur, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci, influences their perceived risk of contracting the virus and their uptake of recommended COVID‐19 risk mitigation behaviors. Findings indicate that approval of Dr. Fauci predicts individual risk perceptions and uptake of mask wearing practices, with his influence particularly strong among conservatives. However, Dr. Fauci's influence as a policy entrepreneur waned over time and was moderated by a host of factors such as an individual's worldview, perceptions of policy environment, and media consumption.

Review of Policy Research, Oct 9, 2022

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective cris... more Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID‐19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.

Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2014

Routledge eBooks, May 15, 2018

Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education

Although women have made tremendous strides toward gender equity within science, technology, engi... more Although women have made tremendous strides toward gender equity within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields over the past couple of decades, reaching full equity will require the support of faculty colleagues. Department chairs and heads are crucial as the conduit between administration and faculty, yet they are traditionally an understudied contingent. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 STEM department heads at a U.S. university, we uncovered the limiting ideologies that guide department leaders’ sensemaking around achieving gender equity—specifically meritocracy, objectivity, and neoliberalism. We discuss the implications for gender equity programs within higher education in terms of addressing these deeper frames of reference to achieve long-lasting outcomes. On one hand, change agents can leverage these dominant ideologies to create a shift in department leaders’ mind-sets, leading to earlier understanding and buy-in; on the other hand, failing to critically challenge these deep-seated assumptions and beliefs can impede long-term success.

Journal of Mixed Methods Research

Instrument fidelity in message testing research hinges upon how precisely messages operationalize... more Instrument fidelity in message testing research hinges upon how precisely messages operationalize treatment conditions. However, numerous message testing studies have unmitigated threats to validity and reliability because no established procedures exist to guide construction of message treatments. Their construction typically occurs in a black box, resulting in suspect inferential conclusions about treatment effects. Because a mixed methods approach is needed to enhance instrument fidelity in message testing research, this article contributes to the field of mixed methods research by presenting an integrated multistage procedure for constructing precise message treatments using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. This work harnesses the power of integration through crossover analysis to improve instrument fidelity in message testing research through the use of natural language processing (NLP).

Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 2022

The last decade has seen the rise of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) as a valuable theoretic... more The last decade has seen the rise of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) as a valuable theoretical framework for advancing knowledge of the policy process. In this article, we investigate the NPF’s “travel” capacities across geographies, political systems, policy fields, levels of analysis, methodological approaches, and other theories of the policy process. We assess these capabilities by reviewing extant research and mapping newly explored territories. While we find that the NPF embodies all necessary conditions to travel to different settings, the empirical applications remain largely confined to the U.S. and European contexts, environmental policy, the meso level of analysis, the use of content analysis of documents as a methodological approach, and only a few combinations with other theories of the policy process. Our findings indicate that the NPF can travel well. However, we call for further research to conceptualize the NPF’s macro level, to replicate NPF scholarship beyond...

Recommended citation: Parker, D., Raile, E., Guenther, S., & Shanahan, E. (2019). 2018 M... more Recommended citation: Parker, D., Raile, E., Guenther, S., & Shanahan, E. (2019). 2018 Montana Election Surveys (MSU-MTN) [Data file]. Retrieved from https://www.openicpsr.org These polls were funded jointly by the Montana Television Network (MTN) and Montana State University (MSU). The MSU-MTN pre-election survey was conducted by the Human Ecology Learning & Problem Solving (HELPS) Lab of Montana State University-Bozeman between September 15 and October 6, 2018. The population for the poll was Montana voters who registered by August 14, 2018. The sample was stratified by state House districts, and then a random sample of 10,400 voters was drawn proportionally from these strata. Sampled individuals received a questionnaire by mail and were asked to return the questionnaire via a self-addressed stamped envelope. Respondents returned 2,079 surveys, a response rate of slightly over 20% based on 10,215 deliverable addresses. <b...

PLOS ONE, 2020

Effectively communicating risk is critical to reducing conflict in human-wildlife interactions. U... more Effectively communicating risk is critical to reducing conflict in human-wildlife interactions. Using a survey experiment fielded in the midst of contentious public debate over flying fox management in urban and suburban areas of Australia, we find that stories with characters (i.e., narratives) are more effective than descriptive information at mobilizing support for different forms of bat management, including legal protection, relocation, and habitat restoration. We use conditional process analysis to show that narratives, particularly with accompanying images, are effective because they cause emotional reactions that influence risk perception, which in turn drives public opinion about strategies for risk mitigation. We find that prior attitudes towards bats matter in how narrative messages are received, in particular in how strongly they generate shifts in affective response, risk perception, and public opinion. Our results suggest that those with warm prior attitudes towards ba...

Natural Hazards Review, 2021

Public health officials recommend wearing a mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19, yet individual... more Public health officials recommend wearing a mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19, yet individual compliance varies. Understanding the full range of determinants of mask-wearing is critical for promoting evidence-based public health solutions to slow the spread of COVID-19. Using data from a survey of 3,059 respondents across six US states, this study investigates the relationship between psychological factors, including threat-and efficacy-related perceptions, on mask-wearing behavior. It is found that respondents' perceptions of self-efficacy (e.g., ability to wear a mask) and response efficacy (e.g., effectiveness of mask-wearing in reducing COVID-19 transmission) better predict mask-wearing behavior than a number of commonly cited sociodemographic factors. These results suggest that messaging focused on the relative ease and effectiveness of mask wearing may help increase compliance with public health recommendations for mitigating COVID-19.

PNAS Nexus

In the face of vaccine hesitancy, public health officials are seeking more effective risk communi... more In the face of vaccine hesitancy, public health officials are seeking more effective risk communication approaches to increase vaccination rates. We test the influence of visual policy narratives on COVID-19 vaccination behavior through a panel survey experiment conducted in early 2021 (n = 3,900) and then 8 weeks later (n = 2,268). We examine the effects of three visual policy narrative messages that test the narrative mechanism of character selection (yourself, your circle, and your community) and a nonnarrative control on COVID-19 vaccine behavior. Visual risk messages that use narratives positively influence COVID-19 vaccination through serial mediation of affective response to the messages and motivation to get the COVID-19 vaccination. Additionally, character selection matters, as messages focusing on protecting others (i.e. your circle and your community) perform stronger than those of yourself. Political ideology moderated some of the effects, with conservative respondents i...

In the face of increasing vaccine hesitancy, public health officials at multiple levels of govern... more In the face of increasing vaccine hesitancy, public health officials at multiple levels of government are fervently working to identify effective communication strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake. This study is an experiment designed to test the effect of narrative and non-narrative messages about COVID-19 risks and vaccine benefits on intention to get the COVID-19 vaccine (others and self).

2019 18th IEEE International Conference On Machine Learning And Applications (ICMLA), 2019

An important aspect of social networks is the discovery and partitioning of the complex graphs in... more An important aspect of social networks is the discovery and partitioning of the complex graphs into dense sub-networks referred to as communities. The goal of such partitioning is to find groups who have similar attributes or behaviors. In the realm of politics, it is possible to group individuals with similar political behavior by analyzing campaign finance records. In this paper we use fuzzy hierarchical spectral clustering to find communities with campaign finance networks. Multiple experiments were performed using varying edge weighting, number and type of communities, as well as analyzing multiple different years of voting data. The results show that using the full hierarchy of community assignments for legislators is highly predictive of voting behavior in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

Introduction Whereas scientists depend on the language of probability to relay information about ... more Introduction Whereas scientists depend on the language of probability to relay information about hazards, risk communication may be more effective when embedding scientific information in narratives. The persuasive power of narratives is theorized to reside, in part, in narrative transportation. Purpose This study seeks to advance the science of stories in risk communication by measuring real-time affective responses as a proxy indicator for narrative transportation during science messages that present scientific information in the context of narrative. Methods This study employed a within-subjects design in which participants (n = 90) were exposed to eight science messages regarding flood risk. Conventional science messages using probability and certainty language represented two conditions. The remaining six conditions were narrative science messages that embedded the two conventional science messages within three story forms that manipulated the narrative mechanism of character s...