Commission on the Status of Women 2015 Abstracts

“It’s on us.” The role of social media in individual willingness to mobilize against sexual assault • Cory Armstrong; Jessica Mahone, University of Florida • “Stopping sexual violence has become a key issue in the public and media agenda. This study examines the role of social media and bystander intervention in predicting an individual’s willingness to engage in collective action against sexual violence. Two surveys were conducted in fall 2014 and early 2015 examining young adults’ views of SNS, rape culture and collective action. Results indicated that gender and bystander intervention were key predictors, along with the privacy concerns of SNS and views supporting rape culture, which had a negative association. Implications were discussed.

Covering Clinton (2010-2015): Meaning-making strategies in news and entertainment magazines • Ingrid Bachmann, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Dustin Harp, University of Texas-Arlington; Jaime Loke, University of Oklahoma • With a trailblazing political career, Hillary Clinton has been the focus of media attention for decades. This study examines 27 magazine covers of the former First Lady and presumptive presidential hopeful from 2010 to 2015, and addresses what these mediated representations of Clinton say aboWith a trailblazing political career, Hillary Clinton has been the focus of media attention for decades. This study examines 27 magazine covers of the former First Lady and presumptive presidential hopeful from 2010 to 2015, and addresses what these mediated representations of Clinton say about the relationship between gender, power and politics. Based on a semiotic analysis, we found that Clinton is presented as a power-hungry, emasculating and surreptitious politician, with the media often warning citizens about her authenticity and ambition. ut the relationship between gender, power and politics. Based on a semiotic analysis, we found that Clinton is presented as a power-hungry, emasculating and surreptitious politician, with the media often warning citizens about her authenticity and ambition.

Media Representations of Hillary Clinton’s Emotional Moment: A Semiotic Analysis • Deborah Bauer, New Mexico State University • This study analyzes media discourse surrounding Hillary Clinton’s ‘emotional moment’ during her Presidential campaign. Interpreting media representations through semiotic and phenomenological analysis, a gendered language emerges as a sign of residual cultural stereotypes that continue to dichotomize gendered abilities. This study demonstrates media representations as a site for perpetuating a woman’s use of emotion to manipulate, connive, or calculate career goals.

Love the Way You Authenticate Domestic Violence Narratives • Laurena Bernabo, University of Iowa • Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), in all its forms, is a social epidemic which affects millions of Americans. The CDC’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, the first of its kind, found that 35.6% of women and 28.5% of men in the U.S. have experienced IPV in their lifetimes, and even more (48% of women and men) have experienced psychological aggression; the impact of such experiences includes fear, PTSD, injury, and the need for medical, housing, and legal services. While public attention to these issues has increased incrementally over time, media texts have engaged rather minimally in terms of accurate, complex representations. This research interrogates the pop culture phenomenon of Love the Way You Lie, a two-part song with an accompanying music video made famous by Eminem and Rihanna, two musicians known for their own first-hand experiences with IPV. By applying work done in the areas of gender violence, domestic violence and IPV to the lyrics and video, this paper demonstrates how public reactions to the media texts conflate the two with each other, and inextricably tie both to the performers through discourses of authenticity. Ultimately, this research argues that the song and video contribute to public conceptions of the cycle of violence by extending the popular understanding of domestic violence beyond the application of physical force.

Gold is the new pink: A qualitative analysis of GoldieBlox retail ratings and feedback • Sara Blankenship, University of North Texas; Sheri Broyles, University of North Texas • The pink and blue color washing of the toy aisle suggests it has remained untouched by the advancements of our social progress. GoldieBlox, a toy company focused on stimulating girls’ interest in engineering, set out to change this. This qualitative analysis of GoldieBlox user ratings has determined this generation of parents unequivocally and enthusiastically supports the concept of encouraging girls to pursue a science-based education, rending Barbie irrelevant.

Activism? Or Group Self-Objectification? • Shugofa Dastgeer, University of Oklahoma • This paper is a comparative analysis of visual images of two feminist groups, FEMEN sextremists and extreme Islamists. The main purpose of this paper is to explore how women in these two groups use their bodies to express their ideologies, and how these tactics give are seen in visual images? The findings show that women in both feminist groups express themselves as objects, which misrepresents their political causes. So, both extremism and sextremism reproduce similar traditional values for women’s bodies by using different approaches.

Building Community? The Use of Social Media by Scholars for Peer-Communication • Stine Eckert, 3135770716; Candi Carter Olson, Utah State University; Victoria LaPoe, Western Kentucky University • This study surveyed 62 members and affiliates of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a subdivision in the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), about their social media use for professional, non-classroom purposes. It is theoretically grounded in media ecology and cyberfeminism. Respondents preferred Facebook for sharing information, followed by Twitter; few participants used LinkedIn. Several respondents noted that due to time constraints they do not use social media. This begs the question of whether or not promoting and utilizing social media as a time-saver, especially for women scholars, may result in a more connected online community, and in turn may help with membership and retention. Given the dearth of studies on scholars’ use of social media for peer communication, this study gives valuable insights into and suggestions for the ways scholars and academic organizations can enhance professional relationships through a communication strategy that integrates social media.

Journalistic Coverage in Rape Culture: Reporters’ Socialization in a Gender-Biased Indian Patriarchal Society • Deepa Fadnis • This study examined the journalistic coverage of the Delhi gang rape case of 2012 in the Times of India to understand the influences of the Indian society firmly rooted in gender inequalities and patriarchy on individual reporters. This content analysis suggested that female reporters were more vocal about rape law reforms and setting up immediate relief measures for women in need. And contrary to the popular belief, male reporters did not entertain ideas about male supremacy through their reporting. Further implications for gender inequality in India are discussed.

Mum’s the word: An analysis of frames used on parents who left children in cars • Andrea Hall, University of Florida; Lauren Furey, University of Florida • This study explored how media communicate biological and parental gender roles when parents commit a crime in addition to how frame is affected by story type. A content analysis of 348 news articles over a 15-year period was conducted. This study found that a gender divide in some cases, such as women being referenced as mothers, but not in others. Child’s gender was also a factor in analyzing when analyzing stories.

RAW Appearances: Examining Contrast Effects in Adaptation to Women Wrestlers’ Sexualization in World Wide Entertainment • Nisha Garud; Carson Wagner • Several studies in psychology confirm the operation of contextual contrast effects on judgments. This experiment extends adaptation-level contrast effects to the field of media through examination of attitudes towards sexualization of WWE women wrestlers. Participants (N=75) were randomly primed with high-sexualized and de-sexualized content and their explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexualization were measured. Contrast effects were found as high-sexualized group rated WWE Women’s program low on sexualization whereas the de-sexualized group rated the program high on sexualization. Both the groups were compared to a control group. Implicit measures supported explicit attitudes. Regression analysis suggest women wrestlers’ clothing, touch, movement and pose strongly predict sexualization. However, no gender differences were found in attitudes towards sexualization.

Easy, Breezy, and Patriarchal: Femvertising in CoverGirl and Beyond • Kate Hoad-Reddick, Western University • This paper takes a 2014 CoverGirl advertisement as its object of study to explore the pervasive advertising trend of femvertising—advertising that positively represents women—and question the impacts of commodified feminism on the feminist movement. By deconstructing the hypocrisy inherent in this commercial, the author problematizes femvertising and questions the mainstream media’s ability to offer feminist sentiments that resist commodification. Using the theoretical lens of ventriloquism, this analysis argues femvertising stems from hegemonic patriarchy.

Women as Eye Candy: Predictors of Individuals’ Acceptance of the Sexual Objectification of Women • Stacey Hust, Washington State University; Kathleen Rodgers, Department of Human Development, Washington State University; Nicole Cameron, Washington State University • Exposure to music videos that objectify and sexualize women was associated with traditional gender beliefs. A survey of undergraduate students indicates exposure to music and a preference for rap music were positively associated with the acceptance of women’s sexual objectification, even after controlling for gender, religiosity and beliefs in sexual stereotypes. This suggests consistent exposure to music videos reinforces traditional gender attitudes, but contextual factors still play a role in the formation of gender attitudes.

Gender Trouble in the Workplace: Applying Judith Butler’s Theory of Performativity to News Organizations • Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri; Teri Finneman, University of Missouri • Butler’s theory of performativity challenges understandings of gender, suggesting gender is constituted through ritualized performances of norms. Although Butler primarily considered discursive constructions of gender, we argue this theory can be considered within organizations. This paper offers a critical perspective by examining patriarchal organizations’ definitions of gender performances and the emancipatory potential of performativity. We explore how performativity could be understood and studied within TV newsrooms, where women reinforce gender roles mandated by organizational norms. ​

Gathering Online, Loitering Offline: Hashtag Activism and the Claim for Public Space by Women in India • Sonora Jha, Seattle University • This paper provides a theoretical critical analysis of the online discursive (textual and visual) representations of women claiming public spaces across India through the #WhyLoiter hashtag campaign in December 2014, protesting “rape culture” following the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of a student. Using feminist media theory and the theory of digital social movements – cyberfeminist protest in particular – I examine the strides and limitations of online and offline repertoires of the #WhyLoiter campaign.

Searching for Thinspiration: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Tumblr Blog Posts about Weight Loss and Disordered Eating • Nicki Karimipour, University of Florida • Young women’s use of microblogging sites to communicate and disseminate messages about body image ideals is an emerging topic of research. As thinspiration content continues to proliferate online, body image researchers and psychologists seek to understand how people, mostly young women, discuss and engage with this phenomenon on social media. This study takes a feminist perspective on body image, and includes theoretical foundations such as the sociocultural model of female body image and identity demarginalization theory to help explain prevalence of online communication about stigmatized conditions such as eating disorders. This study utilized a qualitative, inductive approach to examine tone of the blog posts, commonly appearing codes, motivations for engaging in weight loss, use of hashtags, and mentions of recovery and/or recovery resources. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and avenues for future research are outlined within.

Is Breast Best? Feminist Ethics for Breastfeeding Promotion as Public Relations • Amanda Kennedy, University of Maryland • This paper took a critical feminist approach to interrogate dominant discourses of breastfeeding and motherhood in America and how they have manifested in public relations campaigns. Using the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign as an illustration, we identified ethical dilemmas in their popular constructions of breastfeeding and motherhood. We proposed materialist and care-based feminist ethics as more ethical and practical alternatives for breastfeeding promotion and public relations.

Collective Memory of the Feminist Revolution: “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” in a Post-Feminist Twenty-First Century • Katherine LaPrad, University of South Carolina • This study examines the collective memory of the feminist revolution through the filter of the feminist art movement by analyzing a variety of media engaged with WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, a retrospective exhibition of feminist art and visual culture. Through a qualitative analysis this inquiry interrogates media coverage and public dialogue surrounding this commemorative exhibition, revealing the collective memory of the feminist revolution and its impression on feminism in the current social and political landscape.

Butts and other body parts: Celebrity culture, ethnic identification and self-objectification • Carol Liebler; Li Chen, S.I. Newhouse of Public Communications • This study investigates women’s experiences with a sexually objectifying environment by examining the degree to which engagement with celebrity culture affects self-objectification among women. We further explore the role of ethnic identification in this relationship. An online survey was conducted in the U.S. of 249 women of East Asian or Southeast Asian ethnic descent. Results indicate that strength of ethnic identification and perceived knowledge of and interaction with celebrity culture are predictors of self-objectification, but that results vary by ethnic group. Findings highlight the need to consider the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity in relation to self-objectification.

Problematizing postfeminist/neoliberal female sexual subjectivity: A textual analysis of sex-related articles in Cosmopolitan in post-socialist China • Qi Ling, The University of Iowa • This study adopted postfeminism as a critical tool to analyze sex-related articles in Cosmopolitan (Chinese version) to see how female sexual subjectivity is constructed, and how the internal conflict of neoliberal rhetoric in it may render the touted message of empowerment problematic. Three interpretive repertoires were exacted from the text: “empowering sexiness”, “self-surveillance on sexual body”, and “sexual liberty”, all of which contributed to an enabling female sexual subject, while re-entrenching the normative by making it the only one and the most rewarded choice within the existing system. This paper further suggests that the fact that postfeminist discursive strategies originated in West is gaining currency in post-socialist China has bearing on its integration into the symbolic and economic order of global neoliberalism.

Boy story: An analysis of gendered interaction frames in the Toy Story trilogy • Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas • Past research shows that what children see can greatly influence behaviors and the development of gender identity. Female characters have been depicted in film with less frequency and detail than their male counterparts. The following study examined female-voiced characters within the Toy Story trilogy and used grounded theory to find frames between female-voiced characters and male characters based on their interactions. The findings build upon past literature in gaze theory and symbolic annihilation.

Gender, politics, and social networks: Tracking the 2014 elections on Twitter • Shannon McGregor, University of Texas – Austin; Rachel Mourao, The University of Texas at Austin • The 2014 elections offer a last chance to evaluate discourse about female politicians before the 2016 presidential campaign. Building on gender bias literature, we assess the differences in network attributes of male and female candidates. Results show that when a woman runs against a man, the conversation revolves around her. Female candidates are both more central and more replied to. Findings suggest that there is still something unique about a campaign with a woman.

“Why just my children? This is for all our children.” – The rise of the woman citizen journalist in India • Paromita Pain, The University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism • Recent citizen journalism developments, especially in developing countries like India, is encouraging a new generation of women in very resource poor areas to participate in the news production process that could potentially level the playing field by allowing them to sidestep traditional gatekeepers and barriers. Using the most significant change technique and qualitative data from three citizen media organizations in India, this paper employs feminist readings of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere to argue that citizen media can significantly contribute towards a feminist public sphere and be used as an important tool for women’s empowerment in the developing world.

“A Woman Walks Alone in the Dark:” Hostile Sexism & Script Writing for Crime TV • Scott Parrott • Crime-based television programs in the U.S. often contain gender-based stereotypes, including the inaccurate association of females and victimhood. The present study explored the relationship between hostile sexism and the appearance of gender role stereotypes in plot synopses that communication students wrote for a crime-based dramatic program. Respondents (n=197) to a survey studying “the creative process behind scriptwriting” were asked to outline the plot for an episode of a crime-based drama and to provide descriptive information, including gender, for three characters (victim, police detective, criminal). Respondents most often assigned the role of victim to a female and the roles of police detective and criminal to males. Plot synopses often included violence against females. Separate analyses showed that the higher the respondents’ hostile sexism, the more likely they were to assign the victim role to a female and the less likely they were to assign the detective role to a female.

Constructing Girls in a Post-Feminist Society: Female Adolescent Gender Representations in Glee • Roseann Pluretti, The University of Kansas; Kristen Grimmer, University of Kansas; Jessica Casebier, University of Kansas • This exploratory study examines adolescent gender identity formation and the female adolescent gender representations in the teen drama Glee. Through feminist theory, this study investigates how these representations compare to past representations and if they contain post-feminist ideals. A qualitative textual analysis of six episodes and over 130 scenes was implemented. Thematic analysis of these representations found empowering, post-feminist and stereotypical representations in Glee. These representations could shape female adolescent audiences’ gender identity formation.

Using Feminist Memories for Postfeminist Needs: The Celebratory Feminism of MAKERS: Women Who Make America • Urszula Pruchniewska, Temple University • Through the lens of collective memory, this paper uses textual analysis to explore the documentary MAKERS, which traces the second wave women’s movement by presenting a collective memory of “celebratory feminism.” Despite aiming to show the movement as continuing, by evoking postfeminist sensibilities in its presentation of the feminist past, MAKERS categorizes feminism as over. Thus the construction of collective memory of feminism in MAKERS works to fit the needs of the present climate, postfeminism.

If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Be It: Do Children’s Movies Pass The Bechdel Test? • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • Organizations such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media consistently report gender imbalance is still very much alive. This is particularly true of media crafted specifically for children, and this has real consequences for the ways in which children are taught to perform their gender. Cultivation theory tells us that continuous consumption of media can change people’s attitudes and beliefs about the world, beginning in childhood. If children see the same depictions ad nauseum they can only assume the gender performance they see is the “right” one. And as social learning theory demonstrates, beginning in toddlerhood children begin to mimic behaviors they see in media. Thus, it is crucial to study children’s media with an eye on gender roles. One method to do so is the so-called “Bechdel Test” which puts films to a three-question test: are there two or more women in the film who have names? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk to each other about anything other than men? This content analysis put the top 21 children’s movies to the Test and results revealed seven failures: Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Princess Bride, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, and Up. Release date did not appear to affect whether a movie passed, implying that women’s roles in children’s movies have not evolved over time. However, a tally of character actions revealed female characters in both passing and failing movies to be performing fewer stereotypical roles than non-stereotypical

Crusaders, Not Subordinates: How Women’s Page Editors Worked to Change the Gender Climate Within APME and ASNE • Kimberly Voss; Lance Speere • This scholarship reveals what women were doing in the 1960s and early 1970s within the newspaper industry, which had largely excluded them from decision-making or leadership positions, to produce change. Yet, they worked within their limitations to improve working conditions and to improve content for women within the pages of their newspapers. This study documents their efforts to initiate change through the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Understanding images of sexual objectification: A study of gender differences in Taiwanese magazine ads from 1985 to 2011 • Ping Shaw, National Sun Yat-sen University; Yue Tan, National Sun Yat-sen University • Content analysis is used to explore media portrayals of 1856 female and 816 male models in 2336 Taiwan magazine advertisements over a 27 year period, from 1985 to 2011. We mainly examined how female models and male models are sexually objectified differently over time in terms of four coding categories: “decorative roles”, “portion of body shown”, “sexual explicitness”, and “objecting gaze and touch”. We argue that these categories measure different dimensions of the sexual objectification concept. The results from the content analysis revealed that the four measures correlated moderately, indicated different degree of gender gaps, changed differently over time, and influenced differently by the women’s movement and consumerism in Taiwan. Finally, the implications of the results for the sexual objectification theory are discussed.”

Frat Daddies and Sorostitutes: How TotalFratMove.com and Greek Identity Influence Greek Students’ Rape Myth Acceptance • Bailey Thompson, Texas Tech University; Rebecca Ortiz, Texas Tech University • College students in social Greek organizations are at greater risk of sexual assault than other college students. The present study examined how readership of the online news site TotalFratMove.com (TFM), which often includes coverage of stereotypical fraternity culture, may impact rape myth acceptance. Results revealed that the more frequently Greeks read TFM, the more likely they were to be accepting of rape myths when also taking into account the strength of their Greek social identity.

One “pin” closer to the image of health: The medicalization of makeup discourses on Pinterest • Andrea Weare • This study explored discourses that medicalize beauty on Pinterest. With a boom in social media use among the beauty industry, these platforms are serving as affordances to extend a user’s ability to perform desired industry actions: product consumption. Results illuminate an understanding of the uses of Pinterest and how female users are hailed to be more beautiful and healthy, as well as how scholars and health practitioners might mediate this discourse to improve women’s health.

2015 Abstracts

Sports Communication 2015 Abstracts

Sport, Media Representations, and Domestic Violence: Ray Rice and the Truth Behind Closed Doors • Lauren Anderson, Florida State University • In February 2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested for assaulting his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Seven months later, TMZ released a video of the assault, which showed Rice punching Palmer in the face while inside an elevator at the casino. The public was immediately outraged, and thousands of fans took to social media to express their anger towards the running back. However, these attacks were just part of the conversation. The public outcry over the video generated a national conversation around intimate partner violence unlike anything seen before (Blow, 2014). With the purpose of discovering how domestic violence is talked about in sport, this paper examines the media coverage of the highly publicized Ray Rice incident over a one-year time span by examining articles from both mainstream and alternative media. The researcher argues that the main narratives surrounding the conversation seem to question previous media frames that have consistently blamed victims, excused perpetrators, and ignored the social problem of domestic abuse. Such narratives are crucial to changing the national conversation surrounding domestic violence. However, these narratives are relatively nonexistent in mainstream media, which is entirely problematic. Although the release of the TMZ video made the Ray Rice case one of the most publicized incidents of domestic violence in history, it still did not result in a national conversation about domestic violence among mainstream media.

The Return of the King: How Cleveland Reunited with LeBron After a Parasocial Breakup • Eryn Bostwick, The University of Oklahoma; Kathryn Lookadoo, The University of Oklahoma • This study examined the experiences northeast Ohio residents had when LeBron James left Cleveland in 2010 and returned in 2014. Results showed individuals who experienced a parasocial relationship (PSR) with LeBron were more likely to experience a parasocial breakup (PSB), which, in turn, was positively related to having feelings of grief after LeBron left. The results help explain why some fans might react negatively when finding out their favorite player has left their favorite team.

Second Screen & Sports: A Structural Investigation into Team Identification and Efficacy • Nicole Cunningham, University of Texas at Austin; Matthew Eastin, University of Texas at Austin • A second screen is defined as a second electronic device used by audience members while watching a television program. While second screen use during sport programming is on the rise, current theoretical understanding of second screen use and engagement is lacking. Thus, in an attempt to extend Niche Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, the current study employs a structural equation model to increase current understanding of second screen use. Further, to better understand the outcome of second screen use, the current study examines the relationship between team identification, engagement, and self-efficacy with second screen use.

Altering the Attribute Agenda: How the Suspension of a Rugby Star Impacted Coverage of Doping • Bryan Denham • This study examined how the 2010 suspension of rugby player Terry Newton, who tested positive for human growth hormone, impacted drug-testing reports in United States news media. Drawing on the agenda-setting concept of a “trigger event,” as well as research in attribute agenda-building, the study observed an increase in references to human growth hormone following the suspension announcement. Substantively, the study refutes criticism that American journalists advance the interests of U.S. athletes and athletic organizations while largely ignoring athletes and sport entities elsewhere.

The Use Of Twitter As A News Source In Sports Reporting • Brian Dunleavy, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Tim Vos, University of Missouri • It has been well documented that professional athletes have been using Twitter to communicate directly with each other and their fans; to date, few studies have explored the effect this direct communication channel has had on the role of journalists who cover these athletes. Traditionally, sports reporters have served in a gatekeeping role, deciding what news and information is worthy of coverage on the beat. The present study sought to assess how, if at all, sports reporters covering the four major U.S. sports—baseball, basketball, football, and hockey—are using athletes’ Twitter feeds in their coverage and what, if any, impact athletes’ presence on Twitter has had on their role as gatekeepers. A search of eight daily newspapers during a one-month period yielded a total of 74 articles in which an athletes’ Twitter feed was used as a news source. A textual analysis of these articles revealed that athletes’ tweets are used in place of direct quotes, as a source of breaking news, as the genesis of a story, and to gauge public sentiment toward an athlete. Interviews with 20 of the sports reporters covering the four major sports at the eight newspapers and five of the editors at these outlets confirmed these uses. Respondents also acknowledged that Twitter has enabled athletes to communicate directly with their fans without involving the traditional sports media. However, most the respondents also noted that the limitations of the medium kept their roles as reporters relevant to the fan/reader.

Thrice-trending Twitter: A Longitudinal Study of Sports Journalist Tweeting • Betsy Emmons, Samford University • Sports journalists have accepted Twitter as an important tool in live reporting. Sports journalists are particularly in tune with Twitter’s role as a second screen during a live televised event. The news ecology model framework offers a longitudinal frame for this research, a three-year content analysis of journalist live-tweeting. Results indicated that there were significantly different tweet tendencies between bloggers and institutional journalists, with movement toward homogeneity and sporadic use of other Twitter aspects.

To tweet and retweet: How NFL journalists gatekept the Ray Rice scandal on Twitter • Patrick Ferrucci, University of Colorado-Boulder • This study utilizes textual analysis to examine how journalists covered the Ray Rice scandal on Twitter. The study looked at all tweets concerning the scandal from 20 “elite” sports journalists. It was found that journalists used Twitter when covering the scandal in four primary ways: to disseminate factual information, to state opinions, to make followers laugh and to self-promote themselves. These findings are then analyzed through the lens of gatekeeping theory. It is suggested that news organizations need to develop and implement strong social media policies because Twitter coverage could conceivably result in negative effects on the organization.

The big assist: Exploring nonprofit beliefs about the benefits and challenges of sport CSR • Melanie Formentin, Towson University • Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in professional sport is studied almost exclusively in business and marketing where sport is presented as having unique characteristics for creating social impacts. Additionally, CSR scholarship generally fails to address beneficiary perspectives of giving impacts. Using 29 depth interviews with nonprofit practitioners, this study highlights perceived benefits and challenges of working with sport organizations. Findings suggest sport CSR has unique qualities, but not to the degree expressed in current research.

Mobile Communication and Pro Sports: Linking Motivational Use of the Mobile Phone to Fan Loyalty • Seok Kang • The main focus of the current study is fan loyalty development for favorite pro teams through mobile phone use. Guided by uses and gratifications theory, varying motive types are assumed to be potential predictors for attitudinal, behavioral loyalty, and sport fandom. Reflecting traits of mobile communication, mobile competence and network size are also taken into account in the examination. From a national panel survey of 405 respondents, the results found that mobile phone use was classified into either instrumental or ritualistic motives. Goal-directed interaction motives predicted behavioral loyalty and sport fandom. Habitual motives were associated with attitudinal loyalty. Mobile competence was a positive indicator for attitudinal loyalty and sport fandom. Second-level digital divide was discovered in mobile phone use for attitudinal loyalty and sport fandom. No significant relationship between network size and fan loyalty was observed. Related implications and suggestions were discussed.

The effects of camera angle, arousing content and fanship on the cognitive processing of sports messages. • Collin Berke, Texas Tech University; Justin Keene, Texas Tech University; Brandon Nutting, University of South Dakota • This study had two core motivations. First, the replicate the previous research related to the relationship between camera angle, arousing content, general sports fanship and resource allocation, and second, to reconceptualize these message-level elements from the human-centered perspective. Generally, the results replicate previous findings that arousing content, but not fanship, school identification or camera angle effects the availability of cognitive resources over time. Implications are discussed.

The Team versus Its Fans: Crisis Frames Using Social Media in the case of Ray Rice • Eunyoung Kim, University of Alabama • This study examines how sports organizations and their fans use the interactivity of Twitter to disseminate crisis frames. Conducting a content analysis in the Ray Rice case, the study compares crisis frames employed by the Baltimore Ravens and by self-identified fans and examined the tones, topics, and frames of fans’ responses. The results illustrate that the team and fans utilized human interest, conflict, and athletic frames in common and different ways.

Nationalism in the United States and Canadian Primetime Broadcast Coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics • James Angelini; Paul MacArthur, Utica College; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Lauren Smith, Auburn University • The CBC’s and NBC’s primetime broadcasts of the 2014 Winter Olympics were analyzed to determine differences between the media treatment of home nation athletes and foreign athletes. Results showed that Canadian athletes represented 48.5% of the total athlete mentions and 100 percent of the top 20 most mentioned athletes on the CBC broadcast, while American athletes represented 43.9% of the total mentions and 65 percent of the top 20 most mentioned athletes on the NBC broadcast. The Canadian broadcast also featured home athletes significantly more than the American broadcast. The CBC was more likely attribute Canadian athletic successes to commitment and intelligence, and non-Canadian successes to strength; Canadians were more likely to have failure ascribed to a lack of consonance, while non-Canadians were more likely to have failure ascribed to a lack of commitment. The CBC was also more likely to discuss neutral/other comments for Canadians, and the extroversion and background of non-Canadians. NBC was more likely to attribute non-American failures to experience and non-American failures to a lack of concentration. NBC was also more likely to describe non-American athletes as modest/introverted. Comparisons between the CBC and NBC revealed 35 significant differences in the manner in which they depicted home athletes compared to athletes from other nations.

Inequivalency of Trangressions: On-Field Perceptions of Off-Field Athlete Deviance • Coral Marshall; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Kenon Brown, The University of Alabama • Deviance and crime have long been considered newsworthy, yet recently the off-field deviant actions of professional athletes have received increased prominence. Utilizing 360 subjects from a national online experiment, this paper examines the degree to which these off-field deviant actions effect fan perceptions. Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in the way types of violence are perceived.

‘I did what I do’ vs ‘I cover football’: Team media and athlete protest • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin • As athletes added their voices to the 2014 protests of police violence, team media were part of the press pack. Using interview data and content analysis, this case study examines the way writers at team sites approached this collision of marketing and political activism. It finds a range of approaches, from full stories to ignoring it, often justified with similar claims of reportorial independence. These findings complicate existing views of team media.

Divorce in Sports: Enduring Grief and the Fluidity of Fandom • Nathan Rodriguez, University of Kansas • Many scholars conceptualize fans as static, with concretized likes or dislikes. Less discussed is what happens when the majority of fans experience an act of perceived disloyalty. This project examines online comments from college basketball fans regarding a former head coach over an eight-year period. Comments are coded using the Kubler-Ross model to document how fans process grief over time. This approach lends explanatory power to better understand fluidity of fandom over time.

‘How Could Anyone Have Predicted that #AskJameis would Go Horribly Wrong?’ Public Relations, Social Media, and Hashtag Hijacking • Jimmy Sanderson, Clemson University; Katie Barnes, Clemson University; Christine Williamson, Clemson University; Edward Kian, Oklahoma State Univeristy • Social media offers benefits to organizations when enacting public relations. However, it also is accompanied with risk as the participatory culture of social media enables audience members to actively contribute to public relations narratives. This research explores how a sport public relations campaign on Twitter can be hijacked by audiences through an investigation of the #AskJameis campaign employed by Florida State University. Winston had been the subject of several legal incidents before Florida State made him available to answer questions via the #AskJameis hashtag on August 10, 2014. A thematic analysis of 1,247 tweets revealed that the hashtag was hijacked primarily through: (a) criticizing Florida State University; (b) referencing Winston’s legal incidents; (c) general sarcasm; (d) insinuating Winston received preferential treatment; and (e) mocking Winston’s intellect. The results suggest that public relations campaigns enacted on social media extend well beyond target audiences and that public relations personnel must account for the anticipated “pulse” of the audience before launching public relations initiatives on social media. Underestimating the capabilities of the social media audience can further exacerbate crisis situations, suggesting that there are occasions when not using social media is a more effective public relations practice.

Soccer as un-American Activity: Sportswriters Inscribing American Exceptionalism on the World’s Game • David Schwartz, University of Iowa • Disapproving of the soccer strategy known as flopping—falling down on purpose—Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander wrote that flopping is “a European or South American or Asian or African affectation. And it’s pitiful.” Through textual analysis of American sports writing, this description and others illustrate how sportswriters advance American exceptionalism and disparage foreign athletes by locating flopping outside the moral and ethical boundaries of sportsmanship.

#deflategate: Sports Journalism, Twitter and the Use of Image Repair Strategy • Mary Lou Sheffer, University of Southern Mississippi; Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi; Willie Tubbs, University of Southern Mississippi • “This study investigated how different groups of sports journalists covered the NFL “deflategate” scandal through social media, specifically in terms of employing image repair strategies. A content analysis revealed that while many journalists employed objective reporting, many others engaged in a variety of repair strategies, notably minimization and stonewalling. Discussion and implications focused on two main issues—conflict of interest between journalists and sports organizations, and the evolving role of social media in crisis coverage.”

ABC’s Wide World of Sports: The Cultural and Industrial Politics of Cold War Sports Television in the United States • Travis Vogan, University of Iowa • The Cold War provides the backdrop for many of the United States’ most durable sporting tales. The medium of television played a key role in articulating sport’s relationship to the Cold War. Scholars of sport, however, have mostly ignored the medium’s significance to Cold War sport. Focusing on a series of televised track meets between the USA and USSR from 1961-1965, this historical essay uses the ABC network’s anthology program Wide World of Sports to consider how sports TV mediated U.S. sport’s relationship to Cold War politics. It does so through examining a combination of Wide World of Sports’ programs, popular and trade press commentary on them, and discourses from ABC personnel. Moreover, it argues that Wide World of Sports’ many representations of Cold War sport helped ABC to establish a branded identification with sports programming and to compete for market share of the increasingly popular genre with CBS and NBC.

#ClipperNation: A Case Study of the Functional Uses of Social Media for Sport Public Relations • Brandi Watkins, Virginia Tech • The rapid growth of sports as a PR specialization, there are considerably fewer academic studies that examine the field within the discipline. An attempt to contribute to the need for research in this area, this study applies the functional uses of social media for PR to a sports context. A case study of the Twitter activity of the Los Angeles Clippers revealed the team used Twitter to serve the organizational identification and relationship building functions.

The Effects of Second-Screen Use on the Enjoyment of the Super Bowl • Jordan Dolbin, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Brendan R. Watson • To optimize the second screen experience, it is important to understand how media multitasking affects the primary experience, in this instance, watching the Super Bowl. This study surveyed a randomly-sampled young adults who watched the Super Bowl on TV. The study examines the effects of the frequency of general second-screen use; related versus unrelated second-screen use; and the effect of difference between gratifications sought by watching the Super Bowl and reasons for using a second-screen on enjoyment of watching the game. While frequency of second-screen use is negatively associated with enjoyment, related second-screen use is a positive predictor. However, the greater the differences, related or unrelated to the game, between the reasons why someone watched the game and used a second screen, the lower levels of enjoyment. Implications for theory and the television and sports industries are discussed.

Televised CrossFit Competitions Have the Potential to (Tire)Flip Masculine Hegemony on Its Head • Molly Yanity, Quinnipiac University; Mary Haines, Ohio University • While feminist theory has expressed a wide range of opinions and findings on the mediation of the muscular female body, we draw principally from Connell’s theory of gender power relations to analyze televised CrossFit competitions on ESPN. The purpose of this article is to compare and analyze dominant themes from similar findings to those of the CrossFit competition broadcasts to determine if these competitions have the potential to disrupt or sustain masculine hegemony on the existing sport-media landscape.

2015 Abstracts

Small Programs 2015 Abstracts

You Can, 2, Fix Stupid: Improving on a Novel Experiment to Teach a Need For News • Kelly Kaufhold, Texas State University • An experimental news game was executed under two different conditions to test both the efficacy of the idea and the impact of different circumstances – a short, weekly intervention or a longer, daily one. While the short, weekly intervention was shown to have some effect, the longer daily intervention was significantly more effective. The news game shows real promise as an easily replicable way to get students more engaged with a need for news and as a way to inspire some peer pressure for news, which may, in turn, increase the incidence of news opinion leaders in a two-step flow of news. Given the long-established, generational decline in news consumption and knowledge, this news game shows promise as an ameliorative strategy to increase news engagement among young adults.

Getting it “Write”: Strengthening Basic Grammar Skills Through Collaborative Efforts • Michael Drager, Shippensburg University; Holly Ott, The Pennsylvania State University; Carrie Sipes; Karen Johnson, Shippensburg University • This study explores pedagogical approaches and student learning strategies in a media writing course. Specifically, the effectiveness of grammar tutoring and how it impacts students’ basic writing skills is examined. Results support existing literature that tutoring impacts student performance and enhances students’ confidence and interest in learning. Theoretical and practical implications for teaching and research are discussed.

Collaborating Across Boundaries to Engage Journalism Students in Computational Thinking • Kim Pearson, The College of New Jersey; Diane Bates, The College of New Jersey; S. Monisha Pulimood, The College of New Jersey • Journalism educators seek ways to create a positive environment for learning computational journalism. This paper describes a multi-semester collaboration between undergraduate journalism and computer science students. Data indicate that such collaborations can strengthen journalism students’ confidence in their ability to employ computing tools and methods. However, journalism students did not show as much positive change as did students in computer science and other majors. Future research will focus on student preparation for such collaborations. v

Instructional videos snubbed by online students — Reliance on videos re-evaluated • Catherine Strong, Massey University • The challenges of teaching online students are magnified when teaching digital journalism skills without face-to-face contact. Although many guidelines recommend relying heavily on instructional videos for online courses, such as MOOCs, this research indicates many students tend to shun videos in favor of traditional text instructions. The key is to provide both platforms for the students. This research also found that students are more accepting of instructional videos that include five elements.

External Resources Use for Undergraduates Learning Coding in Communication Classes • Amanda Sturgill; Ben Hannam, Elon University; Brian Walsh • Researchers collected and analyzed data from 85 undergraduate students from a variety of communication majors enrolled in a 1-credit technology and coding course in which a variety of out-of-class supports were offered, to determine what out-of-class resources students used and valued. Student behaviors clustered, such that one group that preferred interpersonal support and another who preferred content support. Most types of support were not related to student success as measured in course grades. One type, video, was negatively related, suggesting that a self-destructive behavior of procrastinating on projects and expecting last-minute help extra resources is ineffective.

Best Practices for Student Learning Assessment In Smaller-Sized Undergraduate Mass Communication Programs • Douglas Swanson, California State University, Fullerton • Assessment of student learning in higher education is no longer optional, because the public increasingly expects universities to spend less and produce more. Generating detailed, meaningful assessment is challenging, particularly for smaller-sized mass communication programs with limited resources. Mass communication-focused assessment literature is scarce. This best practices essay reviews other research to illustrate proven examples of ways to assess simply and effectively in undergraduate mass communication programs to achieve maximum faculty support and curriculum improvement.

2015 Abstracts

Religion and Media 2015 Abstracts

The Role of Social Media in Setting the Muslims and Islam Agenda: A three-country study • SAIFUDDIN AHMED, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna; Jaeho Cho, University of California, Davis • This study examines the role of social and traditional media in an agenda setting process involving issues related to Muslims and Islam. A time-series analysis of 4317 news articles and 3.19 million Facebook posts across France, Germany and the Netherlands reveal that the agenda-setting mechanism is not “one-way” but reciprocal in nature. The results of a reverse-pattern involving social media influencing traditional media agenda can direct future research. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Framing moral evaluations: newspaper coverage of Islamic spaces in the U.S. • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University • In recent years, attempts by Muslims in the U.S. to build worship spaces have been met with opposition during the local regulatory approval process. This article examines the discourse in the debate through a framing cluster analysis of news articles and editorials (n=349) from five U.S. newspapers between 2010-13. This research makes a theoretical contribution by being the first to use Moral Foundations Theory operationalize the moral evaluation dimension of framing. A cluster analysis of all the framing components revealed five frames: Local Regulation, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, Islamic Threat, and Legal Authority. A binary logistic regression found that moral evaluations were associated with mosque support, but not mosque opposition.

God and sport: Orientalism in Sports Illustrated coverage of religion • Patrick Ferrucci, University of Colorado-Boulder; Greg Perreault, University of Missouri • This study utilizes textual analysis to analyze how the popular and influential sports magazine Sports Illustrated covered religion over the period from Jan. 1, 1994, to Sept. 1, 2014. The data showed that the magazine wrote about religion in three primary ways: as an exotic characteristic that makes an athlete somehow odd, as incongruous since sports themselves display similar characteristics to religion, and as a front to hide some insidious real motive. These results are analyzed through the lens of Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, which argues that the press tends to cover dominant groups as “normal” and “others” the remaining groups, which has been shown, historically, to have damaging impact. This study concludes with a discussion concerning how SI’s coverage of religion could impact society.

Religious ‘hate spin’ and the limitations of the law in India • Cherian George, Hong Kong Baptist University • Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won India’s 2014 election on a Hindu-majoritarian agenda, challenging the secular republic’s accommodation of Muslim and other minorities. One key strategy was the use of “hate spin” – conceptualised here as the politically motivated giving and taking of religious offence. Modi’s campaign used inflammatory speech with impunity, despite India’s laws against religious incitement. It also rallied the Hindu ground against manufactured offence, effectively censoring books despite free speech laws.

“It’s Not a Real Thing When We Do It”: Mainstream Newspaper Use of the Term “Islamophobia” • Rick Moore, Boise State University • Is “Islamophobia” a real thing? A viral video segment from a recent television program raised this question. This study looks to answer it by analyzing how the media might play a role in determining our perception of the reality of phenomena that have only recently been named. Through a LexisNexis search of mainstream newspapers’ use of Islamophobia, the study shows that for journalists, at least, there are clear indications Islamophobia is real and worth discussing.

Sexual battlegrounds: How abstinent Christian men select and navigate media content • Monique Robinson, The University of Kansas; Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas • Men look toward media as illustrative in constructing sexual relationships. As 97% of men in the United States engage in sexual relationships prior to marriage, those who choose to wait represent a heuristic segment of the population. This study analyzes abstinent Christian males and how their identity interplays with their media selection and navigation processes through sexual narratives and scripts that counter their views on premarital sex.

The boundaries of political tolerance: Evaluations of Mormon political candidates • Remy Maisel; Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • During the 2012 American presidential election, there was rampant media speculation about the potential impact of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism upon his chances of being elected. This experiment presented respondents with news articles about a fictional candidate with conditions for candidate affiliation of either Mormon or unspecified, and stories that either contained values language or excluded it. Results showed weak negative effects due to the presence of a Mormon label, and minimal influence of value framing.

Is It Really a Religious Conflict?: News Framing of the Ahmadiyah Conflict in Indonesian Mediascape • Yearry Setianto, Ohio University • Building on the assumption that the media construct their own frames in reporting religious conflict, this study investigates how online newspapers framed the Ahmadiyah conflict in Cikeusik, Banten Province, Indonesia in February 2011. Based on framing analysis of 359 news articles taken from two major online newspapers in Indonesia, Kompas.com and Republika Online, this research used an interpretive qualitative approach in identifying the frames. The research findings suggest that Kompas.com indirectly named the incident as an attack and violations of human rights but avoided to mention the case as a religious conflict. In contrast, Republika Online, which is influenced by Islamic values tended to name the event as a clash based on religious issues and accused the Ahmadis as the provocateurs. Both media named the actors as anonymous but blamed the government’s failure in protecting religious rights. The use of interpretive qualitative approach also has been sufficient to identify hidden frames within the language structures in news texts. This study helps to understand how the religious conflict tended to be framed differently by online media, mainly due to their religious affiliation, especially in the context of reporting religious conflicts in a Muslim majority country like in Indonesia.

Evangelical Christian Crisis Responses to Same-Sex Sex Scandals • Cylor Spaulding, Towson University • This research examines the crisis responses of six evangelical leaders (Paul Crouch, Ted Haggard, Lonnie Latham, and Eddie Long) involved in same-sex sex scandals by comparing their responses against those recommended by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007). Through an examination of the leaders strategies, reaction statements, and news articles written about the crisis, this qualitative research found that the evangelical pastors generally adhered to the recommended strategies of the SCCT, thus reinforcing the applicability of the SCCT even in a religious context. This paper also recommends the inclusion of an additional SCCT category for situations where a crisis inflicts spiritual or emotional harm.

A Cross-National Media Framing Comparison of U.S. and Arabic News: The Case of Charlie Hebdo • Ethan Stokes, University of Alabama • On January 7, 2015, two Islamic terrorists raided the Charlie Hebdo central office in Paris and killed 12 employees of the French satirical magazine. The events that ensued resembled a modern action/thriller motion picture, and global news media coverage provided an avenue for audiences to follow the proceedings. Navigated by framing theory, this study employed a quantitative content analysis of 985 news stories collected precisely over one month following the January 7th attack to determine if cross-national differences in news coverage were present. The news stories came from the two most popular Arabic news media outlets and the three most popular U.S. newspapers. The Arabic stories were collected using the Media Monitoring System at Texas A&M University, and the U.S. stories were collected using the Pro-Quest Newspapers database. The findings reveal that the U.S. frames focused more heavily on the victims, defending free speech, and supporting the continuance of the satire, while the Arabic frames more often focused on specific terrorist groups, portraying the satire as offensive to Muslims, and calling for a discontinuance of the satire. These differences and similarities in news framing of the Hebdo attack are discussed at length.

2015 Abstracts

Political Communication 2015 Abstracts

Incivility or Sarcasm? Expanding the Concept of Attacks in Online Social Media • Ashley A. Anderson, Colorado State University; Heidi E. Huntington, Colorado State University; Kim Kandra, Colorado State University • This study expands the definition of incivility, an oft-cited concern of computer-mediated communication. We propose sarcasm – a subtler form of provocation – as a concept related to incivility – which involves more explicit attacks. Using a content analysis of Twitter posts about climate change, we find the two concepts are not used simultaneously in the same posts but are employed in similar patterns. This indicates sarcasm is an important and distinct concept in online discussions.

Antecedents of Internal Political Efficacy. Incidental News Exposure Online and the Role of Political Discussion • Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna • Internal political efficacy has become a key concept in political science, since it has long been considered a predictor of a variety of pro-democratic behaviors. However, the effect of incidental news exposure online is underdeveloped in the literature. This study argues that both general news media use and incidental news exposure online lead to political efficacy through discussion. The paper also tests whether discussion with weak versus strong ties yield different results predicting efficacy.

Attitudes toward Illegal Immigration and Exposure to Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting in France, Norway, and the United States • Audun Beyer, Department of media and communication, University of Oslo; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna • This paper investigates the relationship between news exposure and attitudes toward illegal immigration. Based on comparative survey data from three countries (U.S.; France; Norway), findings suggest that political orientation is the strongest predictor of attitudes toward illegal immigration and that exposure to commercial news is positively related to negative attitudes toward illegal immigration in all countries. Public service broadcasting, in contrast, leads to more positive attitudes toward illegal immigration only in the U.S.

Television vs. YouTube: Political Advertising in the 2012 Presidential Elections • porismita borah, Washington State University; Erika Fowler; travis ridout • We employ a unique data set to compare both online political ads and televised political ads from the 2012 presidential campaign, relying upon data from the Wesleyan Media Project and YouTube. Primary findings show negative ads are mostly sponsored by political groups and not candidates in both TV and online. Online ads are less negative and less policy driven, consistent with the theory that they are designed for a different audience than television.

Online media and the Social Identity Model of Collective Action: Examining the roles of online alternative news and social media news • Michael Chan • This study integrates the literature on the mobilizing potential of online news media to engender protest participation with recent theoretical syntheses from socio-psychological perspectives of collective action. More specifically, it examines the potential for alternative media and social media to stimulate the core antecedents of collective action (identity, efficacy and anger) in the context of a pro-democracy movement. Findings from a representative sample using structural equation modeling supported the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) framework, such that all three antecedents predicted protest participation and that higher levels of identity were positively relate to anger and efficacy. Moreover, the same antecedents mediated the relationship between online media use and protest participation. The findings demonstrate the benefits of theoretical integration from related disciplines so as to better understand the dynamics of collective action at the individual level.

The Effect of Self-Expression on Political Opinion • Saifuddin Ahmed, California, Davis; Heejo Keum, Sungkyunkwan University; Yeo Jeong Kim, Sungkyunkwan University; Jaeho Cho, California, Davis • The political impact of social media has drawn considerable attention, however, the scientific understanding of how engaging in expressive behavior via social media influences the way the expresser makes political decisions remains limited, if not unknown. An analysis of 1,209 survey responses revealed consistent results across six issues where the effects of party identification on opinions about political issues became stronger as political expression on social media increased. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Herbert Gans Revisited: Proposing a Network Analytic Approach to Source Use • Bethany Conway, University of Arizona • This study investigates the information resources journalists attained from sources in midterm election coverage. Moving beyond past research, it investigates resource fulfillment while incorporating concepts of source interdependence through the application of social network analysis. Results of a nationwide survey of journalists suggest that source centrality within the network is heavily based on the information resource being provided. At the same time, certain sources are also seen as structurally equivalent, and may even be complementary.

The 2014 Midterm Elections on Local Television: Frames, Sources and Valence • Daniela Dimitrova; Sisi Hu • Local television remains the main information source for the average American, yet studies of local television content are rare. This study investigates the coverage of the 2014 midterm election on two local televisions stations in Iowa, KCCI-TV and WOI-TV. Using a content analysis approach the study shows that local election news reporting is more likely to focus on the horse race rather than political issues, and tends to be more episodic rather than thematic in nature. The coverage relies primarily on elite sources such as politicians and government officials rather than experts and ordinary citizens. Local election news reporting remains mostly neutral in tone. Human-interest coverage is not uncommon while pieces about the role of media in elections are quite rare.

Income Inequality and the Media: Perceptions, Evaluations, and the Role of the Government • Itay Gabay, Bowling Green State University • The study takes the first step in examining the effect of media use and political talk on perceptions of income inequality and the role of the government to reduce it. Using ANES 2012 Time Series Study we show that while radio listeners tend to support income inequality, individuals who receive their information from the Internet, were more likely to think that income inequality has risen in the last twenty years, and TV viewers support government action to reduce it. Political talk tens to echo political predisposing.

Motivations for Political Discussion: Antecedents and Consequences on Civic Participation • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna; Sebastian Valenzuela; Brian Weeks, University of Vienna, Department of Communication • To date, most scholarship on informal discussion of politics and current events has mainly focused on its cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects. In comparison, few studies have addressed the antecedents of political talk. We seek to fill in this gap by using two-wave U.S. panel survey data (W¹=1,816; W2=1,024) to study two sets of motivations people may have for engaging in political conversation: civic-oriented and social-oriented goals. Furthermore, we examine if these motivations matter by analyzing their relationship with civic participation. Using structural equation modeling, our results suggest that both civic and social motivations are strong predictors of frequency of political discussion and, consequently, are indirectly associated with levels of civic engagement. From a theoretical perspective, these findings cast political talk as a more complex phenomenon than what deliberative theory suggests, and point to social motivations as an additional path to civic life.

From Consumer to Producer: Relating Orientations, Internet Use, and Lifestyle and Contentious Political Consumerism • Melissa R. Gotlieb, Texas Tech University; Sadia Cheema, Texas Tech University • This study uses national survey data collected from U.S. adults to explore the relationships among individual and collective orientations to political consumerism, Internet use, and participation in lifestyle and contentious political consumerism among Generation Y. Results demonstrate although both orientations motivate online content consumption, only holding a collective orientation motivates content production. Moreover, although both uses of Internet facilitate socially-conscious consumption practices, only content production mobilizes more active participation in organized boycotts and “buycotts.”

Image, Issues and Advocacy in White House E-mail Newsletters • Joseph Graf, American University • The Obama administration is the first to send an e-mail newsletter, allowing it to control the president’s image and advocate for his agenda. We analyze four years of newsletters (N = 701). The administration portrays the president formally, impersonally, and rarely with the military or business. It projects the administration as the government, with few mentions of the other branches or political opposition; and the administration is increasingly using the newsletter and social media for political advocacy.

Newspaper Coverage of 2012 U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Digital Campaign Communication • Charles Watkins, University of Alabama; Jennifer Greer, University of Alabama • To examine how journalists cover campaign websites, social media, and mobile applications, U.S. newspaper coverage of Obama’s and Romney’s 2012 digital communication was analyzed. Only 1.4% of all campaign articles mentioned digital campaigning, and prominence of these 292 articles was low. Mentions focused on message content and political strategy. Fact-checking was rare, and half of the mentions had no tone or analysis. Obama’s digital communication was covered more frequently and more positively than was Romney’s.

Partisan Conflict Framing Effects on Political Polarization • Jiyoung Han, University of Minnesota; Marco Yzer, The University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication • Consistent with self-categorization theory, we test whether exposure to partisan conflict- framed news produces group polarization between Democrats and Republicans. A set of analyses of variance showed persistent patterns of increased partisan identity salience, extremitization, conformity, and political polarization as a result of news exposure. Using structural equation modeling, we integrated all the hypothesized cognitive paths toward political polarization into a single model and found supporting evidence of the indirect effect of partisan conflict framing.

Partisan Provocation: The Role of Partisan News Use and Emotional Responses in Motivating Information Sharing • Ariel Hasell, University of California Santa Barbara; Brian Weeks, University of Vienna, Department of Communication • Citizens increasingly rely on social media to consume and disseminate news and information about politics. This study focuses on how partisan news use influences information sharing in part because of the negative emotions it arouses in its audience. Using panel survey data, we find that use of partisan news is associated with increased anger and anxiety directed at the opposing party’s presidential candidate and indirectly facilitates information sharing about the election on social media.

State legislative candidate evaluation of campaign news quality • James Hertog, University of Kentucky; Matthew Pavelek, University of Kentucky • Political candidates’ evaluation of the news coverage their campaigns received was studied using an online survey of candidates who sought state legislative offices during 2012. A sample of 515 former candidates was gathered and asked a series of questions concerning interactions with journalists during their campaigns and their evaluations of the coverage their contests received. Candidates indicated amicable relations with journalists, extensive attempts to gain news coverage and a significant level of outreach efforts and responsiveness to candidate efforts on the part of newspersons. Candidates did express a significant level of critique of overall press performance, though, and we found some indication that those who had a cooler relationship with journalists were also more critical of news coverage of their election campaigns.

Communication and Democracy: Effects of Agreement and Disagreement on Democratic Ideals Through Information Processing Strategies • Myiah Hutchens, Washington State University; Chan Chen, Washington State University; Jay Hmielowski, Washington State University; Michael Beam, Kent State University • Grounded in the ideals of deliberative democracy, this study examines the relationship between exposure to counter-attitudinal and attitude consistent political communication and the belief that discussion leads to better decision-making. Using data collected in the week prior to the US midterm election, we examine both the direct effects, and indirect effects mediated by systematic and heuristic processing. We determined that exposure to disagreement is associated with beliefs that discussion leads to good decisions both directly and indirectly through increased systematic processing and reduced heuristic processing. Exposure to agreement has positive indirect effects via increased systematic processing, and negative effects via increased heuristic processing.

Are Voting Rights Newsworthy? How Sources Depicted Electoral Participation in 1965 and 2013 • Sharon Jarvis, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines how sources in coverage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court Decision discussed electoral participation in The New York Times and Birmingham News. In 1965, sources in both outlets treated voting as a cherished and contested right. In 2013, voices in the Birmingham News continued to do so whereas those in the New York Times had shifted attention to gay rights and depicted elections as controlled by partisan elites.

Overcoming Hard Times: Televised U.S. and Russian Presidential Rhetoric in Times of Crisis • Tatsiana Karaliova, Missouri School of Journalism • The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of how televised presidential rhetoric is used by the leaders of the United States and Russia in times of domestic and foreign affairs crises. The analysis revealed both similarities and differences in presidential crisis rhetoric in the United States and Russia. The presidents showed differences in how they construct their identities, what frames they use to define crises, interpret them, and provide moral evaluation and treatment recommendation. The rhetorical quality of the addresses in terms of tone, structure, and strategies also differed. This study showed that presidential crisis rhetoric combined characteristics of national eulogies and deliberative rhetoric and has different purposes at different stages of a crisis. Timing appeared to be more important for crisis rhetoric than for any other genre of presidential rhetoric, especially in the case of immediate threats and human losses. Presenting a strong argument, applying a strong and decisive frame that is rooted in history and cultural perceptions of the audience, as well as identifying the guilty in a polarized foreign affairs crisis could be particularly effective in the “cold war of frames” as it helps build rhetorical capital for presidents as world leaders.

Gender, stereotypes, and attitudes toward female political leaders: The moderating roles of news media use • Heejo Keum; Jaeho Cho, University of California, Davis; Yeo Jeong Kim; choi eunyoung, SungKyunKwan university • This study examines the complex relationships between gender, stereotypes, media, and attitudes toward female political leaders. Our analyses of 2012 ANES data reveal that women voters and individuals who have lower levels of traditional gender role stereotypes and modern sexism show positive attitudes toward the prospect of a woman becoming president and positive feelings toward Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, the effects of gender stereotypes and sexism on attitudes toward female political leaders become stronger when individuals’ news media use increases.

The Interaction Effect of Political Identity Salience and Culture on the Third-Person Perception of Polling News • Hyunjung Kim, Sungkyunkwan University • This study examines the interaction effect of political identity salience and culture on the third-person perception of election polling news in the U.S. and South Korea. A web-based experiment was conducted prior to the 2012 presidential election in the two countries. Results demonstrate that the differential between in- and out- groups is greater in the identity salience group than in the control group only for South Korean participants.

Media and Party Communication Effects on Intra-Campaign Vote Switching • David Johann; Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw, University of Zurich; Sylvia Kritzinger; Kathrin Thomas • This paper examines why voters change their vote intention during an electoral campaign. In particular, we explore the impact of media and party communication on voters’ likelihood to switch their party preference. During an election campaign, voters are exposed to news media reporting that provides the information necessary for their voting decisions and that raises awareness of salient issues. Voters are also exposed to campaign communication by political parties: politicians and party members approach them in rallies, on the street and at home to persuade them to vote for them at the polls. Following an integrative approach, this paper links data from a media content analysis of six main news outlets (N = 4,265) to public opinion data based on a rolling cross-sectional panel design (n = 2,607) to jointly investigate the relative impact of exposure to media and party communication on vote switching. Using logistic regressions based on a stacked dataset, our study reveals that both individual exposure to positive media reporting about a party as well as interpersonal contact to this party increased the likelihood of vote switching in favour of that party. Impersonal campaign contacts, by contrast, were unable to convince voters to switch.

Persuasive Political Docu-Dramas: Examining Motivation, Elaboration, and Counter-Argumentation in Strategic Political Narrative Processing • Heather LaMarre, Temple University • Recent work within political and policy communication has begun examining the concept of narrative strategy wherein persuasive messages are thought to be intentionally embedded within entertaining narratives as a means of influencing political or policy outcomes (e.g., Jones & McBeth, 2010). As opposed to the unintentional effects often observed in entertainment media, strategic narratives are purposive, aiming to achieve specific attitudinal, opinion, or policy outcomes (Shanahan, et al., 2011; Jones & McBeth, 2010). The present study builds on this growing research area, focusing on the role of cognitive elaboration within strategic political entertainment and policy narratives. Using healthcare policy as a context of study, a random assignment 2 (motivation: high, low) x 2 (media stimuli: healthcare policy docu-drama, satirical healthcare policy docu-drama) post-test only experiment was conducted to examine individual-level cognitive elaboration and subsequent attitudes concerning U.S. healthcare policy. Results suggest that motivation plays a significant role in policy-relevant cognitive elaboration. Additionally, satirical narrative viewers were less able to counter-argue the policy issue than dramatic narrative viewers, which is discussed in terms of the political satire elaboration paradox. Both types of policy narratives led to more narrative-consistent healthcare attitudes.

Social Movement as Political Education: Communication Activities and Understanding of Civil Disobedience in the Umbrella Movement • Francis L. F. Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong • Occupy Central, which would later evolve into the Umbrella Movement, was conceived as a civil disobedience campaign when it was first proposed in early 2013. Although civil disobedience arguably has a history of decades in Hong Kong, the concept was seldom discussed in the public arena, and the practice was not well established in the society’s repertoire of contentious actions. Year 2013 and 2014 thus constituted a critical discourse moment in which the concept of civil disobedience was intensively discussed and debated. This study examines if the Occupy campaign and the Umbrella Movement had an educational function leading to higher levels of public understanding of civil disobedience. Analysis of two surveys conducted in September 2013 and October 2014 respectively shows that public understanding of civil disobedience did increase substantially over the year. After the Umbrella Movement started, attitudinal support for and actual participation in the movement, political use of social media, and discussion with disagreeing others significantly predict understanding of civil disobedience. Theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed.

Except if He’s Black: How Race Conditions The Effect of Religious Cues on Candidate Evaluation • Bryan McLaughlin, Texas Tech University; Bailey Thompson, Texas Tech University • The relationship between religion and politics is contingent upon race, but work examining the effect of religious cues on political outcomes has focused exclusively on White politicians. We employ an experimental design where White and Black participants were introduced to a congressional candidate. We manipulated whether the politician was White or Black and whether or not they used religious cues. Results demonstrate that religious and racial cues interact, but in more nuanced ways than expected.

Catalyzing Events: Exploring the Intersection of Electoral Campaigns and Social Movements • Laura Meadows, Indiana University Bloomington • Through an ethnographic study of North Carolina’s LGBT movement, this study proposes the conceptualization of a catalyzing event, defined as a political happening that fundamentally alters the trajectory of a social movement to provide a distinct perspective through which to examine the trajectory of a social movement and the experiences, interactions, and events that alter its course.

Michael Brown as a News Icon: Event-driven news and its impact on protest paradigm • Rachel Mourao, The University of Texas at Austin; Danielle Kilgo; George Sylvie, University of Texas at Austin • The shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer cued an intense reaction from citizens, officials, and activists. Through a content analysis of newspaper stories and guided by the theory of indexing during event-driven news, this study converges sourcing with adherence to the protest paradigm, a pattern that emphasizes violence and deviant behavior. Findings reveal that while nonofficial sources dominate coverage about Ferguson, they do not provide critical viewpoints that challenge the protest paradigm.

#That’sFunny: Second-Screen Use during Comedy TV News Viewing as a Predictor of Online Political Activism • Rebecca Nee, San Diego State University • Using national survey data (n = 645), this study explores political activism as an outcome of complementary simultaneous media use. Framed by the theoretical concepts of participatory culture and active audiences, this study provides tangible evidence of newer forms of political participation among TV viewers who use digital platforms to interact socially and seek information. Findings show a relationship between online political activism and second-screen use during TV news watching, particularly among comedy news audiences.

Dispelling the Myth of Ideological Polarization in News Consumption: A Network Analysis of Political News Websites • Jacob Nelson; James Webster • Political polarization is increasing in this country, and its effects are many and far-reaching. Many assume that a primary cause of political polarization is the increasing availability of ideologically tinged political news. Other scholars who have examined political polarization in news consumption have found that news audiences predominantly consume centrist or moderate news and for the most part ignore ideological news sources altogether. Yet the myth of ideologically driven news consumption doggedly persists. This paper finally dispels that myth. Using social network analysis of comScore web analytic data, we argue that audience duplication among the fifty most popular political news sites in the month leading up to the November 2014 election occurs at a rate greater than chance. We find that political news sites share more audiences than many realize, and that this holds true regardless of the political ideologies of either the audience or the outlet. We conclude that a site’s popularity, rather than its ideology, is what drives political news consumption.

How Political Talk and Political Efficacy Jointly Mediate the Impact of News Consumption on Political Participation? • Chang Sup Park, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania • This study suggests a two-step mediation model, which highlights the role of political talk and political efficacy in political communication. Based on two cross-sectional analyses and one auto-regressive analysis from the dataset of a two-wave panel survey during the 2012 presidential campaign in South Korea, this study finds that political discussion and political efficacy jointly mediate the impact of news consumption on political participation. Through involvement in the discussion with others, individual news consumers make more sense of the information obtained from the media and such sense-making are more likely to result in political participation through political efficacy. The result suggests that political talk and political efficacy jointly play a pivotal role in connecting citizens’ information-seeking behaviors to political participation. Additionally, this study finds that news consumption via online media and social media is significantly influential in triggering citizen engagement in political processes.

Offline Talk, Online Talk, and News Reflection in Political Learning • Chang Sup Park, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania • This study assesses how different types of political reasoning – offline political talk, online political talk, and news reflection – play a role in political learning. Drawing on online survey data collected during the 2012 presidential election in South Korea, this study finds that online political talk is more closely related to political knowledge than offline political talk and new reflection. News reflection was positively associated with political knowledge, yet the strength of the relationship was weaker than that of political talk. This outcome indicates that interpersonal reasoning (political talk) is more closely related to the essence of deliberation than intrapersonal reasoning (news reflection).

Antecedents of Strategic Game Framing in Political News Coverage • Desiree Schmuck, University of Vienna; Raffael Heiss, University of Vienna; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna • “The use of strategic game framing is predominant in mainstream news reporting of politics. Nevertheless, systematic research on the specific antecedents of strategic game framing is scarce. In this study, we employ a quantitative content analysis to investigate different media- and content-related antecedents of strategic game framing. Findings reveal that both media- and content-related variables predict higher strategic game framing. However, content-related variables, such as story type or issue exert the strongest impact.”

Using Media to Prepare for Understanding or Persuading: Partisan Selective Exposure and Future Discussion Expectations • Mingxiao Sui; Raymond J. Pingree • Despite widespread concern about partisans selecting attitude consistent media, only a few experiments have used media selection as an outcome. Such experiments are important to isolate the causal factors that lead to partisan selective exposure and may help suggest conditions under which this phenomenon could be reduced. This experiment tested the effects of two factors that seem highly relevant in new media contexts: expectations of future discussion and the presence or absence of entertainment options. Participants were led to expect a discussion oriented toward either persuasion or understanding, and were given a choice of media clips from different sources that either included or did not include an entertainment option. Entertainment options reduced time spent watching both own-party media and other-party media. Among Democrats but not Republicans, entertainment options appeared to be used as a substitute for time spent watching other party media. Republicans responded to expectations of understanding-oriented discussion by watching more own-party media, whereas Democrats responded by watching less own-party media. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

The fictitious ‘Newsroom’: The influence of entertainment media on attitudes of news trust • Jason Turcotte, Cal Poly Pomona • Polls show that people increasingly harbor unfavorable views of the press, as the public grows more attentive to fictional programs over news. Using HBO’s The Newsroom as stimuli, this study tests whether entertainment media can restore public trust in the news. I find that exposure has no effect on general news trust; however, a negative relationship with gatekeeping trust is observed. In short, exposure to the program reduces confidence in news professionals as effective gatekeepers.

Investigating Social Capital in the New Media Environment: SNS, Internal Efficacy, and Civic Engagement • Zachary Vaughn, Indiana University • This paper explores the role that social networking sites have on social capital. Using secondary data from Pew Research Internet Project: Civic Engagement in the Digital Age this paper finds that use of social networking sites and the internet for news and information gathering is positively correlated to civic engagement. This paper also introduces the variable of internal efficacy, and it finds that internal efficacy is positively related to civic engagement.

Social Identities and the Illinois Pension Problem: Constructing a “Just-in-Time” Model of Belief Development • Aaron S. Veenstra, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Benjamin Lyons, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Cheeyoun Stephanie Kang, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Zachary Sapienza, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • For years, Illinois and Chicago have underfunded their employee pension systems, leading to significant recent controversy over the extent of the problem. This study proposes a “just-in-time” social identity influence model to identify salient social identities (union membership, political affiliations, region of residence) and test their influence on pension beliefs. Findings show that despite being strongly related, influences on beliefs about Illinois and Chicago differ based on demographics and media use.

Skip to the Comments: News Engagement, Discussion and Political Participation in Austria • Ramona Vonbun, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna • This study explores how engaging with political information online might lead to offline discussion and political participation in Austria. This study extends recent work on the mediating influence of discussion in connecting news engagement and political action, to include reading political comments attached to news and social media websites. Do political postings fuel further discussion offline, and in turn, political action? The analysis draws on data from the Austrian National Election Study.

How Journalists Experience the Hostile Media Effect • Mike Wagner • The hostile media effect, the systematic tendency for people to believe that news coverage is hostile to their views, is a robust finding. In this article I ask, do journalists perceive a hostile media too? A web-based survey experiment of television and print journalists in the top 150 media markets in the United States (N=631) varied whether the story was about an issue owned by the Republicans (tax relief) or the Democrats (health care) and whether the partisan senator of the party that owned the issue engaged in “cheap talk” or “costly talk.” Ideological journalists were more likely to perceive a hostile media when a member of their preferred political party was reported to have engaged in costly talk—especially when costly talk came from a partisan source whose party owned the issue. Despite these attitudes, journalists across the ideological spectrum found each type of story to be equally newsworthy.

Charismatic rhetoric, integrative complexity and the U.S. Presidency: An analysis of the State of the Union Address (SOTU) from George Washington to Barack Obama. • ben wasike • This study adopted Thoemmes and Conway’s seminal work on integrative complexity (IC) of U.S. presidents to examine the interaction between IC and charisma in the State of the Union address. The study examined a census of all the SOTU addresses given from George Washington to Barack Obama. The study found positive correlation between IC and charisma, inverse correlation between charisma and reelection and overall, congressional opposition elicited more charisma. Unlike IC, charisma forms an inverted U-shaped curve, conservatives displayed more of it and charisma could be immune to crisis effects.

Issue importance, perceived effects of protest news and political participation • Ran Wei, U. of South Carolina; Ven-hwei Lo, Chinese U of Hong Kong; Hung-Yi Lu, National Chongchung University • How do news coverage of a grass-root protest movement and perceived importance of the movement affect people’s participation? And how do people infer the effect of the news on themselves differently than on others? Informed by the third-person effect hypothesis, we examine these questions in the context of the student-led Sunflower movement in Taiwan that rose in opposition to a trade pact with China. In the study, we advanced three propositions. First, that the perceived effects of the protest news on oneself would be a better predictor of political participation than would perceived effects of such news on others. Second, that the perceived effect on oneself, not on others, would enhance the impact of issue importance on participation in the movement. And third, how people processed protest news would be another intermediate mechanism on subsequent participation activities. We found support for these propositions in data collected from a probability sample of 1,137 respondents. The contributions of the findings to the robust third-person effect research are discussed.

Linking Agenda Networks between Media and Voters: An Investigation of Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential Election • Denis Wu; Lei Guo, Boston University • This study investigates the Network Agenda-Setting (NAS) model with original data gathered from 2012 presidential election in Taiwan. Networks of media coverage on the most important issues and candidate attributes and affects are compared with the counterparts generated from public opinion data. The overall correlations between media’s networks and voters’ networks are positive and significant, indicating a confirmation of NAS effect in a non-U.S. country. Partisan media and selective exposure in the media system are also incorporated into the investigation. Results show that partisan selective exposure did not lead to consistent conclusions about accentuated impact of like-minded media consumption.

The dual process of influence: Examining the hydraulic pattern hypothesis of media priming effects • Sung Woo Yoo, SUNY Cortland • This paper examined the hydraulic pattern of media-priming effects, an argument that increase in the importance of an issue is accompanied by decrease in importance of other issues. Granger causality between media coverage and the perceived importance of issues was examined using a content analysis and secondary survey data. In the findings, media coverage caused changes in the issue-weight of other issues. Also, the time-lag of the hydraulic pattern preceded the main priming effects.

The personal is political?: The relationship between passive and active non-political and political social media use • Rebecca Yu, University of Michigan • Previous research indicates that social media use for news or political purposes increases political participation, but little is known about if and how political social media behavior might emerge out of everyday, non-political usage of such sites. Using two separate adult samples of Facebook and Twitter users, this study examines the extent to which and how non-political, passive (NPP, consuming content about entertainment interests and personal life) and non-political, active (NPA, producing content about entertainment interests and personal life) social media use relate to exposure to and expression of political voice on the sites. The overall findings are consistent across the two platforms, such that while both NPP and NPA use are positively associated with political information exposure on the sites, NPA use is positively related to political expression, and this relationship is partially explained by political efficacy. Together, these findings support the possibility that the “political” may be an extended terrain of “the personal,” while drawing attention to the possible differential political outcomes resulting from NPP and NPA social media use.

2015 Abstracts

Participatory Journalism 2015 Abstracts

An examination of the sourcing behaviors of U.S. non-profit news and newspaper journalists • Serena Carpenter, MSU; Jan Hendrik Boehmer, University of Miami; Frederick Fico, Michigan State University • Sourcing practices cue readers to the extent that the organization and journalists are invested in their reporting. This research investigates how journalists represent an issue through source attribution diversity and source number measures. The results show that non-profit journalists were more likely to cite a greater number of sources in comparison to newspaper journalists. And reporters who enact the interpretative role included a greater number of sources and more diverse sources, whereas advocacy/adversarial journalists were not as likely to cite such sources. And an increase in reporter story number had a negative impact on journalists’ sourcing practices.

Predicting citizen journalism complexity: An analysis of U.S.-based editors’ definitions of citizen journalism • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Seungahn Nah; Masahiro Yamamoto, University of Wisconsin-La crosse • Based on a national survey and a qualitative content analysis of responses offered by U.S. editors’ understanding of citizen journalism, we identify key ideas associated with the complexity of the concept and patterns associated with the dimensions in defining the phenomenon. Ten core citizen journalism ideas emerged in the aggregate discussion of citizen journalism. However, majority of the participants, from an individual perspective, defined the concept simplistically focusing on one-dimensional or two-dimensional definitions. Arguments based on traditional notions of journalistic professionalism and occupational values are represented alongside notions for audience collaboration and engagement. This study also uncovered variations in the extent to which citizen journalism is defined and guided by demographic variables, individual journalistic experience, and organizational characteristics.

Using Community Engagement Strategies to Assess Media Collaboration • John Hatcher; Dana Thayer, University of Minnesota Duluth • This case study uses community engagement strategies to explore how to strengthen relationships among news organizations in one media ecosystem. We employ a mixed methodological approach: We “mapped” the ecosystem, we held a community media forum, and we conducted in-depth interviews with journalists and community storytellers. Preliminary findings suggest a willingness to collaborate; however, legacy media may have more reservations about collaboration than journalists at community newspapers, public broadcasting stations and entrepreneurial startups.

“He’s a Lowlife: He Deserved to Die” vs. ##BlackLivesMatter: Citizen Framing on Twitter of African-American Males Killed by White Police Officers • Mia Moody-Ramirez, Baylor University; Hazel Cole • Using a critical race lens, this textual analysis explores user-generated content that emerged following the deaths of two African American males killed by police officers in 2014 and highlights social media’s role in contextualizing the documented “historical injustice” toward Black males in America. We argue that the “he deserved it” frame reinforced the lack of value media places on the lives of Black men, and thus leads to communities having less sympathy for them. Our findings indicate citizens marginalized Black males shot by police officers because of their race, physical size or alleged aggression. This study is significant because in each case, height, weight, the history of their drug use, performance in school and various other factors were used as a rationale for the appropriateness of killing them. Common themes were: 1) he’s a low-life who deserved to die, 2) he used drugs and is therefore guilty and 3) he was a giant, demon or criminal who could only be controlled by killing him. However, not all framing was negative, as other citizens used the platforms to respond accordingly. Findings are in line with scholarly articles on the use of social media in protests. In both cases, social media brought about an acceleration of activist communication, and greatly enhanced its visual presence.

#FergusonOctober: Gatekeeping and Civic Engagement in St. Louis News Media Tweets • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Anthony Roth, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Margaret Duffy, Missouri School of Journalism; Esther Thorson, Missouri School of Journalism; Heesook Choi • This quantitative content analysis explores how St. Louis news media used Twitter during a 16- day period that included #FergusonOctober protests and St. Louis Cardinals postseason baseball games. About 30% of the tweets were related to the Ferguson crisis. News organizations mostly adhered to traditional gatekeeping roles in Twitter posts (e.g., sharing links to news articles). However, some Ferguson-related posts showed media adopting Twitter practices that could advance stronger, reciprocal relationships with citizens.

Freedom from the Press? How Anonymous Gatekeepers on Reddit Covered the Boston Marathon Bombing • Melissa Suran, The University of Texas at Austin; Danielle Kilgo, The University of Texas at Austin • Social news sites are gaining prominence online. One such site – Reddit – has been recognized for effectively distributing information about current and critical events. Through examining a major incident where Reddit was acknowledged as an important informational entity, this study analyzed content posted on Reddit in order to determine whether the website, as it claims, has “freedom from the press,” or if it follows gatekeeping practices that are similar to those implemented by traditional media outlets.

Pursuing the Ideal: How news website commenting policies structure public discourse • David Wolfgang, University of Missouri • Many news organizations provide online readers an opportunity to comment on public issues in the news through a news-mediated forum for discourse. These discourse spaces are run by news organization as part of a mission to provide a public space for discourse, but are governed by a commenting policy that establishes the rules for discourse and the boundaries for acceptable behavior. These rules can help meet the ideals of public discourse or stand in the way of productive public deliberation. This study examines the commenting policies of 21 news corporations in the United States to see how the policies facilitate or inhibit the creation of a space for ideal public discourse. A constant comparative analysis of the text of the policies guided by the ideals of Habermas’ public sphere as well as the expectations of civility norms in public discourse, shows that news organizations establish rules to protect respectful and egalitarian spaces for the public, but fail to meet other critical needs of public discourse, including rationality, tolerance, reflexivity, and the pursuit of common understanding and solutions. The implications of these findings are further explored and possible objectives for news organizations are provided.

Positioning Journalism Within Networks: Conceptualizing and Operationalizing ‘Connective Journalism’ Through Syrian Citizen Journalists • Mohammad Yousuf, University of Oklahoma; Maureen Taylor • As the news industry changes, new models are emerging. This paper explores network journalism (connective journalism) and shows how citizen journalists in Syria are embodying the network journalism model. The paper identifies three major concepts of connective journalism: engagement with social networks, negotiation, and maintaining a connection with norms and values of journalism. Through a case study of Damascus Bureau.org, we show that connective journalism is a viable model for citizens to tell their community’s story to each other and the world. This paper contributes to both the scholarship and the practice of journalism by helping develop a theory of journalism for the era of new technology.

2015 Abstracts

Internship and Careers 2015 Abstracts

The global media job market: A comparison of requirements in job listings for six broadcast news organizations • Mariam Alkazemi; Wayne Wanta, University of Florida • ob listings for six broadcast news media were content analyzed for required qualifications for new hires. Only seven of the 120 job notices did not mention some technological skills, supporting a trend of media convergence. Another common requirement mentioned was a college degree. In comparing the six media, Al-Jazeera America differed from other organizations most often. Job postings for Al-Jazeera America were more likely to mention ethics and less likely to mention foreign language knowledge. Both Al-Jazeera America and Al-Jazeera were more likely to mention good news judgment as a requirement for their jobs. The findings have implications for hiring practices in the media industry.

Closed-Cohort Structure In Online Graduate Programs: Advancing Career Opportunities For Mid-Career Communication Professionals • Justin Blankenship, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In a closed-cohort educational program design, students enter a program together, take the same courses together, and graduate together. This article surveyed students in one of the few closed-cohort graduate programs in a communication school, one intended for mid-career professionals. Results indicate that students found several aspects of closed-cohort important, felt a sense of community among their cohort, and used their cohort to create a professional network of peers.

Avoiding the Bad Jump Cut: Developing a Senior Year Experience For Journalism Students • Lorie Humphrey, Colorado State University; Michael Humphrey, Colorado State University • Leaving college and beginning life outside of the familiar institution is one of the major transitions in many people’s life. This can be especially daunting for journalism students at a time when career paths are muddied by regularly changing economics, platforms and best practices. Both professor and career counselors often struggle to support students in this transition. One initiative, The Senior Year Experience, offers a variety of approaches to alleviate that struggle. This paper discusses the challenges soon-to-be graduating journalism students face, and the types of programs available including formal coursework, experiential learning opportunities, and campus events and activities aimed at smoothing the pathway. Teachers, advisors, and career counselors can play an integral role in developing programs and building coalitions with other partners on campus to guide journalism students in successful transitions.

Inside The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Noetic Crisis of the WGA Strike • Nathan Rodriguez, University of Kansas • I was a production intern at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at a time when the Writer’s Guild of America was on strike. I borrow ethnographic tools to document all-staff meetings and patterns of interaction during the strike. This essay illuminates not only the inner-workings of one of the more successful television programs in recent history, but also shows how a group of individuals dedicated to comedy managed to navigate a workplace crisis.

Revisiting Entering the Game at Halftime: Engaging students in internships and co-curricular activities. • Lauren Vicker, St. John Fisher College • This paper reports a large-scale follow-up to a pilot study that examined ways that mass communication programs engage transfer students in internships and co-curricular activities. The author conducted a large-scale survey of students enrolled in programs listed in the AEJMC directory and also conducted interviews with some survey respondents. Results indicate differences between transfer and native students in key areas and offer suggestions for ways to improve experiences for both populations.

2015 Abstracts

Graduate Student 2015 Abstracts

Digital Gumshoes: Investigative Journalists’ Use of Social Media in Television News Reporting • Jesse Abdenour, University of Oregon • A nationwide survey (N=165) showed evidence that investigative journalists at local television stations are frequently using social media for public interaction, story ideas, and story production, and are doing so significantly more than other types of journalists. However, data analysis indicated that regular social media use did not translate into higher levels of investigative productivity, quality or efficiency.

Valence Framing and Egypt’s Country Reputation • Amal Bakry • While country reputation and country branding scholarship has mainly focused on its effect on product marketing and place marketing (Kaneva, 2009), this study aims to shed light on the intersection of mass media and country reputation from the news framing perspective. The present study examines public opinion regarding Egypt by looking at recent Pew Research survey data. The media framing comes from a content analysis of news related to Egypt on network newscasts. By examining framing of news related to Egypt and relating it to public opinion polls, we hope to understand whether such frames are negatively or positively valenced and whether or not such frames affect public opinion towards a Middle Eastern country of strategic importance to the U.S.

We’re Just Good People: Corporate Sustainability Communications and Human Values • Lauren Bayliss, University of Florida • The nature of organizations’ relationships with publics is changing, leading to increased potential for developing parasocial relationships with publics. Parasocial relationships, however, require publics to view an organization as human-like. By examining the human values and time orientations present on these companies’ websites, this paper establishes current best communication practices. The findings, contrary to expectations based on a human model of communicating values, provide directions for future research.

Guilt by Disassociation: Millennials’ Opinions Regarding News Consumption and the Prevalence of “Should” • Ginger Blackstone, University of Florida • The purpose of this study was to investigate news avoidance behaviors of upwardly mobile Millennial undergraduates. Focus group participants were more interested in non-news content, but there were occasions when news did catch their attention. Participants believed they “should” consume news, but often lacked the initiative or interest. Others deliberately avoided news because of information overload or negative content. Some participants saw themselves consuming more news as they matured, which challenged recent Pew Research findings.

The usage of soft and hard news delivery techniques in articles of women’s weight: A content analysis of differences across media genres • Calli Breil, University of Missouri; Samuel Tham, University of Missouri School of Journalism • Thin ideal messages have been found to promote that being thin is attractive and essential in being successful and happy. Women exposed to thin-ideal messages suffer from body dissatisfaction, and psychological, physiological harm. This paper used a quantitative content analysis to analyze the delivery techniques of these messages in three media genres. This study found significant differences delivery techniques, with women’s magazines using more soft news and attempting to build a relationship with its audience.

A Qualitative Framing Analysis of HPV Vaccine Coverage in U.S. Newspapers • Jieun Chung, University of Florida • This mixed methods framing analysis investigated newspaper articles framing of the HPV vaccine. This study found six major frames: Cancer prevention frame, male eligibility frame, STD prevention frame, insufficient recommendation frame, sexual promiscuity frame, and low rates frame. Of the six frames, the cancer prevention frame was most common frame. With respect to the HBM constructs, effectiveness of the HPV vaccine and severity of HPV were presented most of them, while susceptibility to HPV was barely presented in the U.S. newspapers.

Bellwether County: Macomb County, Michigan, and the Construction of Reagan Democrats in US Political News • Christopher Cimaglio, University of Pennsylvania • With a focus on the political celebrity of Macomb County, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit that received considerable attention in news media as a bellwether for the attitudes of Reagan Democrats, white working class voters whose racial anxieties and cultural fears had alienated them from the Democratic Party, this paper examines the significance of the Reagan Democrat figure for 1980s and 1990s US politics and the role of political journalism in its construction.

Persuasive Social Media Inference. Online social climate and perceptions of public opinion • David Coppini, University of Wisconsin Madison; Stephanie Jean Tsang, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The traditional hypothesis of “persuasive media inference” posited that media slant on an issue influences citizens’ perceptions of public opinion’s position on an issue. In the social media environment, people continuously receive cues about what other individuals think about specific issues.Does this affect individuals’ perceptions of public opinion? Our study manipulates opinion climate on social media investigate effects on perceptions of public opinion.Results from a sample of college students show that individuals use cues from social media to form their impressions about public opinion.Theoretical implications for application of theories of presumed influence in the online environment are discussed.

Icy challenges: Consumer perceptions of brands’ social activism in ALS Ice Bucket Challenge • Naa Amponsah Dodoo, University of Florida • The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a social media viral campaign in the summer of 2014 campaign for the ALS Association, presented an opportunity for brands/companies to show their involvement in a reactive form of social activism. Evidence in literature suggests that consumers regard cause related activities by brands/companies with some skepticism. This study therefore examined consumers’ awareness of brands’ involvement in the challenge as well as responses to brands/companies involvement in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Consumers’ brand identification, self-congruity and intent to share information about the brand were also examined. Results indicated favorable attitude towards brands’ involvement in the challenge. Additional analyses were conducted in the form of multiple regression analysis and revealed interesting results on the predictive ability of brand attitude, brand identity as well as brand awareness on the intent to share information about brands/companies involvement in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Findings and implications are discussed.

Citizen in-group bias effects on credibility in Ebola news coverage • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • In an experiment, participants read a story that manipulated the main characters’ citizenship status (American-born, naturalized, resident) to examine social identity cues in news and activation of in-group bias. Further, it extends social identity cues to credibility. It finds people are less concerned about diversity issues in the case where a message features a naturalized citizen than an American citizen, offering support for in-group bias. Results show citizenship status cues effect perception of news credibility.

A survey of Egyptian journalists’ perception of press freedom in post-revolutionary Egypt • Goran Ghafour, The university of Kansas; Amr El-Afifi, The University of Kansas • This study examined the perception of Egyptian journalists on the concept of press freedom in transition and conflict. Surveying 136 Egyptian journalists, this study found that individual, attitudinal, and organizational factors relatively determine the Egyptian journalists’ perception of press freedom. Differences in perception of press freedom among the Egyptian journalists reflect different types of news media ownerships with different goals and policies.

How do people choose from different reading platforms? The comparison between online reading and offline reading • WEIWEI JIANG; Ying Xu • With the decreasing number of newspaper readers and the increasing number of online readers, researchers are willing to understand why some media are more favorable and who are reading which medium. In this paper we examined the relationship of online reading and print reading in terms of media attributes, people`s demographic differences, and time spending on media. Also, we also studied hybrid readers who read on both online and print media. We compared them with online and print media consumer. We found that online media have more favorable attributes than traditional media. Also, we found that digital divide does exist due to age differences. People who only use online media to read show their dependency on internet, but there were no statistical significant found on people who only read traditional media and their media dependency.

Access Denied: Consequences of Ablebodied Students Communication Apprehension Toward College Students with Disabilities • Davi Kallman, Washington State University • The following study examines the uncertainty that ablebodied students have when interacting with students with disabilities in higher education. The author explains how uncertainty and communication apprehension (Griffin, 2006) are leading factors for ablebodied students avoidance in interaction with out-group members. The author provides suggestions to decrease uncertainty and reduce communication apprehension among ablebodied university students in order to increase the comfort level in interactions.

Constructive journalism: A definition and practical guide for applying positive psychology techniques to news production • Karen McIntyre, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Critical issues in journalism, including audience decline, highlight the need for a new approach. This paper defines and situates in the field the interdisciplinary concept of constructive journalism — an emerging form of news that applies positive psychology techniques to journalism in an effort to create more productive, engaging news stories. After conceptualizing the term, techniques by which constructive journalism can be practiced and the psychological frameworks that support the use of each technique are discussed.

Tribunes of the Marginalized? Institutional Role Performance in the American Alternative Press • Joseph Moore, University of Missouri • This study examined institutional role conception and role performance among several prominent U.S. alternative news publications to discover whether the gap between role conception and performance uncovered by previous studies of the mainstream commercial press also existed among alternative media. A textual analysis of alternative news coverage of the 2013 NSA mass surveillance disclosures was employed. Alternative news organizations had mixed success at translating their institutional role conceptions into practice.

The Effects of In-game Advertising On Gamers and the Video Game Industry • Matthew Morley • Advertisements and product tie-ins in video games have become increasingly prevalent in the video game industry. This paper reviews the literature surrounding product placement and advertising found within video games and discusses the current and past trends of in-game advertising. Additionally, this paper investigates whether in-game advertisements make a game more immersive and lifelike or if they are seen as intrusive and distracting by gamers.

Propagation of prosociality • Yu Leung Ng, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University • Propagation of prosociality is the repeated dissemination of prosocial messages. The unpredictability of this phenomenon is worth an understanding of its nature and process, yet no previous literatures were reviewed systematically to investigate this phenomenon. This review article adopted an evolutionary perspective to examine the attributes of prosocial messages dissemination (‘what’) and a psychology perspective to investigate the psychological antecedents and consequences of it (‘why’) for communication scholars to understand ‘how’ prosocial messages get propagated.

The Invisible Race: Analysis of Racial Hierarchy in Contemporary Mexican Cinema • Alberto Orellana-Campos, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines representations and meanings of racial hierarchy in contemporary Mexican films, as well as the commentary these images provide on racial identity, in a country that is not majority-white. Mexican cinema, as both a product and producer of cultural and racial ideologies, normalizes through its images a hierarchy where mestizo characters often experience a treatment that normalizes poverty and disadvantage because of ‘who they are.’

The Spiral of Silence on the new media environment • Mustafa oz, The University of Texas at Austin • This study was designed to specifically examine fear of isolation in social media and offline environment. The results have shown that the respondents place higher value for assessing the climate of opinion on Facebook (m=3.55, sd=1.170) than Twitter and offline environment. Results also have shown that individuals were less likely to speak out on Facebook (m=3.72, sd=1.097) than offline (m=2.81, 1.176) environments and Twitter (m=2.32, sd=1.178).

Something creepy this way comes: PAC advertising’s attack on Obamacare, a visual narrative analysis • Marguerite Page, Northern Illinois University • PAC money’s influence in political messaging has accelerated the appearance of negative attack ads. A viral Internet video attacking Obamacare in July 2014 urged young adults to opt out. Through an analysis of its visual rhetoric, this study finds that use of dark humor, popular culture references, and most significantly, its narrative fidelity, make it likely “believable” by its ideal audience.

Network agenda-building during the Ebola crisis: Exploring the impact of government messages on newspaper coverage • Yanqin Lu, Indiana University; Young Eun Park, Indiana University • The current study explored network agenda-building during the Ebola crisis. The results indicated that during the crisis, the salience of network relationships of attributes is transferred from public relations materials to news media articles. However, network centrality results also suggested that journalists do not completely follow the agenda of public relations messages. Specifically, the central position of “reassurance” in public relations materials was replaced by “consequence” in news media articles.

The Effect of Facebook Use and Social Comparison Orientation on Subjective Well-Being • Alexander Pfeuffer; Hannah Murphy • This study examined the relationship between Facebook use and subjective well-being considering a hypothesized moderating effect of social comparison orientation on this relationship. The study did not find support for Facebook use being a reliable predictor of subjective well-being. Instead of acting as a moderator, social comparison orientation emerged as the significant predictor of subjective well-being. This study’s results challenge previous literature’s findings and the popular perception that Facebook use is correlated with subjective well-being.

How do National and Regional Newspapers Cover Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? A Content Analysis • Lu Wu, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Nearly 500,000 U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan and Iraq have been diagnosed with PTSD. This study conducted a content analysis to compare how coverage of PTSD would differ between bigger newspapers with a national audience versus smaller regional newspapers located near major U.S. military bases. Findings show that national newspapers engaged in higher-level policy discussion, while regional newspapers tended to focus on human impact of the disorder.

Relationship Building in Nation Branding: The Central Role of Nation Brand Commitment • Linwan Wu, University of Florida • Nation brand commitment indicates the strength of one’s relationship with a nation brand. A conceptual model is proposed to explain how a nation brand impacts consumers’ traveling and product purchasing intentions. It is posited that nation brand commitment is influenced by consumers’ perceived nation brand trustworthiness, their orientations of cultural values and perceived cultural distance. An online survey was conducted to test the model by using two nation brands (China & the United Kingdom) among undergraduate students who are American citizens. The results demonstrated that nation brand trustworthiness and cultural value of power distance were positively correlated with nation brand commitment, while cultural distance was negatively correlated with nation brand commitment. It also found that nation brand commitment positively influenced consumers’ traveling and product purchasing intentions. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are also included.

User-generated Content on News Websites: Why Do People Comment on A News Story? • Chuanli XIA, City University of Hong Kong • “This study proposes a theoretical framework in which it addresses the relationship between gratifications of various needs and user-generated content behavior on news websites. Two theoretical moderators, namely perceived information of UGC and attitude to news making by major media organizations are examined. With a secondary data in U.S. 2010, this study finds that different needs are related to UGC behavior, and the perceived importance of UGC enhances this relationship.”

Same or Different across Countries:Multinational Corporations’ Relationship Cultivation Strategies on Social Network Sites • Ning Xie, University of Maryland • This study explores multinational corporations (MNCs)’ relationship management with publics in two different countries by examining MNCs’ relationship cultivation strategies on Social Network Sites (SNSs). Through a content analysis of 29 MNCs’corporate Twitter accounts in the United States and Sina Weibo (Twitter’s counterpart) accounts in China, this study reveals that MNCs use disclosure, information dissemination, and interactivity and involvement in both countries, on both Twitter and Sina Weibo. Findings indicate that MNCs do not use the same strategies on both SNSs. Patterns of MNCs’ use of relationship cultivation strategies on SNSs in the United States and China are identified. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

SNS as Intimacy Zone: Social Intimacy, Loneliness, and Self-disclosure on SNS • yafei zhang; Qi Ling, The University of Iowa • This study explores factors that may influence one’s self-disclosure on SNS where one self-disclose information in the public eye. Social intimacy and loneliness as indicators of one’s social relationship status are found to be both significantly, though contradictorily related to self-disclosure on SNS. Social intimacy and loneliness function are mediators in the direct effect of personality on self-disclosure on SNS. This study enhances the understanding of self-disclosure on SNS rather than interpersonal connections.

2015 Abstracts

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender 2015 Abstracts

“A Symbolic Sacrifice”: Journalists’ Coverage of Queers Challenging The University of Texas • Jose Araiza • The Gay Liberation Front (GFL) made Texas history in 1970, as group members tried to become the first officially recognized student organization on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin. This paper represents a qualitative analysis of the media coverage as the university’s administration denied the group official recognition, setting the stage for a series of demonstrations and hearings that garnered widespread attention. This textual analysis focused on the media coverage from the city’s mainstream daily newspaper, the university’s student-operated newspaper and a local weekly liberal magazine. This project found that while the group faced exclusion from the larger public sphere, mainstream media and the university’s own student operated newspaper marginalized and delegitimized the group of students who were challenging the status quo.

Use of Pro- and Anti- GLBT Organizations in the News: A Longitudinal Content Analysis • Joseph Cabosky, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • “A content analysis of New York Times and Washington Post from 1977-2013 examined use of pro- and anti-GLBT organizations as sources to explore change over time and differences in coverage of mainstream vs. radical organizations. Stories about marriage/families, entertainment, AIDS, and politics were most likely to source GLBT organizations. Only AIDS and protests/boycotts were more likely to source radical organizations. Anti-GLBT organizations were used as sources in one-fifth of stories. Implications of how story topic trumps time in source selection are discussed.”

Inching Away from the Toy Department: Daily Newspaper Sports Coverage of Jason Collins and Michael Sam’s Coming Out • Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University • This study examined daily newspaper sports coverage of the coming out of NBA veteran Jason Collins and college football All-American Michael Sam. A content analysis of 248 articles published in the first 30 days after each athlete’s announcement revealed that while there were significant differences, individual and present frames dominated for both. Results also suggested that a substantive amount of coverage addressed pertinent issues related to gay athletes in major professional sports.

The Role of Ideology in Media Framing of Same-Sex Marriage, 1998-2014 • Dominic Lasorsa; Jiyoun Suk; Deepa Fadnis • In an attempt to advance understanding of how media frames are constructed, this paper uncovered a link between a newspaper’s ideological orientation and how it has framed the issue of same-sex marriage over 17 years. A random sample of articles about same-sex marriage published in the years 1998-2014 in the ideologically conservative New York Post and the ideologically liberal New York Times were analyzed. It was found that whenever one of the newspapers framed same-sex marriage it did so either in terms of morality or equality, which replicates previous research. Furthermore, it was found here that while the two newspapers employed the morality frame about equally, the Times employed an equality frame much more frequently than did the Post. Shifts in framing over the 17 years also were identified, with the morality frame generally decreasing over time and the equality frame increasing over time. It also was found that most articles merely mentioned same-sex marriage without engaging in framing, and that newspaper articles designed to persuade (editorials, op-ed pieces, letters) engaged in no more framing than did news articles. The implications of these findings for the advancement of media framing theory are discussed.

Egalitarian Values and Media Use: An Examination of Gay Rights Supporters’ Traditional and New Media Habits • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Gary Hicks • While social and mobile media are fertile ground for hate groups to spread their messages, these new media platforms can be used by equal rights activists to advocate their causes. Using a large survey of American adult consumers, this study examines the traditional, social and mobile media habits of consumers who are sympathetic to equal rights for gay couples. These potential targets frequent social networking sites, and often send as well as receive text messages.

The Instagrammed Trans Body: The Renegotiation of Gender and Bodies in the Instagram-Based Transgender Community • Minjie Li, Louisiana State University • Instagram has formed a new type of online transgender community through hashtags. Through the lens of visual journaling personal transgender experience in the public sphere, this study examines how transgender people renegotiate the relationships between gender and body, public and private, and self and politics. The findings indicate that while enhancing traditional gender scripts through encouraging transgender people to make medical transition and prompting gender policing, instagram also makes emerging forms of resistance order visible.

Can we talk? Kenyan LGBTI advocates and media representatives launch a conversation • Teresa Mastin, DePaul University; Alexandra Murphy, DePaul University; Dustin Goltz; Jason Zingsheim, Governors State University • Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons in Kenya face an array of legal, social, and political discrimination. “Homosexual” sexual activity is criminalized, punishable by years in prison. Many sectors of Kenyan society are openly hostile to LGBTI persons and organizations contributing to a high level of stigma and discrimination. This study chronicles an ongoing university-LGBTI advocates-media collaboration designed to broach a relationship between Kenya’s LGBTI community and Kenyan society-at-large.

Harvey Milk’s Political Columns, 1974-1978 • Heidi Mau, Temple University • This paper examines Harvey Milk’s political columns published in the local gay press in San Francisco, 1974-1978. Harvey Milk’s assassination happened less than eleven months after he was sworn into office – local mass media barely had time to document him once he arrived on the larger media radar, but Milk’s political columns for the San Francisco Sentinel and the Bay Area Reporter, provide over four years of Harvey Milk’s presentation of his public, political self.

The heartbeat of a locker room: Reactions to Jason Collins and Michael Sam coming out • Monique Robinson, The University of Kansas; Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas; Mugur Geana • Jason Collins (National Basketball Association) and Michael Sam (National Football League) announced their sexual orientation, becoming the first openly gay athletes in their sports leagues. Under the lenses of hegemonic masculinity and inclusive masculinity theories, quotations (n = 405) from U.S. newspapers were analyzed to discuss the mediated representations of reactions from the sports industry. The findings highlight differing levels of acceptance of openly gay athletes in popular U.S. American sports.

Strategic Communication Through Social Media by LGBTI NGOs • Nathian Rodriguez, Texas Tech University • The plight and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) refugees from around the globe often go unheard. Currently, at least 78 countries have specific regulations persecuting LGBTIs. Without protection, these global citizens are forced to seek asylum in other countries. This paper investigates how LGBTI-specific refugee/asylee NGOs (Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration and International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission) are using Facebook and Twitter to build organizational-public relationships. Research provided here uncovers the use of social media messages as functions of information, community and action. Furthermore, it shows whether the conventional public relations measures of cognitive learning, affective responses and resulting behaviors are manifested within these functions. The research also reveals the social media messages focused more on the global regions of North America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Additionally, the NGOs linked their messages/posts to more to LGBTI-specific entities around the world.

2015 Abstracts

Entertainment Studies 2015 Abstracts

International Satiric TV Shows As Critical Infotainment (A Comparative Analysis) • Paul Alonso, Georgia Tech • This article analyzes, contrasts and compares the discourse of three satiric infotainment television shows built around their hosts: American Jon Stewart (host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart); British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (the actor who incarnates the popular characters Borat, Bruno and Ali G, in the Da Ali G Show), and Peruvian Jaime Bayly (host of the Peruvian TV show El Francotirador/The Sniper). These three cases not only responded to their specific national, social, and political contexts, but also demonstrate important similarities: they parody journalistic genres questioning its authority and values, they use humor to develop socio-political and cultural critiques, the shows revolve around a talented character who is a media celebrity, and all of these characters perform interventions on reality. This research goes beyond the notion of fake news identifying deeper connections between international cases, in order to illuminate the transnational phenomenon of satiric infotainment, its potential and contradictions.

Musicality and uses of music in satirical animation: A qualitative analysis • Calli Breil, University of Missouri; Samuel Tham, University of Missouri School of Journalism • Music has long been ignored as an essential part that influences mood and understanding of a show and stereotypes. This study used a qualitative analysis to examine specific musical choices of three animated shows and found differences in racial stereotypes, characters, and even usage of popular songs to convey a plot, or a character’s experience.

Rich and Fabulous: The Marginalizing Power of Television Situational Comedies and the Contrived Gay Market • Robert Byrd, University of Memphis • The purpose of this paper is to examine issues of class and consumption in the programs, which excludes any queer individual not belonging to a constructed gay buying bloc consisting of affluent gay men with large disposable incomes. This exclusion from the homonormative notions of affluent gay men further marginalizes LGBTQ people from lower socio-economic groups, which often includes LGBTQ people of color and women. The study uses discourse analysis through a queer theory lens to examine five television situational comedies aired during the 2012-2013 television season to better understand the role of affluence and consumption in the visibility of sexual minorities.

Time-Shifting vs. Appointment Viewing: The Role of Fear of Missing Out within TV Consumption Habits • Lindsey Conlin, The University of Southern Mississippi; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Lauren Auverset, University of Alabama • Employing a national sample of 160 respondents, this study investigates the phenomenon of fear-of-missing-out (FoMO). Results indicated that FoMO plays a role in the pace that people choose to watch TV, as well as whether they are likely to watch some one-time TV entertainment programs, yet not for one-time sporting events. FoMO also predicted social media use as it relates to TV watching. Implications and directions for future research are discussed

Melfi’s choice: Morally conflicted content leads to moral deliberation in viewers • Serena Daalmans, Radboud University; Allison Eden, VU University Amsterdam; Merel van Ommen; Addy Weijers • This study investigates if morally conflicted and controversial content, which is often denounced as morally desensitizing, may lead to moral deliberation in viewers. The results of a quasi-experiment reveal that moral deliberation was predicted by transportation into the narrative and was related to increased appreciation for the episode. The results support the notion that media potentially function as a morality sandbox in which to play with or test out moral concerns, even in regards to controversial and violent content.

The Influence of Social Identity Salience on Mediated Contact: Examining the Effect of a Common Ingroup Identity • Jannath Ghaznavi, University of California, Davis; Laramie Taylor, University of California Davis • The present study examines the role of social identity salience and entertainment programming on facilitating positive intergroup outcomes. Applying the common ingroup identity model to a mediated contact setting, we examined the influence of shared or exclusive group identities (familial identity, gay identity) and entertainment genres (comedy, drama) on social category salience, perceived similarity to gay male media characters, and attitudes toward gay men among heterosexual viewers. Exposure to entertainment programming in which gay male characters are depicted in a familial or gay identity context influenced the extent to which corresponding social identities were salient. Frequency of social contact with sexual minorities moderated the effect of exposure to media content emphasizing a particular group identity on perceived similarity and attitudes toward gay men. Results provide initial evidence into the effects of social identity salience on social perceptions and evaluations of often-stigmatized minority groups.

Effect of Narcissism, Para-social Interaction, and Gratifications Sought on Singing Competition Reality Shows among Chinese Audiences • Lei Guo; Deya Xu, Department of Communication, CUHK • In recent years, reality shows, especially the singing competition reality shows, have dominated Mainland Chinese TV program market gradually. However, there is a lack of literature specializes in studying singing competition reality shows. To fill this gap, this research focuses on exploring the viewing gratifications of the shows among Chinese audiences, at the same time classifies these shows into two genres from developmental perspective for the first time. Data was collected from 411 Chinese audiences aged 19 to 65. Additional analysis reveals that the most salient motives for watching the shows are meeting the ambition, high production quality pursuing, social interaction, emotional elements attraction, individual interests, and relaxation. In addition, both narcissism and para-social interaction are found significantly related to gratification sought from the shows viewing. Concurrently, the gratifications, narcissism, and para-social interaction are significantly associating with certain genres of Chinese singing competition reality shows.

Gender, Sex and Violence: The Differences in Sexual and Violent Content in Male and Female Musicians’ Lyrics and Music Videos • Stacey Hust, Washington State University; Kathleen Rodgers, Department of Human Development, Washington State University; Nicole O’Donnell, Washington State University; Weina Ran; Stephanie Ebreo, Washington State University • An analysis of music lyrics and their corresponding music video segments (n = 610 stanzas) from Billboard’s Hot 100 reveals popular music offers numerous variations of sexual and violent scripts by gender of musician. The results provide insight into the impact of gender on content creation. It extends prior research by identifying that female objectification in mainstream music videos is an artifact of the video production, and not a factor associated with the musician’s lyrics.

Subtitles in Entertainment Television in South Korea: Focused on a Third-Person Effect • Hyeri Jung, The University of Texas at Austin • The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) has announced a ban on the use of subtitles consisting of vulgar language in South Korean entertainment television, arguing that they deteriorate the quality of audiences’ ordinary language use. This study attempts to investigate whether the argument of the KCSC is valid by analyzing the subtitles with a substantial use of multiple methods and a third-person effect hypothesis. The findings of this study illustrate interesting aspects that may revisit the third-person effect model and linguistic values in entertainment television.

The appeal of sad comedies and funny dramas: Exploring oppositional affective responses and their implications for culture • Jinhee Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology; Keunyeong Karina Kim, Pennsylvania State University; mihye seo • This study explores the appeal of entertainment messages that include two extreme opposite ends of comedy (as one extreme) and tragedy (as the other extreme). A cross-cultural experiment that assesses real-time responses reveals that South Koreans are more likely than U.S. Americans to enjoy and appreciate entertainment messages that induce opposing affective (comic and tragic) as well as physical (laughing and crying) responses via heightened naïve dialecticism. Findings are interpreted as suggesting East Asians’ great acceptance for contradiction as well as reversible change that emphasize harmonious integration of any two opposing elements in the universe.

Under Pressure: Explaining the Role of Character Development in the Evaluation of Morally Ambiguous Characters in Entertainment Media • Mariska Kleemans; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University; Merel van Ommen; Allison Eden, VU University Amsterdam; Addy Weijers • The current project aims at better understanding of how narrative characteristics in stories function in the liking, moral evaluation, and enjoyment of narratives featuring morally ambiguous characters. Results of both a qualitative content analysis and an experiment provide support for the claim that character development is a central mechanism to explain viewer responses to MACs in narrative content. Therewith, the study provides new directions for affective disposition research.

Parasocial Processing of a Situational Comedy: An Experimental Study • Travis Loof, Texas Tech University • This post-test only experimental design revealed that audio-only direct address by the title character was significantly associated with more feelings of subjective address and indirectly the experience of parasocial interaction (EPSI). Additionally, this study demonstrated an empirical link between content, interpersonal theories, and mediated characters. This study examined perceived self-disclosure and attributional confidence as predictors of parasocial relationship (PSR) interaction. Findings are discussed in terms of the growing use of character address and flashbacks within narrative television.

I Give the Civil Rights Four Stars: Film Criticism of The Help, The Butler and Selma • Kathleen McElroy, Oklahoma State; Danny Shipka • Three recent Hollywood films, The Help (2011), Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013) and Selma (2014), drew attention for depicting the Civil Rights Movement and the Jim Crow South. While Hollywood has been scrutinized for its role in racial discourse, less attention has been paid to film critics’ discussion of race in their reviews. This paper examines the critical response to these films, with an emphasis on the reviewers’ reliance on memory and history in forming their opinions. A textual analysis found that critics were reverential toward the movement and the black experience but still mistrustful of the Hollywood system to do a credible job in explaining or understanding the events. The reviewers shaped and shared a memory of nightmarish race relations and prescribed corrections for both Hollywood and America.

Self-Confidence, Stardom and Post-Racial Culture: Gabourey Sidibe in Entertainment Journalism • Russell Meeuf, University of Idaho • The rise to fame of Gabourey Sidibe—the overweight, black actress from Precious and American Horror Story—illustrates the prevalence of post-racial discourse in U.S. entertainment media. Examining the discursive construction of Sidibe’s fame in entertainment magazines, this paper demonstrates how the insistent focus on Sidibe’s self-confidence reflects post-racial discourse and the denial of structural racism. Instead, Sidibe’s star persona celebrates individual solutions to social problems and a colorblind model of universal womanhood.

Millennial Audience Reception to Lyrics Depicting Independent Women • Mia Moody-Ramirez, Baylor University; Lakia Scott • This case study used a Black feminist lens and a constructivist approach to encourage college students to discuss representations of women and independence. After an initial assessment of students’ definitions of independence, researchers provided various videos on the topic and gauged their changes in perceptions. Findings indicated that participants had various definitions and opinions of independence based on personal and family beliefs. While their definitions did not change after watching rap videos, participants were able to discuss more dimensions of independence following this exercise. At the beginning of the study, participants mainly associated independence with issues related to their parents, relationships, and finances. After viewing the videos, they noted that rappers had many different perceptions of independence that linked the term to sexuality, beauty, gender, and power which ultimately influenced their developing perceptions of independence. One of the goals of constructivism is to help students become life-long learners and better critical thinkers. We encourage scholars to build on this article to develop curriculum that will enable young adults to become their own version of independent.

Watching American Entertainment Television in India • Jane O’Boyle, University of South Carolina • India has increasing access to American entertainment programs, through a growing economy, expanding satellite systems and internet access. Founded on cultivation theory, this qualitative study included telephone and online interviews with India residents on Reddit.com (N=182) and found Breaking Bad is the most popular American program among respondents, followed by Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, Friends and Seinfeld. This study also found most viewed the programs by downloading them illegally, largely for avoiding government censors. Discussion addresses the implications for American identity around the world and cross-cultural media effects.

Broadcasting upon a shooting star: An exploratory study of Afreeca TV’s live-stream self broadcast model • Soo-Kwang Oh, William Paterson University; Hyun-Ju Choi • This exploratory study examined the newly emerging and increasingly popular online personal broadcasting service, Afreeca TV. The website features a livestream self-broadcasting system accompanied by a live chat window. This study sought employed a qualitative content analysis of most popular shows on Afreeca TV to identify the elements that make its model successful in today’s digital media landscape. The researchers discuss following key elements that may explain Afreeca TV’s success: diversified content, audience participation/influence, virtual celebrity, the Star Balloon feature, sociality, and the livecast management system.

Identification through Online Mediated Sports: Examining Parasocial Interaction with Sports Players of Color • Po-Lin Pan, Arkansas State University; Li Zeng, Arkansas State University • A two (Race of sports players: Black vs. Asian) by two (Race of sports viewers: Black vs. Asian) by two (Gender difference: Male vs. female) mixed factorial experiment was designed to examine online sports viewers’ parasocial interaction (PSI) with sports players of color. Results found that online sports viewers were more likely to exhibit a higher level of PSI when viewing athletes of the same racial group than viewing those from a different racial group. Black viewers showed a higher level of PSI with the Black player than with the Asian player. Correspondingly, Asian viewers exhibited a higher level of PSI with the Asian player than with the Black player. Evidence for similarity identification suggested that the more similar media viewers are to media characters, the more likely the former are to develop affective bonds with the latter. In the context of online mediated sports, these affective bonds would direct online sports viewers to desire even greater similarity to sports players, and activate online sports viewers to take sports players’ perspective, eventually leading to a higher level of PSI.

Mythmaking in Singapore: The case of Ah Boys to Men 1 and II • Stacy Lai; Daoyi Lin; Wirdayu Binte Safie; Phoebe Seow; Hazel Wee; Fernando Paragas • This paper uses discourse analysis to surface how the myths of nationhood, masculinity and male adulthood are negotiated in the Singapore movies Ah Boys to Men Part 1 and Ah Boys to Men Part II. Our analysis shows that while the narratives contain viewpoints on nationhood, masculinity and the male rite of passage that reflect accepted socio-political and cultural norms and values, certain aspects of nation-building as portrayed in the movies do not match the national rhetoric.

The effects of insulting weight jokes and online comments on explicit and implicit weight-based attitudes • Scott Parrott • This study investigates weight-based disparagement humor, or communication in which one person uses humor to insult another person because he/she is overweight or obese. Decades ago, researchers began examining reasons people enjoy witnessing the ridicule of others. Nevertheless, we remain unclear on whether exposure to disparagement humor informs attitudes concerning the target. This study, an experiment, investigates how exposure to weight-based disparagement humor and normative cues informs explicit and implicit attitudes concerning weight. The data suggest short-term exposure to disparagement humor does not elicit explicit attitude change. However, data suggest that exposure informs implicit affect concerning people who are obese.

Fun versus Meaningful Video Game Experiences: A Qualitative Analysis of User Responses • Ryan Rogers; Julia Woolley; Mary Beth Oliver; Nicholas Bowman; Brett Sherrick, Penn State; Mun-Young Chung, Pennsylvania State University • Traditionally, entertainment research has focused on the hedonic gratifications of media consumption but media scholars have recently begun to expand their focus to include both meaningfulness and enjoyment as orthogonal dimensions of viewer experience. In other words, experiences of enjoyment result from the fulfillment of hedonic needs, such as enhancing positive mood and decreasing negative mood, experiences of meaningfulness result from the fulfillment of eudaimonic needs, such as insight into the human condition or understanding of life truths. Most of these studies are limited to film but this study examines video games. To explore how video games might provide individuals with meaningful experiences, we conducted an online study that implemented open-ended questions. Participants could respond however they saw fit to best explain their answers to the questions. This allowed participants to describe in detail what they felt made a video game meaningful or enjoyable.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them- Hollywood’s Answer to Bollywood Remakes. • Enakshi Roy, Ohio University • This study examines Bollywood remakes of Hollywood movies from a perspective of international law and how it is applied to copyright violations, infringement and fair use in the context of content appropriation. By scrutinizing the four court cases in which a Bollywood producer was sued by a Hollywood studio for content appropriation or infringement this paper analyses how Bollywood gets away with making blatant copies from Hollywood. The analysis reveals that the Indian court system, using tests and standards such as the Merger and Scenes c Faire, the lay observer test and derivative work argument often rule in favor of the Indian movie makers, by considering the remade Bollywood movies are distinct non-infringed products. Getting monetary damages become further difficult as the Hollywood studios find it difficult to prove any loss of income, because Bollywood earnings are lower than Hollywood. The paper explores the possibility of a middle ground where the two movie producing markets could meet. The paper tries to understand movie adaptation from a legal perspective rather than a content creation perspective.

But First, Let Me Take a #selfie: An Examination of Self-objectification and Face-ism on Instagram • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University; Cynthia Nichols, Oklahoma State University • Decades of research on face-ism in traditional media consistently report women are more likely to be pictured from a more distant perspective than men, showing more of their bodies. In a cultivation-like manner, women are socialized to believe that their most important characteristics are located in the body. In the online arena, however, individuals have much more control over their image and may self-present in any way they choose. Unfortunately, it appears that online users of social networks are mirroring the traditional, gendered manner of presenting the self. To examine this phenomenon within the framework of self-objectification and impression management on the image-focused social network Instagram, this content analysis used the face-ism index and shot type to determine the facial prominence of 382 female and male posters of selfies. Results indicated that the face-ism effect prevails: women posted significantly more body-centric selfies than men, had a lower degree of facial prominence on the face-ism index than men, and engaged in a duckface pose significantly more often than men. These results conform to traditional media-based theoretical expectations, indicating that Instagram users self-objectify when posting online. Results are discussed in the context of Baumeister and Hutton’s (1987) self-presentation theory and Leary’s (1996) self-presentational tactics.

All I Want for Christmas is You: ‘Tis the Season for Holiday Romance • David Staton, University of Oregon SOJC; Kathleen Ryan, University of Colorado Boulder • This paper looks at tropes found in made-for-television holiday films, using Sontag’s concept of camp and Barthes’ concept of myth. The authors find three tropes, each based prior Christmas theatrical films/stories. While the original films or stories inspired lessons about the need to devote oneself to charity and social justice (A Christmas Carol), the ever-expanding circles of influence an individual’s selfless actions can have on a community (It’s a Wonderful Life), and the importance of faith in humanity (Miracle on 34th Street), the authors argue the made-for-television versions boil down to a different message: the reinforcement of hetero-normative relationships and the myth of true love.

The Intersection of the Disney Princess Phenomenon & Eating Disorders: A Case Study of @BunnieJuice on Twitter • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • The Disney Princess phenomenon has been well documented in recent years, and results of such studies indicate that these characters exert a powerful influence on children’s media and self-identity, defining girlhood in a highly gendered fashion, rife with stereotypical representations. And for girls who have grown up with this princess-like beauty ideal, body dissatisfaction is at an all-time high. Increased media exposure is related to children’s preference for thin adult figures that could represent their future selves. And, unfortunately, social comparison to these figures has resulted in a proliferation of eating disorders. To examine this intersection of the Disney Princess and the prevalence of eating disordered lifestyles, this case study presents a thematic analysis of anonymous Twitter user @BunnieJuice, a self-professed Disney princess fan and active anorexic. Through the analysis of her 11 months of tweets, pictures, and retweets, three overall themes emerged: harmful thinspiration, self-destructive behavior (i.e., starvation, binging, and cutting), and negativity aimed at others. Examples of Disney-inspired tweets include Disney princess thinspo pictures, the use of a Tinker Bell box for her cutting instruments, and quoting from Disney movies to others who have wronged her. @BunnieJuice has clearly co-opted the princess image to justify her eating disordered lifestyle and to motivate herself to continue this behavior.

Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: Examining Representations of Roma Culture in 70 Years of American Television • Adina Schneeweis, Oakland University; Katie Foss, Middle Tennessee State University • Most Americans have very little first-hand experience with Roma culture, commonly known as Gypsies, and therefore base their perceptions on media representations. Yet news and entertainment media have perpetuated negative stereotypes, disseminating misinformation about this minority group. Further, there is thin anthological attention to the representation of the Roma and Gypsy ethnicity in U.S. media. To examine the evolution of knowledge-production in American TV content, this research examined portrayals of Gypsies and their culture in fictional programs, from 1953 through 2014. The textual analysis of 84 episodes from 35 shows revealed that television has reinforced negative stereotypes, suggesting that Gypsies are consistently different and other, intrinsically inclined to a criminal lifestyle, a closed ethnic community that is resistant to change and has its own internal rules. More recent representations convey that Gypsies may be misunderstood due to their cultural history, yet this depiction is not only considerably less visible than the others, but also emerges as a mere nod toward tolerance, far from a complex narrative of historical trauma.

How do readers contribute to processing of a fictional text? Analyzing readers’ performance of a narrative by using mental models approach • Neelam Sharma • Narrative performance is a process by which readers bring both facts and emotions to construct distinct story worlds into which they can travel. This study advances narrative processing literature by examining readers’ inferential, affective, evaluatory, and self-referential responses to a narrative. Sixteen participants in India read a short fictional story, drew story-related pictures and participated in depth interviews. The study demonstrated that empathy with characters resulted in more evaluation by the readers, and that self-referencing aided in narrative performance.

GIRLS and Sex: A Content Analysis of Sexual Health Depictions in HBO’s GIRLS • Elise Stevens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Kyla Garret • GIRLS is a fictional comedy-drama show with 4.1 million viewers. It follows Millennial women living in New York City dealing with relationships, sex, and careers. GIRLS has received much attention for its portrayals of sex, dialogue about sexual risk and responsibility, and the inclusion of humor. This systematic, quantitative content analysis of the first three seasons of GIRLS examines sexual behaviors, sexual talk, sexual risk and responsibility, and the usage of humor. Results revealed light kissing to be the most prevalent of all sexual behaviors followed by passionate kissing, intimate touching, and sexual intercourse. Sexual talk was greatest when talking about future sexual actions or interests. Negative emotions due to sex, endorsement of contraceptives, and HIV/STIs had the greatest mentions of risk and responsibility. Additionally, humor was incorporated more frequently in scenes with risk and responsibility. Since humor can increase attention and interest in a topic, implications of GIRLS employing this appeal with risk and responsibility is discussed, especially as GIRLS paves the way for programming like it.

Let’s Just Wait Until It’s on Netflix: Movie Attendance in the Digital Age • Alec Tefertiller, University of Houston • Innovations in digital technology have provided consumers with a variety of screens and portals through which they can access motion picture entertainment. The purpose of this study is to understand what factors motivate consumers to experience a film in the theater versus waiting to see the film at home. Using the uses and gratifications framework coupled with the theory of reasoned action, this study found that affective gratifications exert the biggest influence on theatrical attendance.

Power Women: Exploring the Effects of Political Women on Television • YAOJUN YAN; Peta Long, Syracuse University; Jasmine Vickers, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY; Hanna Birkhead • This paper explores the intersection between the rise of political women characters in televised narratives and the rise of the number of women in the United States Congress. It examines data collected via an online survey (N=232), which indicates that there is a relationship between audience consumption of several popular entertainment narratives (The Good Wife, House of Cards, Madam Secretary, Parks and Recreation, Scandal, and Veep,) and attitude towards female politicians, and political participation.

2015 Abstracts