Entertainment Studies Interest Group
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Faculty • Audrey Halverson, Brigham Young University; Kris Boyle, Brigham Young University; Kevin John, Brigham Young University • Battle Royale and Addictive Gaming: The Mediating Role of Player Motivations • Previous research on the prevalence of addictive behaviors among video game players has been varied; however, there are emerging concerns that battle royale games may be particularly conducive to addiction. This study utilizes a survey sample of 536 battle royale players to investigate addiction outcomes for battle royale players and the mediating role of various player motivations.
Research Paper • Student • Seung Woo Chae; Sung Hyun Lee • Sharing Emotion while Spectating Video Game Play • This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic associates with Twitch users’ emotion, using natural language processing (NLP). Two comparable sets of text data were collected from Twitch internet relay chats (IRCs): one after the outbreak of the pandemic and another one before that. Positive emotion, negative emotion, and attitude to social interaction were tested by comparing the two text sets via a dictionary-based NLP program. Particularly regarding negative emotion, three negative emotions anger, anxiety, and sadness were measured given the nature of the pandemic. The results show that users’ anger and anxiety significantly increased after the outbreak of the pandemic, while changes in sadness and positive emotion were not statically significant. In terms of attitude to social interaction, users used significantly fewer “social” words after the outbreak of the pandemic than before. These findings were interpreted considering the nature of Twitch as a unique live mixed media platform, and how the COVID-19 pandemic is different from previous crisis events was discussed based on prior literature.
Research Paper • Student • Meredith Collins; Allison Lazard; Ashley Hedrick; Tushar Varma • It’s Nothing Like Cancer: Young Adults with Cancer Reflect on Memorable Entertainment Media • “Entertainment media simulates social experiences, facilitates coping, and develops resiliency in young adults, ages 18 – 39. These outcomes could be beneficial for young adults with cancer, who typically report lacking social support and suboptimal psychological outcomes during and after treatment. Guided by the memorable messages framework, we investigated which entertainment media young adults with cancer found memorable and why.
We conducted 25 semi-structured, online interviews. Participants were asked to identify any media title that was memorable or meaningful during their cancer experience; they were also asked to explain whether the title had a positive or negative meaning to them, as well as why they felt that way.
Participants were mostly female (79.2%) and White (80%), with a breast cancer diagnosis (45.8%). Media portrayals were helpful if they prompted exploration of emotions and the creation of meaning around the cancer experience, or if they took participants’ minds off cancer. Most entertainment media focused only on death from cancer. Our participants called for more nuanced portrayals that better reflected their lived reality.
Our results revealed media are used as social surrogates, and to find affirmation and validation. On the other hand, our participants felt that entertainment media focused too heavily on death. This may contribute to internalized stigma and decrease psychological functioning, or affect the perceptions of cancer-free peers. Our participants called for more nuanced portrayals that depicted the realities of living with cancer. Future research should further probe the effects of entertainment media on psychological outcomes for young adults with cancer.”
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Serena Daalmans, Radboud University, Behavioural Science Institute; Mariska Kleemans; Cedra van Erp, Radboud University Nijmegen, Communication Science; Addy Weijers • All the Reasons Why: Exploring the Relationship between Morally Controversial Content in 13 Reasons Why and Viewers’ Moral Rumination • Via in-depth interviews with young adults (N = 45), we sought to gain deeper insights into the experiences of and reflective thoughts (i.e. moral rumination) about controversial media content. In order to map how moral rumination is incited in viewers, we chose a recent example of controversial television, namely 13 Reasons Why. The results will provide a comprehensive account of moral rumination as a concept, and will thereby further field of positive media psychology.
Research Paper • Student • Stefanie East • A Little Bit Alexis: From Self-Absorbed Socialite to Self-Made Career Woman • The cultural impact of Schitt’s Creek and its eclectic mix of characters has resonated with viewers across the world, partly because of its message of love and acceptance, but also because of the strong female characters. This essay offers an analysis of one the most iconic characters from the show, Alexis Rose. Using Kenneth Burke’s method of pentadic criticism, it will examine the breaking of a stereotype and impact of character development on an audience.
Research Paper • Faculty • Erika Engstrom; Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma • Masculinity’s Representative Anecdote in the MCU: Resistance and Revision in “Avengers: Endgame” • This paper interrogates the 2019 film “Avengers: Endgame” using the lens of hegemonic masculinity. By examining the behaviors and storylines of its central male superheroes, four main themes that challenge hegemonic masculinity were identified: (1) seeking help from and giving help to others, (2) emotional expressiveness, (3) expressions of fear and vulnerability, and (4) emphasis on father-child relationships. These merge to tell an overarching “story”—the representative anecdote—of a progressive and positive masculinity, one that affirms that super-heroic men are not afraid to show vulnerability, uncertainty, and affection. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the largest entertainment franchises in media history, and the positive masculinity presented in this film demonstrates a slow but progressive evolution of gender portrayals that hold the potential for positive representations that reflect the many ways manhood is performed in reality.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Chris Etheridge, University of Kansas; Fatemeh Shayesteh, University of Kansas; Remington Miller, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Abigail Carlson, University of Arkansas at Little Rock • From “hunky beefcakes” to “beautiful” Homecoming queens: Perpetrators and victims in true crime podcasts • Because this podcasting platform is still relatively new, few studies have considered how perpetrators of crime and victims of crime have been portrayed. Through a content analysis of true crime podcasts, this study will address a gap in the scholarship by chronicling descriptions of victims and perpetrators in several popular true crime podcasts.
Extended Abstract • Student • Heesoo Jang, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Madhavi Reddi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • [Extended Abstract] Intimacy and Connections: Celebrity Culture in Indian and South Korean Television Shows • This study examined how celebrities’ private lives are used as core elements of Asian television shows. The countries of interest were India and Korea, as the entertainment industries of both countries have increasingly challenged the global dominance of Hollywood. Using qualitative textual analysis, two prominent shows –Taste of Wife (Korea) and Koffee with Karan (India)—were analyzed. Both shows used celebrities’ personal lives and connections to create intimacy with the public and amplify visibility.
Research Paper • Student • Wei Lin • More contributors, shorter continuance? The paradox of entertainment contents contribution • Controversial debates are going on over the issue whether incentive to contribute is to diminish or increase with the expansion of group size. Previous studies on open collaborative platform for knowledge generation and sharing suggest that shrinking group size weakened motivation of contribution. This paper introduces group size into cognitive evaluation theory. By tracing behavior of video contributors in a hedonic information system for 20 months, we illustrate the negative effects of group size of entertainment contributors on intrinsic motivation and social rewards, which lead the discontinuance and inactivity of new contributors. Different mechanisms in hedonic and knowledge-sharing information system are discussed as well.
Research Paper • Student • JINDONG LIU, CUHK; biying wu • A “soul” emerges when AI meets Anime via hologram: a qualitative study on users of new anime-style hologram social robot “Hupo” • Anime-style hologram social robots are the latest entertainment products. This paper discusses how social robots and anime content converge via this new technology. Through interviews (N=18) in the case of Hupo, it identifies unique media phenomena including anime-style gamification and idolization of social robots, anime-assisted interactional order maintenance, and AI empowerment of anime characters. It argues anime fandom practice compensates for inadequate AI incapability, which challenges the vision of realistic human simulation in anthropomorphism.
Research Paper • Faculty • Patrick Osei-Hwere, West Texas A&M University; Enyonam Osei-Hwere, West Texas A&M University; Li Chen, West Texas A&M University • Spotlighting Emotional Intelligence in Children’s Media: Emotional Portrayals in Disney Channel Television Series. • A content analysis of emotions depicted in five Disney channel television series using social cognitive theory, entertainment education, and emotional intelligence constructs, found that characters depicted emotions of happiness, anger, and fear most frequently. There were no significant associations between gender and emotion display. Researchers found significant associations between emotion types and variables of age, emotion labeling, emotion regulation, emotion display target, and emotion display location. Recommendations for media researchers and content creators are discussed.
Research Paper • Student • Suri Pourmodheji, Indiana University, Bloomington • Keeping Up With the Yummy Mummies? Examining Kim Kardashian’s Mediated Yummy Mummy Images on the reality television program Keeping Up With The Kardashians versus Instagram posts. • “This chapter examines concepts of body image and the yummy mummy in motherhood, by analyzing select scenes from the reality television program, Keeping Up With The Kardashians (Keeping Up), and Instagram posts from Kim Kardashian’s personal Instagram page, @kimkardashian. Contextualizing the yummy mummy, the pressures of maintaining the bikini ready body for mothers, exploring body as commodity, and examining a fantasy of motherhood, I apply these concepts to an analysis of Kardashian’s body during her motherhood journey. Furthermore, I argue that Kardashian’s body functions in a hegemonic way as a seemingly attainable goal for postpartum women and those looking to get back into shape post baby. This chapter asks the following questions, how does Kardashian convey the yummy mummy concept referenced by Littler and Jermyn throughout Keeping Up and on Instagram? How does Kardashian function as a persona in flux between her appearance on Keeping Up and on Instagram? Further, how does the in-flux persona play a role in the way she portrays motherhood on Instagram? To address these questions, I use visual and contextual analysis on select scenes and Instagram posts that focus on Kardashian and her body as a mother. From analyzing these examples, I argue for the following conclusions: Kardashian’s role as a mother is portrayed through self-critical language to reinforce an authentic display of the yummy mummy body, through confident Instagram posts depicting her desirable body, and through post-racial visual discourse represented in family pictures on Instagram.
Research Paper • Student • Rachel Son, University of Florida • K-dramas and the American youth: Conceptualizing the aspiration of a youthful utopia • The purpose of the current paper is to develop a model to explain why American youth audiences choose to watch K-dramas. A rationalism approach by deriving concepts from existing theory to identify the variables of the model. The theoretical perspective comes from the theory of Temporarily Expanding the Boundaries of the Self (Slater et al., 2014), as well as contributions from entertainment research regarding enjoyment and affective motivations (Oliver & Raney, 2011). K-drama narratives is the independent variable and youthful utopia aspiration is the proposed dependent variable. As audiences begin temporarily expanding the boundaries of self to restore their identity and attain self-fulfillment, they are transported into the narrative where they identify with the characters’ experience in the stories. This leads to the American youth audiences to learn something about their own identity and life by expanding their understanding about South Korean culture through drama portrayals. In sum, audiences find meaning for their own lives that cannot be gained by self-affirmation through boundary expansion while viewing K-dramas.
Research Paper • Student • Nathan Spencer, The University of Memphis • License to angst: A study of female characters in Christopher Nolan films • This paper is a textual analysis of female characters in Christopher Nolan films. Its purpose is to determine how Nolan represents women in his films, thus adding to the literature on Nolan and on women in blockbuster films. The data consisted of a sample from three of Nolan’s most popular films, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar. The data was organized into five distinct categories: Dead Wife Syndrome; Women as a plot device for men; Violence as shock value; Mommy issues; and Behind every strong woman is… a man? The results reveal that Nolan’s stories revolve around men, reducing women to stereotyped subordinates. Nolan actively weaponizes his female characters’ femininity, treating them violently in his stories to motivate his male characters and tantalize the audience. His consistent successes over different genres point to moviegoers wanting to consume the stories he tells, regardless of content. This study’s results determine that his influence is directly hindering positive female representation in mainstream blockbuster films.
Research Paper • Faculty • Alec Tefertiller, Baylor University; Lindsey Maxwell, Southern Mississippi • Am I binge-watching or just glued to the couch? Viewing patterns, audience activity, and psychological antecedents for different types of extended-time television viewing • The phenomenon of binge-watching has received considerable attention in both the media and in research. However, extended-time television viewing is not only confined to narrative binges. This study sought to better understand the differences between different types of extended-time television viewing, including binge-watching. While little evidence was found to suggest a connection between problematic mental health antecedents and extended-time viewing, differences in audience attention and overall patterns of consumption were found.
Research Paper • Faculty • Kelsey Whipple, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Ivy Ashe; Lourdes Cueva Chacon, San Diego State University • Aux News: Examining Listeners’ Perceptions of the Journalistic Function of Podcasts • Podcasting is a well-established medium with a rapidly growing audience but no established ethical standards or practices. Through a representative national survey of American internet users (n = 1,025), this research examined how much podcast listeners trust podcasts and how they evaluate their journalistic merit. Podcast listeners trust podcasts less than most other news sources, with the exception of online news and satirical news programs. And though listeners agree that podcasting is a form of journalism, a way to stay informed about news and current events, and a valuable source of information, they are more skeptical of podcasts when comparing them to traditional news sources. Age is the only demographic category that predicts listening frequency.
Research Paper • Faculty • Qingru Xu; Hanyoung Kim; Andrew Billings • Let’s Watch Live Streaming! Exploring Streamer Credibility in Influencing Purchase Intention in Video Game Streamer Marketing • This study aims to examine the effect of streamer credibility on purchase intention in the context of video game streamer marketing, and further explore the underlying mechanism of the examined relationship via a mediation analysis. With recruiting 277 participants in the United State, this study (a) confirms the significant and positive relationship between streamer credibility and purchase intention, and also finds that (b) the mediators of parasocial relationships and streamer loyalty partially mediate the effect of streamer credibility on purchase intention. Surprisingly, the indirect effect of streamer credibility through the two mediators on purchase intention is stronger than the total effect; meanwhile, the direct effect of streamer credibility on purchase intention in the mediation model remains significant but negative. By applying structural equation modeling analysis, the current research offers a theoretical explanation for how streamer credibility influences viewers’ purchase intention in the context of video game streamer marketing, with practical and practical implications outlined.
Extended Abstract • Student • Wenjing Yang; Ruyue Ma • Online and offline : How MOBA games affect adolescence’s Discourse • MOBA games are now a big part of adolescences’ daily life , which not only affect their entertainment but also affect their communication . This paper draws on the theory of scenes proposed by Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) , using the way of participant observation and depth interview . The intial findings are that MOBA games realize the integration of scenarios in three dimensions and thus provided some new discourse for adolescence , which affect their communication and social interaction .
Extended Abstract • Student • Casey Yetter, University of Oklahoma; Alex Eschbach, University of Oklahoma • Earth’s Moralist Heroes: Virtue depictions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe • The purpose of this paper is to identify how virtue ethics are depicted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). A thematic analysis was used to analyze 12 of Aristotle’s virtues (courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, gentleness, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, and righteous indignation) in the protagonist superheroes in the MCU films, the most successful film franchise in cinematic history.
Electronic News Division
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Faculty • Anthony Adornato, Ithaca College; Allison Frisch, Ithaca College • Longitudinal Study of Social Media Policies In U.S. Television Newsrooms • This longitudinal study analyzes survey data, gathered in 2014 and 2020, regarding local television newsrooms’ social media policies. The purpose of the study is to track changes over time to these policies. The researchers investigate if and in which ways newsroom social media policies are evolving over time in four specific areas: journalists’ professional and personal social media activities; social media sources and content; audience complaints; and ownership of on-air talents’ accounts. The researchers found a significant increase of guidelines regarding what is and is not appropriate on the professional and personal social media of journalists, with little distinction made between these two types of accounts. Although newsrooms have implemented policies to articulate what is appropriate social media conduct and a majority have recently revised policies, those guidelines do not always address the fast-evolving contemporary issues journalists face on a daily basis, specifically online threats against journalists and verification of user-generated content. The researchers found a trend towards news outlets retaining ownership of on-air talents’ professional accounts.
Research Paper • Faculty • Mary Bock, The University of Texas at Austin; Robert Richardson, University of Texas at Austin; Christopher T. Assaf, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN; Dariya Tsyrenzhapova, University of Texas at Austin • Production and Improvisation: Digital Native News Video as an Emerging Narrative Style • This project uses content analysis to examine the nature of video narrative form on the internet, comparing the news videos posted by legacy print, TV and digital native organizations. Using the lens of narrative theory, this research examines the way organizations use scripting and editing conventions to establish their standing as authoritative storytellers. The results found the three types of organizations use significantly different storytelling styles, with long-term implications for news organizations and their viewers.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jiyoung Cha, San Francisco State University • Factors That Affect Social Media Credibility as a News Channel: the Impact of Network Relationships, Source Perceptions, and Media Use • Recognizing the prevalent use of social media to get news, this study investigates the factors that affect the credibility of social media as a news channel. A survey of 488 U.S. adults who use social media reveals that individuals’ homophily with their social media contacts, source credibility, trust in alternative news sources, reliance on social media to get news, and frequent social media use to get news positively relate to the credibility of social media.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Stefanie Davis Kempton, Penn State Altoona; Carlina DiRusso, Hope College • Pressure to Perform: Gendered Expectations of Journalists’ Social Media Use • Social media expertise is essential for journalists to compete in today’s digital world. However, not all journalists experience social media the same way. This study is particularly interested in how gender influences these experiences. A survey of broadcast news professionals was conducted to explore social media trends in the news industry. Findings suggest that female journalists experience more online harassment than male journalists and face additional pressures to perform on social media in certain ways.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Kim Fox, The American University in Cairo; Yasmeen Ebada • Egyptian Female Podcasters: Creating Social Change Through Public Pedagogy • This research will examine the work of eight Egyptian female college podcasters. The researchers concluded that the podcasts were used as a platform to strengthen feminist epistemologies. The researchers posited that all podcasters adopted or would adopt either a Westernized or Black feminist epistemology. Public pedagogy theory helped determine that the podcasters utilized their podcasts as digital feminism to raise awareness to larger societal problems in a country entrenched in patriarchy.
Research Paper • Faculty • Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University; Ioana Coman, Texas Tech University; Alexander Moe, SUNY Brockport; Sydney Brammer, Texas Tech University • “Keep Your Politics Off of My Face(book)!” Online News & Hostile Media Bias in the COVID-19 Social Media Environment • Facebook offers a free platform for news organizations to foster audience engagement and expand reach. However, comments seen before reading news articles shape the visible opinion climate and negatively influence readers. Guided by hostile media bias, the influence of comments and a knowledge-based assessment on perceptions of bias and credibility are tested using a nationwide sample of Facebook users (N = 450). Findings show user comments and knowledge-based assessments enhance negative perceptions among audiences.
Research Paper • Faculty • Manuel Goyanes, Carlos III University; Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Salamanca/Penn State University • Antecedents of News Avoidance: Competing Effects of Political Interest, News Overload, Trust in News Media, and ‘News Finds Me’ Perception • Recent changes in the media environment make it easier than ever for people to actively shape their news repertoires according to their habits, needs, and preferences. As convenient as these practices may seem, they also afford the possibility of disconnecting from news and current affairs more efficiently, with potentially deleterious effects on democracy. Building on the conceptualization of news avoidance as a general disposition and its consequential behavior, this study jointly examines key individual-level predispositions that may motivate individual news exposure avoidance. Based on a two-wave panel survey data collected in the United States, results show evidence that political interest and trust in professional news are negatively related with news avoidance, while news overload and—especially—the ‘news finds me’ perception are positively associated with news-avoidance behaviors. Our analyses suggest that the linkages between these cognitive antecedents and news avoidance are contingent upon the robustness of the empirical tests, with the ‘news find me perception’ yielding the most consistent association across models.
Research Paper • Faculty • Miao Guo, Ball State University; Fu-Shing Sun, Ball State University • Local News on Facebook: How Television Broadcasters Use Facebook to Enhance Social Media News Engagement • This study examines how local television broadcasters use Facebook to enhance social media news engagement. By scraping 1,063 news posts from nine local television stations’ Facebook pages, this investigation performs a content analysis on different features of news posts, including news topics, message vividness and interactivity, post time, and length of post. This study further explores how different news post features affect three dimensions of news engagement indicated by reactions, comments, and shares.
Research Paper • Student • Kendal Heavner, The University of Arkansas • The Impact of Media Algorithms on The Habermassian Public Sphere and Discourse • Media algorithms are increasing in use among popular social networking sites (Geiger, 2009). Widely influential in the media sector, algorithms create a highly personalized experience for the individual viewer. However, some scholars argue the specified curation of media based on a user’s personal preferences leads to a “filter bubble,” an online-based self-fulfilling prophecy in which users’ pre-existing opinions are continually reaffirmed. A survey will examine the impacts that media algorithms have on traditional media theories.
Research Paper • Faculty • Steven Collins, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida; Jennifer Sandoval, University of Central Florida • What Influences the Influences?: Examining National Culture, Human Development and Journalism Influences • This study examines how social systems level variables may help shape electronic journalists’ perceptions of the forces influencing their work. We combined Worlds of Journalism Study data with Hofstede’s cultural orientations to consider how the levels of the Hierarchical Influences Model may coalesce. In six analyses across four levels, culture was significantly correlated with perceived influences. Our findings support the belief the social systems level is the hegemonic level on which the others levels rest.
Research Paper • Faculty • Michael Koliska, Georgetown University; Neil Thurman, LMU; Sally Stares, City University of London; Jessica Kunert, University of Hamburg • Exploring audience criteria for perceptions of online news videos • “Journalism professionals and media experts have traditionally used normatively framed criteria to define news quality. But the digital news media environment has disrupted the status quo by putting a greater emphasis on audience reactions as markers of news quality. Little research has addressed the criteria audiences themselves use to evaluate news and particularly audio-visual news. We conducted in-depth group interviews with 22 online news video consumers in the UK to explore the criteria that they use in their perceptions and evaluations of online news videos. Thematic analyses suggest many intersecting criteria, which we group under four headings: antecedents of perceptions, emotional impacts, news and editorial values and production characteristics.”
Research Paper • Student • Wendy L.Y. Leung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • Distant Suffering of Coronavirus Outbreak: Comparing BBC World and Al Jazeera English Epidemic Reporting in China • This research aims to compare how BBC World and Al Jazeera English (AJE) report the “distant suffering” of the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China through critical discourse analysis. While BBC World highlighted the situation of “western victims” in Wuhan to domesticate the event with audiences, AJE tried to relate audiences through illustrating the outbreak in both China and surrounding infected countries, previewing its possible impact in the globe.
Research Paper • Student • Heidi Makady, University of Florida • I Wouldn’t React to it Because of the Algorithm: How Can Self-Presentation Moderate News Consumption. • While algorithms govern the display of our newsfeed on SNS, studies sought to explore conditions to encourage audience interaction with news content. However, few aimed to understand how audiences may refrain from interaction. This study explores how audience awareness of algorithmic recommendations may drive their news interaction. Through self- presentation framework, results indicate that the higher the level of self-monitoring and algorithmic awareness, the more likely passive news consumption is. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Dylan McLemore, University of Central Arkansas • Ten Days of Twitter’s “Who to Follow” Algorithm as the Architect of an Election Season Social Network • This study attempts to learn how Twitter curates election information for new users by letting the “Who to Follow” algorithm select accounts for followers of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The results suggest the algorithm creates a partisan echo chamber by prioritizing ideological agreement. However, it varied significantly in the types of accounts it used to create this bubble, including the number of news personalities and verified accounts suggested to followers of each candidate. A summary of the study is presented in the format of a 1,500-word extended abstract.
Research Paper • Faculty • Kaitlin Miller, University of Alabama • Hostility toward the press: a synthesis of terms, research, and future directions in examining harassment of journalists • While there is an upsurge of research examining hostility toward the press, there continues to be a lack of critical and robust theoretical foundation and agenda for such inquiry. Therefore, the objective of this article is to synthesize literature in the study of abuse and harassment of journalists, set forth clear definitions of terms, situate that literature within a larger theoretical context, and ultimately establish future lines of inquiry for research examining harassment of journalists. The principal objective is to unify work in this growing field to help not only answer important questions about a topic gaining more and more attention, but to also do so with a critical foundation in how hostility toward the press is theorized.
Research Paper • Faculty • Bruno Takahashi, Michigan State University; Qucheng Zhang, Michigan State University; Manuel Chavez, Michigan State University; Yadira Nieves • Touch in disaster reporting: Television coverage before hurricane maria • This study examines the use of touch by television reporters in their interactions with sources — mainly residents and government officials — before Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico. We used a qualitative approach that allowed four themes to emerge inductively. The themes — engagement and participation, empathy and caring, easing tension, and collective empowerment are described in relation to the literature on touch across cultures. Implications for the emotional turn in journalism are discussed.
Research Paper • Student • Melissa Williams, The University of Southern Mississippi; Lindsey Maxwell, Southern Mississippi • The View of the Blue is Bigger than Black and White • Using the social identity theory, this study explored how mass media, race, age, gender, and politic affiliation contribute to Americans’ attitude towards the police. Findings indicate one’s social identity and identification with police play a substantial role in how people choose to view police. Additionally, increased media trust and resulted in more positive perceptions of police, and people who listened to radio news more frequently were more likely to consider police part of their in-group.
Research Paper • Student • Anna Young, University of Connecticut; David Atkin • An Agenda-setting Test of Google News World Reporting on Foreign Nations • The current study examines the international news section of Google News by investigating the frequency and valence of international coverage. The content of news headlines and snippets about other countries are compared to the public perception of those countries, based on a dedicated survey. Although study findings fail to detect a second-level agenda-setting effect, they demonstrate the impact of other variables–such as political philosophy and perceived cultural proximity of the nation–on media agenda-setting.
Cultural and Critical Studies Division
2021 Abstracts
Extended Abstract • Student • Elinam Amevor • Cultural Sensitivity in Health Crisis Communication: The Case of COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa • This qualitative study examines the discourses surrounding Melinda Gates’ prediction about dead bodies littering the streets of Africa, if the world did not act fast to rescue the continent. The study thematically analyzed reactions from 12 social media influencers from Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. Drawing on the Cultural Dimensions Theory, preliminary findings describe Gates’ remarks as racist and demeaning to Africans. This reinforces the critical need for cultural sensitivity in global health crisis communication
Research Paper • Faculty • Kelli Boling, University of Nebraska – Lincoln • The Power of a Good Story: Domestic Violence Survivors in True Crime Podcast Audiences • This audience reception study qualitatively examines women who identify as domestic violence survivors and fans of true crime podcasts. Using a feminist, critical cultural lens, this study explores why these women are drawn to these podcasts and how they make meaning of the content. Sixteen interviews revealed five themes: the power of a good story, the appeal of audio media, the educational value of the content, their need for understanding, and creating camaraderie through community.
Extended Abstract • Student • Alejandro Bruna, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile • Extended Abstract- Reading Lumpérica from a cinematographic perspective – A fragmented script about marginality • Lumpérica, by Diamela Eltit, presents an interesting narrative mix: stream of consciousness, realism, dialogue and cinematic elements. This work analyzes the enunciated work, discovering that if read from a audiovisual perspective, it is a true script, fragmented and disjointed, but a script nonetheless, framed within a Chile that suffers the pain of dictatorship and, therefore, presents wounds coupled to a marginality that is dependent of the cinematographic eye to be seen.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jennifer Cox, Salisbury University • Black Lives Matter to Media (Finally): A Content Analysis of News Coverage During Summer 2020 • This study examined 286 stories posted about the Black Lives Matter movement and protests following George Floyd’s death by the six most-viewed U.S. news outlets on their Facebook feeds during summer 2020. These organizations published a significant amount of content, though the frequency declined throughout the summer. Stories mostly framed protesters positively and police negatively. Organizations regularly used law/crime spot news to frame protests. The findings suggest a shift away from the media’s protest paradigm.
Extended Abstract • Student • Katherine Dawson • Extended Abstract: Talking Through the Algorithm: Techno-Institutional Bias and Women’s Voices • This work proposes a theoretical framework for understanding how technologies of vocal recording and manipulation, from ‘good speech’ phonetics to A.I. voice renderings, have operated as ideologically charged algorithms that ‘solve’ women’s voices. The research builds upon existing communication literature surrounding the nature and functionality of algorithms, as well as feminist posthumanist theory, which provides a richer conceptualization of how algorithms of voice enact both a political and material discipline upon women’s speech.
Research Paper • Student • Jeffrey Duncan • Video Game Community Content Creators: A Cultural Intermediary Perspective • Video game content creators act as a ‘cultural intermediary’ between game producers and players. Through an interpretive textual analysis of YouTube videos by content creators of two popular games, this study explicates this mediating role the creators play in negotiating the encoding and decoding of gaming messages and their ability to influence audience opinion and producer decisions, highlighting an underrepresented group of creative workers that mediate messages in the gaming industry.
Research Paper • Faculty • Dawn Gilpin, Arizona State University • Theorizing the mediasphere: NRA media and multimodal dependency • This paper uses NRA media operations to illustrate the phenomenon of the mediasphere, defined as a strategically established subsystem of cultural production entrenched in promotional culture and characterized by hybridity, commodification, epistemic authority, embeddedness, identification, centralized control, and oppositionality to mainstream media. A mediasphere represents an attempt to establish audience dependency through multimodal centrality and thereby exercise social and cultural influence; it thus has implications for evolving understandings of information systems, propaganda and promotional culture.
Research Paper • Faculty • Peter Joseph Gloviczki, Coker University • The Space Between Home and Away: Sixteen Fragments across Communication as Culture • “This paper uses sixteen fragments, linked narratives, to make sense of and bring meaning to the space between home and away. Written in an accessible style and broadly inspired by the feminism of Laura Mulvey and the philosophical poetics of Jacques Derrida, the paper
challenges communication as culture to work toward a more narrative, more poststructuralist conceptualization of health communication in particular and communication as culture in
general.”
Extended Abstract • Student • Efrat Gold; megan boler, University of Toronto • Emotionally charged and politically polarized: An interpretive approach to social media analysis • Meaning is never inherent, nor is it neutral. The social act of interpretation, which gets mapped onto people and events, is deeply embedded within pre-existing cultural traditions. Using data from Twitter, Facebook, and Gab as cultural artefacts, we excavate the ways that meanings are made and conveyed through social media. Entering social media to undertake research can feel like entering a new world with its own history, rules, language, and norms. To the less embedded outsider, this world can feel dis-orienting – it is not immediately obvious where to turn, and even less obvious how to make meaning out of what one finds. The ways that people use social media are not neutral, nor are they static – in recent years, it is increasingly clear that social media is doing something, and that something is very influential. But what exactly is this doing and how is it being done? How do social media expressions and interactions speak to deeper beliefs and understandings that people hold about themselves and the world they inhabit? This paper invites a critical reflection on how the work of making meaning out of people, politics, and events is done. As an artefact that says something about the culture from which it stems, social media can inform understandings of the contemporary reality they reflect. Using case studies of comments and interactions among social media users as an occasion to explore cultural practices and disruptions, we dig deep to reveal the social and interpretive aspects already at play.
Research Paper • Student • Julie Grandjean, Texas Tech University • The spectacle of flags • While news editors tend to still consider images as mere illustrations for what is verbally explained (Geise and Baden, 2015), it is important to consider that the analogical properties of images (Abraham and Messaris, 2001) makes them appear more truthful and representative of reality. However, reality tends to be fluid depending on whose story we listen to. This paper narrates the stories of two realist rivals planting their respective national flags on two yet unexplored territories. While the American flag on the Moon was meant as a way to prove the American technological superiority over the USSR to end the Cold War, the Russian flag in the Arctic can be seen as a political move by President Putin to recreate the lost grandeur of the Soviet Union and reenact the Cold War in order to revive his political support at home. By doing so and recording their exploits, the two actors created national narratives that go beyond the simple performance of erecting a flag; I argue that these images construct an affectual nationalist identity through elites’ performance of flag planting, and mass media’s role in staging these political events as a “spectacle.”
Research Paper • Faculty • Azeta Hatef; Sara Shaban • A reckoning in journalism education: Examining the approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism syllabi • The 2020 protests in the U.S. prompted a reckoning in newsrooms across the country, presenting a critical moment to reflect upon journalism education and preparing students to report on a diverse world. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine syllabi from American universities, focusing on core principles and values in journalism education, specifically their approach to discussions of race, gender, and marginality. While few engage in critical discussion, most universities continue to utilize a traditional framework.
Research Paper • Faculty • Kristen Heflin, Kennesaw State University • Thatcherism, Trumpism, and the Potential of Organic Ideology • In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Stuart Hall struggled to make sense of Thatcherism, an ideology that was incoherent, brought together seemingly opposed viewpoints, and embraced contradiction. Ultimately, Hall developed the concepts of organic ideology and organic intellectual to help make sense of this ideology full of contradictions. This paper examines the theoretical roots of organic ideology and the role of organic intellectuals. It also discusses the concepts in relation to Trumpism and the MAGA movement.
Research Paper • Student • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • Disinformation and Weaponized Communication: The Spread of Ideological Hate about the Macedonian Name in Greece • The current research examined 38 of the most influential disinformation-fueled news (or “fake news”) stories regarding the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) and the “Prespes Agreement” in the years of 2018 and 2019 by employing the critical discourse analytical (CDA) method of ideological discourse analysis proposed by Van Dijk. The study’s main objective was to expand the relevant literature regarding disinformation, power relations, and hate campaigns by examining the ideological narratives and constructions disseminated through the disinformation-fueled news stories during that two-years-period. The findings showed that those news stories were successfully weaponized and resulted in empowering identity characteristics and ideological narratives through the distancing method (us versus them), the alienation with elements of dramatization (e.g., territorial loss of the Greek Macedonia due to the “Prespes Agreement”), and the sense of victimization and dehumanization that demanded emergency actions to protect the ingroup (Greece) from the outgroup (North Macedonia and its Greek assistants).
Research Paper • Student • Charli Kerns, University of Tennessee, Knoxville • Interrogating Perceptions of Risk and Responsibility in Sports During the Coronavirus Pandemic • This autoethnography examines whitewater kayakers’ decision to paddle the Big South Fork River in Tennessee to reveal the emerging tensions between individual risks inherent in the sport and the much broader constellations of risks into which its participants are interposing themselves during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic rationalities form the context within which individuals engage in neoliberal approaches toward risk-taking in action sports. In turn, these practices articulate with broader frameworks of responsibility in postmodern society.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Zhaoxi Liu • Dead and Back to Life: “The Eight Hundred” in the Field of Power • In 2019, the Chinese movie “The Eight Hundred” abruptly cancelled its release while China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic, due to political sensitivity. A year later, as China tried to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie became a market-reviving hero. This case study explains the dramatic experience of the movie by exploring the interrelations among the field of cultural production, the field of power, and the field of broader social context.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jessica Maddox; Brian Creech, Temple University • Leaning In, Pushed Out: Postfeminist Precarity, Pandemic Labor, and Journalistic Discourse • During the COVID-19 pandemic, the postfeminist ideal of “having it all” became more contradictory, as women struggled to juggle work and childcare. This research, using critical discourse analysis, examines how lifestyle and explanatory journalism made sense of this problematic ideal as it became evidently untenable during the pandemic. Here, journalism operates as a discursive structure, obscuring its own complicity in sustaining postfeminist and neoliberal relations around the expectations that surround working mothers.
Research Paper • Student • Lucy March • Genre, the meaning of style?: Categorizing Japanese visual kei • This paper explores the Japanese musical movement visual kei, and how to make ontological sense of it given its sonic and visual inconsistencies. Scholars describe visual kei as a socially-driven act of resistance, and as a commercial product with consistent generic characteristics. Examination of a case study demonstrates how visual kei occupies these contradictory spaces simultaneously, and how terms like genre and subculture capture the visual kei’s hybrid nature when used in the appropriate context.
Extended Abstract • Student • Hayley Markovich, University of Florida • Extended Abstract: Race-conscious public health: A critical discourse analysis of the Release the Pressure Campaign • This study focuses on the Release the Pressure campaign aimed at addressing high blood pressure and heart disease rates among Black women in America. Through a critical discourse analysis guided by critical race theory and intersectionality, the study explores how the campaign centers race and responds to structural racism to address heart health. Analysis of the Release the Pressure campaign and its discourses provides an avenue for scholars and practitioners to create race-conscious campaigns.
Research Paper • Student • Zelly Martin, University of Texas at Austin • “The Day Joy Was Over:” Representation of Pregnancy Loss in the News • Recently, news coverage of miscarriage has exploded, fueled primarily by celebrities discussing their personal experiences. To assess discursive constructions of the miscarriage experience in legacy news and women’s magazines, a corpus of 212 articles about pregnancy loss from the New York Times, the Washington Post, People Magazine, and Us Weekly are analyzed using critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal that pregnancy loss coverage perpetuates heteropatriarchal and postracial ideology in service of the narrative of U.S. exceptionalism.
Research Paper • Faculty • Umana Anjalin, University of Tennessee; Abhijit Mazumdar, Park University • India’s #MeToo Movement in Bollywood: Exposing Cultural & Societal Mores • Against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, aspiring actresses of the Indian film industry have revealed facing sexual harassment at the hands of male colleagues. Using feminist standpoint theory and theoretical thematic analysis of Bollywood actors’ online interviews about facing sexual harassment, this study uncovered common themes about India’s societal, cultural, and administrative mores. It also suggested a few recommendations to overcome the problem.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Gigi McNamara, University of Toledo • Extended Abstract The One with the Anniversary, the Friends 25th Anniversary Extravaganza: A political economy approach to a postmodern pseudo-event • American broadcast television continues to redefine and reassess its business model as competition for content from steaming services intensifies. In addition, television executives and producers are awash in what I have identified as a “hyper-nostalgic” era of television with reboots and relaunches dotting the primetime landscape. Paying homage to this hyper-nostalgic moment is the publicity juggernaut surrounding the 25th anniversary of the long-running NBC show, Friends. While there are no current plans to relaunch this program with new scripted content, the anniversary event, I contend is indicative of Boorstin’s theory of the pseudo-event. Moreover, I purport the on-going celebrity status of its cast members has furthered strengthened Friends inclusion in the television canon of timeless classics. In my full paper, I will overview the evolution of this hyper-nostalgic pseudo-event and will also draw on the theories from political economy of communication scholars including Riordan, Douglas and Andrejevic. This event also proves to be the “perfect storm” in terms of integrated marketing. The hyper-nostalgic virtue signaling includes both original viewers of the show and a newer younger audience, too young to have watched in the 1990s. Marking this specific historical intersection of celebrity and commerce, Friends continues to identify a new audience, and new consumer base, in this enduring nod to the past.
Research Paper • Faculty • Ali Mohamed, United Arab Emirates University • Investigative journalism and effects of capitalist “pathologies” on societal integration: Challenging Habermas’s “colonization” thesis • “Abstract
Habermas suggests that his “colonization” thesis applies not only to individuals within organizations, but also to institutions like media. Examples Habermas offers point to the vulnerability of journalism, especially, to “market imperatives” in capitalist societies. We challenge this notion by considering the work of investigative journalists who have adapted to advanced digital information technologies in order to reveal “concealed strategic actions” by capitalist interests that operate largely beyond the democratic will-formation of the lifeworld.”
Extended Abstract • Student • Dominique Montiel Valle; Zelly Martin, University of Texas at Austin • Feigning Indignance, Reinstating Power: Paradigm Repair, Femicide, and the Publishing of Ingrid Escamilla’s Murdered Body • In this study, we shed light on the media controversy surrounding the publishing of photos of Ingrid Escamilla’s murdered body in Mexico. Using a theoretical lens that integrates paradigm repair and decolonial feminism, we interrogate how four of Mexico’s most read news publications attempted to reify their media authority in the midst of high threat. We then probe how this positioning reifies media values and institutional alliances that further and perpetuate the devaluation of women.
Research Paper • Student • Madison Mullis, University of Memphis • That’s Why I Smoke Weed: An Analysis of #StonerMom Discourse on TikTok • This research utilized Manning’s symbolic framework to gain a deeper understanding of the #StonerMom phenomenon. A textual analysis was used to examine 55 videos extracted from the “Discover” page on TikTok. The results found that the symbolic framing of drug use on TikTok draws on discourses of social inequality, subsequently reinforcing historical associations between marijuana and POC. #StonerMoms construct marijuana use as a parent-friendly activity through their social media discourse by utilizing the race-neutral term “cannabis” and by framing marijuana as a stress suppressant that helps them be more patient and attentive towards their children. As a result of privileged normalization, #StonerMoms have become complicit in the gentrification of marijuana.
Research Paper • Student • Christina Myers • Beyond the Lens: Black Professional Athletes on Racism & the Realities of Breathing While Black • “This study investigates how Black professional athletes articulate their lived experiences concerning race and racism in the United States through the online digital platform The Players’ Tribune. To explore these dynamics through Critical Race Theory, a qualitative content analysis of narratives (N=29) were analyzed. Results reveal themes of violence perpetuated by law enforcement, fear for the life of self and loved ones, identity, history of systemic racism, call for allyship, Black empowerment and unity. The researcher suggests the counter-narratives that prevail indicate a response against the predominant images and frames in mainstream mass media.
Keywords: Critical Race Theory, Black identity, Black athletes, race”
Extended Abstract • Student • Sohana Nasrin, University of Maryland • Can Journalists be Activists? A Metajournalistic Discourse analysis of the relationship between Journalism and Activism • The relationship between journalism and activism has been a complicated one (Di Salvo, 2020; Russell, 2018; Beaudoin, 2019; Camaj, 2018). Journalism scholars and practitioners have struggled to understand the purviews of the two concepts—journalism and activism. On the one hand, professional journalists have been too concerned with maintaining professional norms such as objectivity, fairness, balance, and the like and tried not to drift into activism while reporting on different issues (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2007). On the other hand, Journalism scholars have engaged in philosophical debates on whether objectivity is a precept of journalism anymore and suggested new values such as transparency (Ingram, 2020) to take its place. This often-contested relationship between journalism and activism got renewed attention, with journalists adequately and accurately covering social justice issues such as racism and scientifically complicated topics such as climate change. The rise of alternative and citizen journalism challenged traditional news media and the norms they abide by. The renewed interests in the relationship between journalism and activism necessitate scholarly attention to understand how and whether journalism and activism can co-exist as professional journalists seek to inform the public. This study attempts to understand professional journalists’ attitudes toward the relationship between journalism and activism by analyzing the metajouranlistic discourse around the topic in the United States. The metajouranlistic discourse indicated that there emerged a shifting attitude toward how professional journalists define journalism.
Extended Abstract • Student • Míchílín Ní Threasaigh, University of Toronto; Ali Azhar, University of Toronto; megan boler, University of Toronto • Melodramatic Platforms: the emotional theatre of collective political storytelling on social media • “If social media is the new digital town hall, Canadian and American democracies are in trouble. Once a site of promise for democratizing mass communication, the internet has also become a site of problematic information and polarized affect. As meta-narratives about national identity clash across social media platforms, it is urgent that we understand how new media is shaping political polarization. In this paper we seek to understand the roles of social media platforms, emotion, and narrative in shaping online civic discourse. More specifically, we ask,
1) How might we analyse social media expressions as a form of collective storytelling?
2) What is the role of emotion in the production and circulation of these polarized political meta-narratives? and,
3) What roles do social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Gab play in catalyzing, organizing & circulating these emotionally-charged political meta-narratives?
To answer these questions, we draw upon findings from our three-year, mixed-methods, funded study of affect and narratives of race and national belonging on social media during the 2019 Canadian and 2020 U.S. federal elections; using the January 6th Capitol Riots as a case-study in the melodramatic genre of collective political storytelling on social media.”
Research Paper • Student • Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour, University of New Mexico • Themes, ideology, and social media: A critical analysis of a US Vice President • Considering the paucity of literature in Vice-presidential research, this study analyzes the social media (Facebook) discourse of Vice President Mike Pence, the 48th Vice President of the United States (US). Employing Norman Fairclough’s (2010) three-tier Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model, I conduct a textual analysis of the Vice President’s social media discourse to analyze the salient themes and ideologies in his Facebook posts. I observed that Vice President Mike Pence portrayed himself like a President in waiting in the wake of President Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings. In addition, findings of this current study indicated that from the ideological standpoint a mediated version of “Trumpism” was performed in the Vice President’s Facebook posts and he indicated his strong Republican values of Conservatism.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jiwoo Park • Witnessing the Power of Digital Activism BTS’ Involvement Brought into the Social Movement: A Case of the Black Lives Matter • “The Black Lives Matter movement erupted after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody during the first six months of the pandemic in the U.S. During the same timeframe, BTS was the most tweeted-about celebrity in the U.S. Through exploring a role BTS’ Twitter activity played for the social movement, this paper reflects on the nature of activism in the social media age and argues for the importance and value of digital activism.
Keywords: ARMY, BLM, BTS, Digital Activism, Slacktivism”
Extended Abstract • Student • Rachel Parker, The University of Alabama • “Extended Abstract: Narrative Formation: Black Women, Writing, and Vogue Magazine” • “Since their circulation beginning in the 18th century, women’s magazines spoke to an audience as varied as their content, including educated women to the housewife (Cramer, 1998). Focusing on subject matter that was important to their readers such as: housekeeping, careers, and marriage, women’s magazines were able to carve out their own niche for this specific market of reader whose interests was being overlooked.
This focus led to an audience showcasing a homogenous group of women in terms of values, education, and race. Focusing on one group as your audience led to the exclusion of others, particularly Black women.
This article will analyze this lack of Black women to be included in these publications as audience members as well as writers through the application of Muted Group Theory (Ardener, 1975).”
Research Paper • Faculty • Katie Place, Quinnipiac University • Toward a Framework for Intersectional Listening In Strategic Communication • This qualitative study explored the intersection of listening theory and intersectional theory to develop a framework for intersectional listening in strategic communication contexts. Interviews with 30 strategic communication professionals and executives were conducted to understand how they embody listening.
Research Paper • Student • Elizabeth Potter, University of Colorado Boulder • Membership negotiation’ flow in CCO model may explain institutional bias at a nonprofit media site • “Scholars can use the “membership negotiation” flow of McPhee & Zaug’s four-flows model of how communication constitutes organization to show how volunteer members of a nonprofit media and news production organization may be included or excluded as members of a local government institution. Aspects of the “membership negotiation” flow also can be used to illustrate how potential members are included or excluded from a volunteer news organization. Finally, the “membership negotiation” flow of the four-flows model of how communication constitutes organization can be used to theorize about how institutional bias may pervade the governmental institution of which this organization is a part.
This case study offers insights into just one way that scholars might think about how to study institutional bias. Because the four-flows model is ontological and because it draws from Giddens’s structuration theory, it has strong explanatory power that can be used to study similar organizations and organizational communication precepts in the future.”
Research Paper • Faculty • Matthew Powers, University of Washington, Seattle; Sandra Vera-Zambrano, Universidad Iberoamericana • Living For—And Maybe Off—Journalism: French and American Journalists’ Career Expectations • Drawing on Bourdieu, this paper explores journalists’ career expectations in France and the United States. Through interviews, we show that highly-resourced journalists in both countries expect to make a living doing work they love. By contrast, lesser-resourced journalists emphasize the sacrifices they make pursuing their careers. While sacrifices vary according to nationally-distinctive labor regulations, journalists in both samples find “virtues in their necessities” (Bourdieu, 1984) by highlighting the possibilities that a journalism career affords.
Research Paper • Faculty • Erica Salkin, Whitworth University Department of Communication Studies; Kevin Grieves, Whitworth University • The “major mea culpa:” Journalistic discourse when professional norms are broken • The “corrections statement” is sufficient for media organizations to address small mistakes. When larger missteps occur, however, more substantive work is needed not only to correct the record, but to protect the organization’s claim to an authentic journalistic identity. This study analyzes a sample of such “major mea culpa” statements to explore how media organizations talk about their significant professional errors and the tools they use to maintain their journalistic identities when such errors occur.
Research Paper • Faculty • Hong-Chi Shiau, Shih-Hsin University • Quenching the Pan-Asian Desire – Thai’s Boys’ Love, Tranculturalism, and Geolinguistic Fusion • “This
study attempt s to unpack the pan Asian Boys’ Love gen re phenomen on by
reading into a Thai BL hit I told Sunset about you , a coming of age story revolving
around two male protagonists in Thai Chinese diaspora. As a result of the real coming
of age drama, this BL has successfully merged two sub genres geikomi (also known as
bara) and Boys Love (BL) manga in the Japanese manga context. T h e use of shared
linguistic repertoire in Asian community is further examined. Its counter flows from
Thailand to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea offer media scholars
an fertile ground to understand East Asian fans’ practices. While this drama is by no
means the first counter flow case, it affords media scholar s to unpack how boys love
(BL) drama can inter penetrate Asian countries rapidly that has paved the way for a
decentering of the Western dominated global mediascape, as guest editor called for
attention in this issue. Thai s producers use of new practice to engage global audiences
has also destabilized the problematic theoretical dichotomy of East/West global/local
cultural imaginary.”
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Brian Snee, University of Scranton • Courage and Conviction: Christopher Columbus and the Rhetorics of Cancel Culture • Courage and Conviction: The True Story of Christopher Columbus follows the classic formula for apologia: vehement denial, strategic bolstering, differentiation, and a call for transcendence. The short film engages in its act of dissuasion while simultaneously performing complex commemorative work. It evokes the past not merely to lead its audience in the act of collective remembering, but also to encourage them to forget much of that past. The film urges its audience to move on, and to allow Columbus—his holiday and his effigies—to stand. Textual analysis reveals it as example of amnestic rhetoric.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Rhon Teruelle, Purdue University Northwest • Social Media as an essential tactical resource for police whistleblowers • This article examines social media and The Lamplighter Project on Twitter as an example of a tactical resource for police whistleblowers. While whistleblowing, the act of exposing and reporting police wrongdoing is still viewed in a negative light by the majority of law enforcement, recent incidents such as the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor display the need to hold police accountable for their actions. Moreover, reports that some police officers were involved in the attack against America’s capitol clearly exhibits that members of law enforcement are not above committing unlawful acts. The Lamplighter Project plays a key role in providing police whistleblowers a safe space on Twitter, allowing them to report on and expose police misconduct, brutality, and malfeasance.
Extended Abstract • Student • Kris Vera-Phillips, Arizona State University • The Framing of Other: How Framing Can Be A Postcolonial Tool For Institutional Power • Framing is a function of power. This conceptual theory paper investigates how leaders and institutions use the media strategy of framing as a postcolonial tool for obtaining, maintaining, and reinforcing power. Entman (1993) identified four functions of framing: defining problems, diagnosing causes, making moral judgments, and coming up with remedies. I will take each function of framing defined by Entman, apply lessons from postcolonial studies, and show how both are reflected in demonstrations of power.
Research Paper • Faculty • John Vilanova • The Caucasities of Portland: Theorizing White Protests for Black Lives • “This article uses “Caucasity” — a portmanteau of “Caucasian” and “audacity” — to retheorize the 2020 Portland, Oregon #BlackLivesMatter uprisings.
Promoted by the comedians Desus and Mero and proliferated through Black Twitter, Caucasity is best understood as a set of privileged performance practices deployed by white people, even while protesting white supremacy.
I historicize the term and analyze viral figures from the protests, arguing for productive nuance in theorizing white action for racial justice.”
Extended Abstract • Faculty • WeiMing YE; Luming Zhao • “I Know It’s Sensitive”: Internet Filtering, Recoding, and “Sensitive-word Culture” in China • In this article, we develop “sensitive-word culture” as a new lens for understanding Internet filtering and censorship, and online cultural production in China. Using in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese Weibo users, four types of word recoding are summarized and the motivations of users for recoding practices and the power relations are demonstrated. A notable finding suggests that “sensitive-word culture” is becoming a source and hub of slang and Memes production on the Chinese network society.
Extended Abstract • Student • Steven Young, Ph.D. Candidate • Hybrid Media or Mediasport? Exploring Media Portrayal of Esports Culture • Esports are growing in popularity at a rapid pace worldwide. In contemporary society, individuals watch esports broadcasts as part of their normal media consuming practices. Esports media significantly impact audience understandings, and play an integral role in shaping public discourse about esports culture. This study focuses on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which is currently the most recognized first-person shooter esport worldwide and the third most popular game across all esports genres (Irwin & Naweed, 2020). Interested in how the cultural knowledge and experience of esports are represented in media, I explored professional CS:GO esports broadcasts from two prominent professional leagues, ESL Pro League (EPL) and ELEAGUE. EPL is significant because it is longest standing professional Counter-Strike league worldwide. ELEAGUE represents the first regularly aired professional Counter-Strike league in the United States. Together, these leagues serve as active participants in creating, shaping, and molding esports culture worldwide. A thematic analysis of textual and audio-visual data from professional CS:GO broadcasts revealed that esports culture is a novel phenomenon, similar to sport, but situated within video games, and interspersed with a variety of digital media. Using traditional sports metaphors and comparisons, as well as sportscast style match coverage and gameplay reporting, EPL and ELEAGUE illustrate CS:GO as a global media-sport. At the same time, both leagues emphasize technicity and rely on gamer jargon to frame professional CS:GO as a form of hybrid media intrinsically tied to game culture. Together these representations suggest that esports culture is a “hybrid media-sport.”
Extended Abstract • Student • Ali Zain, University of South Carolina • Celebrity Capitol and Social Movements: A Textual Analysis of Bollywood Celebrities’ Tweets on 2020-21 Indian Farmers’ Protest • Building on global trend of celebrity activism and concept of celebrity capital, this study qualitatively examines Twitter posts of Bollywood celebrities about 2020-21 Indian farmers’ protest to to discover the dominant themes of favoring and opposing discourses. It was found pro-farmers celebrities used rhetorical and explanatory support while others employed celebrity capital as political support to government to oppose protesters and their supporters. Some celebrities even engaged in celebrity-shaming and name-calling in their communications.
Research Paper • postdoc • Sheng Zou, University of Michigan • “The Virus May Have Come From…”: COVID-19 Infodemic in China and the Politics of (Mis-)Translation • This article delves into the COVID-19 infodemic on China’s Internet, particularly fake news stories attributing the virus’s roots to the United States. It approaches the false origin stories as transnational and intertextual constructs, which involve practices of (mis)translating and referencing foreign source texts to paradoxically delegitimate the foreign, especially Western, Other. Through a close reading of emblematic cases, this article identifies three mistranslation maneuvers and gestures towards ways to combat fake news in the post-COVID era.
Community Journalism Interest Group
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Faculty • Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Edson Tandoc Jr • Community gatekeeping: Understanding information dissemination by journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa • This study contributes to the theory of gatekeeping by examining how community media journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa navigate through conflicting information. Using the case of COVID-19, the study examined how journalists from community media in Zambia and Tanzania reported government information that conflicted with what the local communities they served believed to be untrue. Drawing from interviews with journalists from community media organizations, we were able to demonstrate that there was a schism between what the editors thought as newsworthy versus what the reporters believed as possessing journalistic values relevant for their communities. Unlike the reporters, most editors aligned much with what the government wanted the media to transmit. This is especially true in Zambia where reporters indicated that most of their stories were flagged as irrelevant by their editors. These findings are then examined through the lens of gatekeeping, particularly a focus on various levels of analysis.
Research Paper • Faculty • Kelly Kaufhold, Texas State University • Locating the Media’s Role in Empathy for Immigration • The relationship between media consumption and attitudes about immigration is well established, but with a focus on national news outlets. The role of local media consumption is not as well understood. This study surveyed residents of Texas (N-316) which shares two-thirds of the United States’ border, and Ohio (N=322) which is less diverse and politically predictable. Reading Ohio newspapers predicted significantly less support for immigration; reading national newspapers, more support. Local TV viewing wasn’t significant.
Research Paper • Student • Nick Mathews, University of Minnesota • Print imprint: The connection between the physical newspaper and the self • This research puts forward the theoretical concept “print imprint,” articulating the connection between the printed newspaper and its reader’s “Self.” This paper contends the newspaper draws out the meaningfulness of ownership, touch and nostalgia, all ingredients of the self. This research centers on interviews with 19 readers of a rural, weekly newspaper that shuttered. Ultimately, this research argues the loss of the weekly newspaper prompted a loss or lessening of self of the abandoned readers.
Research Paper • Faculty • Laura Moorhead, San Francisco State University • Collaborative coverage: A content analysis of articles by local journalists working to solve homelessness and engage community • Beginning in June 2016, 77 media organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area began working together to end homelessness in the community. Journalists put aside competitive and, oftentimes, philosophical differences to “flood airwaves, the internet, and print publications with news” about the “solutions to and causes of homelessness.” The effort, known as the SF Homeless Project (SFHP), continued beyond one day and has gained international attention, becoming a model for journalists and communities elsewhere. Yet, little is known about the SFHP’s coverage, impact, and potential for community change and replication elsewhere. This research — a content analysis of 977 articles published over 18 months by 134 media organizations — examined efforts to shape local public opinion and policy on homelessness and asked, What does coverage look like when journalists work to take a systems perspective to address homelessness?
Research Paper • Student • Jeffry Oktavianus, City University of Hong Kong • The role of integrated connectedness of community storytelling networks in empowering migrant domestic workers • “Situated against Indonesian migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Hong Kong, this study examined how MDWs’ integrated connectedness to the community storytelling networks (ICSN), comprising interpersonal communication, community organizations, and media outlets, was able to empower migrant helpers. The findings revealed that ICSN was positively associated with perceived social support and behavioral empowerment, while the influence of ICSN on intrapersonal and interactional empowerment operated via social support.
Keywords: communication infrastructure, community storytelling network, empowerment, migrant domestic workers”
Research Paper • Student • William Singleton, University of Alabama; Wilson Lowrey; Nick Buzzelli • Must I follow the script? Professional objectivity, journalistic roles and the black community journalist • The negotiation of objectivity as a community journalism norm has become timelier based on dissatisfaction many Black journalists have voiced over coverage of police brutality protests. This study examines how Black community journalists covering social-justice protests in local legacy news media, digital startups, and traditional community Black press have expressed journalistic objectivity and enacted their journalistic roles. Findings showed that coverage in the traditional Black press publication and the digital startup enacted a stronger advocacy role and showed more subjectivity than the legacy publication. Also, a “clarifier” role emerged from analysis of the digital startup publication, in which journalists gave local protest groups a platform to distinguish their identities from other protest groups.
Extended Abstract • Student • Anna Grace Usery • Examining how solutions journalism builds street credibility between media and audiences • This study explores how media organizations build credibility with their audiences through solutions journalism. It also seeks to understand how community partners are utilized by media organizations to augment storytelling and create a symbiotic relationship with audience members. Results from this study indicate that the definition and practice of solutions journalism is changing in the field and that symbiotic relationships are helping to build credibility at the individual level.
Extended Abstract • Student • Yidong Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Avery Holton, University of Utah • Pride and Protest: Intersectional Work of Queer Community Media • This study examines the practice of intersectionality in queer community media production. Drawing on interviews and surveys with nine queer community news outlets in the US as well as texts sampled from these outlets’ coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement in connection to the narrative of LGBTQ Pride, we find that queer community media serve as a platform where discussion around racism within LGBTQ communities takes place and where intersectional coalition can be mobilized.
Communication Theory and Methodology Division
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Faculty • Anne Smink, University of Amsterdam; Lindsay Hahn, University of Buffalo; Bryan Trude, University of Georgia; Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, University of Georgia • Embodied Congruence as a Framework for Understanding User Experiences with Immersive Technologies • We introduce embodied congruence (i.e., perceived symmetry between users’ anticipated physical interactions and the interactions afforded by immersive platforms) as a comprehensive framework for studying user experiences with existing and emerging immersive technologies. We applied this proposed framework in a pre-registered experiment designed to examine whether higher embodied congruence afforded by wearable augmented reality (AR) devices could enhance perceived user experiences and use intentions compared to lower embodied congruence afforded by handheld AR devices. Participants (N =165) played an AR game in either a high or low embodied congruent condition. Results showed that a high embodied congruent AR experience induced higher spatial presence compared to a low embodied congruent AR experience, which consequently enhanced hedonic and utilitarian value. Although high hedonic value induced higher use intentions, utilitarian value did not. Results of this study highlight the utility of the embodied congruence framework for understanding and interpreting user experiences across a range of current and forthcoming emerging technologies.
Extended Abstract • Student • Luye Bao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Mikhaila Calice, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Nicole Krause; Christopher Wirz; Dietram A. Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Dominique Brossard; Todd Newman; Michael Xenos • Communicating AI: Segmenting audiences on risk and benefit perceptions • Effective communication about complex technologies requires a nuanced understanding of how different audiences make sense of and communicate disruptive technologies with immense societal implications. Using AI as an example, we segment nationally-representative survey data into distinct audiences with differing media diets. Results show that attitudes toward AI vary not just by level of news attention but also the content audiences attend to.
Extended Abstract • Student • Ava Francesca Battocchio, Michigan State University; Chris Etheridge, University of Kansas; Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University; Moldir Moldagaliyeva, Michigan State University; Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice; Chuqing Dong, Michigan State University; Kelley Cotter; Yingying Chen; Stephanie Edgerly • A systematic method of cataloging civic information infrastructure • The convergence of evolving technology, journalism precarity, and a global public health crisis has exacerbated long simmering questions about how and where both communities and individuals get civic information. While recent work has mapped media ecologies with a specific focus on journalistic productivity, a robust methodology for identifying and validating non-journalistic civic information production is lacking. This work establishes an approach to cataloging ever-expanding civic information infrastructure, negotiating how to determine and demonstrate the validity of the catalog, establishing a framework for incorporating emergent technology, and creating a scalable approach for cross-community comparison.
Research Paper • Student • Ava Francesca Battocchio, Michigan State University • Hyperlocal affective polarization: Remixing rural understanding • Affective polarization and the rural-urban divide in the United States are growing. However, extant work minimally focuses on community-level factors that may be driving polarization in rural communities. This paper proposes advancement of theory at the intersection of national politics, media transformations, and rurality to better understand the current state of U.S. politics. This paper proposes a new model of information sharing at the community level and how ecosystems may foster reinforcement of local concerns.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Saraswathi Bellur; Porismita Borah • Extended Abstract: (Mis)information & Motivation: Building a motivational interactivity model for tackling online misinformation • The COVID-19 “infodemic” has posed numerous challenges to communication scholars. We examine one such challenge regarding misinformation about face-mask use on social media. In an online experiment (n = 200), we manipulated information processing motives (accuracy vs. defense) and the level of interactivity (high vs. low). We measured users’ need for cognition and thinking styles. Based on this data, we propose a new motivational interactivity model to tackle the imminent problem of social media misinformation.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Robin Blom, Ball State University • Expectancy violations in media theory • This study tested a theoretical model in which news believability is predicted primarily by an interaction between news source trust and news content expectancy. The results demonstrated that the interaction was, indeed, an important factor in predicting news believability for news stories attributed to either CNN or Fox News. The effects sizes were moderate to large. Importantly, the data indicated that distrusted sources could be highly believable, even more believable than trusted sources.
Research Paper • Faculty • Porismita Borah • Message framing and COVID-19 vaccination intention: Moderating roles of partisan media use and pre-attitudes about vaccination • Vaccine hesitancy is a significant barrier for the implementation of COVID-19 vaccine. The main purposes of the current experimental study are to examine 1) the impact of four types of message on COVID-19 vaccination intention and 2) understand the moderating role of partisan media use and prior vaccination attitudes. The findings from the individual vs. collective message frames and the moderating effects of partisan media use and pre-attitudes reveal the complex nature of vaccination behavior.
Extended Abstract • Faculty • Yingying Chen, University of South Carolina; Zhao Peng, Michigan State University • (Extended Abstract) The Strength and Pitfalls of Topic Modeling in Communication Studies: A Systematic Review • Topic modeling has become a growingly popular method for text analysis in communication. As an unsupervised machine-learning text analysis method, it identifies the latent structure in the large-scale text data and shows strength in the exploratory analysis. However, researchers have also raised questions to its theoretical contribution, methodological reliability and validity. To better understand the strength and pitfalls of topic modeling, the research provides a systematic review of 94 studies that applied topic modeling in 25 peer-reviewed communication journals in the past decade. Our analysis focuses on three aspects: the theoretical contribution, the research design, the reliability and validity of the method. Our research critically examines the application of topic modeling and provides implications for future communication studies.
Research Paper • Student • Eliana DuBosar, University of Florida • What Drives You? Conceptualizing Motivations for Partisan Media Selectivity • Selective exposure is the phenomenon that individuals actively seek out messages that match their prior beliefs, spanning various subdisciplines of communication research. In political communication, this has most commonly been studied by examining an individual’s use of partisan media. This paper offers a typology conceptualizing motivations for partisan media selectivity along two axes: counter- to pro-attitudinal information and intentional use to active avoidance. Additionally, potential implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Research Paper • Faculty • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Toby Hopp • Reshaping the spheres: An essay on the new normative role of gatekeeping • This theoretical essay argues for reconstituting the normative role of gatekeeping of journalism in a functioning democracy. It contends that in this time of disinformation, misinformation and fake news, the journalist’s main normative role should involve gatekeeping all deviant information from the mainstream public sphere. To accomplish this, the essay reconceptualizes for the 21st century the spheres of information introduced by Hallin (1989). It then articulates why the space inside the sphere of legitimate controversy grew in recent years, and journalists, through gatekeeping, must restore it to its normative ideal.
Research Paper • Student • Isabelle Freiling, University of Vienna; Nicole Krause; Kaiping Chen; Dietram A. Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Science of open (communication) science: Toward an evidence-driven understanding of quality criteria in communication research • Following psychology’s lead, our field has begun to endorse principles of open science with little critical evaluation. These efforts have faced a lack of (a) conceptual clarity in problem definitions; (b) formative and summative evaluation of open science guidelines; and (c) attention to non-replicability in social media data as one of our field’s most rapidly growing research areas. In analyzing these problems, we argue for a science of open (communication) science for our discipline.
Research Paper • Faculty • Manuel Goyanes, Carlos III University; Marton Demeter, National University of Public Service; Aurea Grané, Carlos III University; Tamás Toth, Kodolányi János University; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Salamanca/Penn State University • Research Patterns in Communication (2009-2019): Testing Female Representation and Publication Efficiency, within Most Cited Scholars and across the Field • Inequalities in academia are considerable, persistent, and subjected to broad scholarly scrutiny. Drawing upon the concepts of Matilda and Matthew-effects, this study compares the evolution of female scholars as leading authors, the growth of authors per paper, and the productive strategies in the last decade of the most cited scholars versus the representative sample in the Communication field. Results indicate that female leading authors remain to endure a systematic disadvantage. In the span of a decade, there are significantly more leading female authors in the field, but their proportion among the most cited scholars has not yet crystalized, introducing what we term as latent Matilda-effect. Likewise, the number of authors per paper has significantly increased in the field, but not among the most cited scholars, who, in turn, publish significantly more papers than the field average, within both 2009 and 2019. And not only that, the productivity gap between the most cited scholars and the field has substantially increased between the span of this decade, perpetuating a rich get richer effect. Theoretical implications of these findings and suggestions for future studies are finally discussed in the manuscript.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jay Hmielowski, University of Florida; Moritz Cleve, University of Florida; Eliana DuBosar, University of Florida; Michael Munroe, University of Florida • Feeling is NOT Mutual: Political Discussion, Science, and Environmental Attitudes by Party Affiliation • In this paper, we examine the conditional indirect relationship between political discussion and attitudes towards science and environmental related topics. Our study finds that the relationship between political discussion and evaluations of actors in society (scientists and environmentalists) is moderated by party identification. We also find that evaluations of scientists and environmentalists translate into support for science and environmental policies. Moreover, we assess whether these associations vary over time. These results show that the relationship between discussing politics and evaluations of scientists and environmentalists is stronger in the 1990s compared to the early 2000s among both Democrats (positive relationship) and Republicans (negative relationship). The conditional indirect association also varies over time.
Research Paper • Faculty • Jennifer Hoewe, Purdue University; David Ewoldsen, Michigan State University • The Media Use Model: Using Constraint Satisfaction and Coherence to Explain Media Processes and Effects • The Media Use Model (MUM) is a testable, meta-theoretical model that can unify and explain several existing theories of media processes and effects. It uses a constraint satisfaction approach to coherence to explain the dynamic relationship between a media consumer’s motivations, expectations, and cognitive processing during media use. The MUM includes six propositions, which represent stages during which a media consumer’s existing cognitive representations influence their selection, consumption, interpretation, and comprehension of media content.
Research Paper • Student • Lingshu Hu • I, We, You, or They? Language Styles in Political Discussion on Twitter • This study used a big dataset and cluster analysis algorithm to detect the language styles in political discussion on Twitter and applied multinomial regression to examine the covariations between Twitter user variables and language styles. Through K-means cluster analysis of over 700,000 tweets, this study identified six groups of language styles and found that they covariate with Twitter user variables such as social connections, expressive desires, and gender. Implications of findings have been discussed.
Research Paper • Faculty • Myiah Hutchens, University of Florida; Ekaterina Romanova; Amanda Pennings, University of Florida • Negative Emotion and Partisanship: The Mediating Role of Emotion on Media Trust • Understanding the impact of emotional responses when explaining political behavior has continued to garner attention by political communication scholars. One area that remains understudied is the extent to which experiencing different emotions influences how media sources are evaluated and the extent to which this has impacts on broader media trust. This study utilizes a single factor experiment to examine how partisanship impacts emotional reactions to comments on media stories and the subsequent mediating role of emotion on evaluations of source and media trust. Results suggest that individuals who identify as Democrats and Republicans experience different emotions in response to comments that are critical or supportive of neutral media outlets, which subsequently impacts media trust.
Research Paper • Student • Jeannette Iannacone, University of Maryland, College Park; Lindsey Anderson, University of Maryland • Emotion in Virtual Research Spaces: Proposing Micro-Communicative Practices to Facilitate Online Qualitative Interviews • Online research platforms, such as Zoom and WebEx, have become important sites for qualitative inquiry, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. As researchers move their work online, it becomes important to re-consider commonly held conceptualizations of place and emotion—both of which are key considerations of qualitative research. In this paper, we illuminate the communicative micro-practices that account for the complicated ways that emotion and place intersect during virtual qualitative interviews. In doing so, we developed four propositions that articulate ways in which emotion should be better accounted for in these online settings. We organized the propositions using the three phases of the research process—pre-data collection, during data collection, and post-data collection. These propositions underscore the relevance of emotion in qualitative research, emphasize the significance of communicative micro-practices for conducting online interviews, and inform discussions about practices for qualitative interviews that better account for virtual spaces.
Research Paper • Student • Wufan JIA, City University of HongKong • Self-Influence of Online Posting • Self-influence of online posting, or how posting content online can influence the publishers, is attracting increasing scholarly attention. Various theories have been adopted to explain this phenomenon, such as cognitive dissonance, self-perception, and identity shift. This article reviews the prominent theories to understand the self-influence of online posting and identifies several mechanisms to explain this phenomenon. This article also raises a set of criteria to distinguish each mechanism and offers a solution to find mechanisms, boundary conditions, and moderators to explain different online posting behaviors.
Research Paper • Faculty • Yeunjae Lee, University of Miami; Jeong-Nam Kim • A Multi-Trait-Multi-Perspective Conceptualization and Operationalization of Relationship: Validation of Measures for Organization-Public Relationship Types • Relationship management theories have explored and developed measures for types of relationship between an organization and its publics. Using two waves of survey data from employees (N = 454) and consumers (N = 513), this study validated the measures of three organization-public relationship types (i.e., egoistic, provident, communal) from two perspectives (i.e., organization-oriented, public-oriented). Results of MTMP (multi-trait-multi-perspective) analysis showed overall good reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. The study also provided evidence of test-retest validity and nomological validity by examining the associations between symmetrical communication and each relationship type. The effects of differences between two-sided communal and one-sided communal relationships on relational quality across groups (i.e., employees, consumers) were also identified. Implications for the use of this research are discussed.
Research Paper • Student • Slgi (Sage) Lee, University of Michigan • Permanently Connected: Behavior, Perception, and Their Political Implications • The ubiquitous use of internet-connected media enables individuals to stay in constant touch with personal contacts in an “always-on” society. Consequently, some individuals have developed the habit of being permanently connected with others through digital media. This paper examines the psychological and political consequences of this behavior. Analysis of two independent sets of data collected via a two-wave panel survey and an online experiment reveals that, over time, permanent connection increases the perception of permanent togetherness with others, which we label as “permanently-connected perception.” This perception is in turn positively associated with news sharing through the belief that information one shares online will instantly be received and responded to by online contacts as it is shared. Findings emphasize the “spill-over” influence of permanent connection, in which perpetual interpersonal communication motivates political behavior, news sharing, and the role of the permanently connected perception in mediating this process
Research Paper • Student • Heejae Lee, Syracuse University; Se Jung Kim, Syracuse University; Seo Yoon Lee; Shengjie Yao, Syracuse University; Natnaree Wongmith, Syracuse University; T.Makana Chock, Syracuse University • Confusion about the Coronavirus: The Effects of Uncertainty on Information Seeking Behaviors • “There has been a notable amount of conflicting and confusing information about the Coronavirus pandemic. This study investigates the effects of information uncertainty about the disease on people’s perceptions of their own risks and information seeking behavior. Results from an online survey (N = 483) conducted in August 2020 indicated that information uncertainty and confusion about the Coronavirus increased perceived risk, while the degree of risk perception induced by the information uncertainty increased people’s negative emotions and this, in turn, led people to seek out information about the Coronavirus from government public health sites. These results suggest that initial uncertainty and confusion about Coronavirus information may actually increase risk perceptions and could lead people to seek out information on ways to prevent infection. Overall, the findings of our study have theoretical implications for understanding people’s responses to health communication during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Research Paper • Student • Yingdan Lu, Stanford University; Jennifer Pan • The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos • The proliferation of social media has expanded the strategies for government propaganda, but quantitative analyses of the content of digital propaganda continue to rely predominantly on textual data. In this paper, we use a multi-modal approach that combines analysis of video, text, and meta-data to explore the characteristics of Chinese government activities on Douyin, China’s leading social video-sharing platform. We apply this multi-modal approach on a novel dataset of 50,813 videos we collected from the Douyin Trending page. We find that videos from the Douyin accounts of Chinese state media, government, and Communist Party entities (what we call state-affiliated accounts) represent roughly half of all videos featured on the Douyin Trending page. Videos from state-affiliated accounts focus on political information and news while other Trending videos are dominated by entertainment content. Videos from state-affiliated accounts also exhibit features, including short duration, brightness, and high entropy, found in prior research to increase attention and engagement. However, videos from state-affiliated accounts tend to exhibit lower average levels of audience engagement than Trending videos from other types of accounts. The methods and substantive findings of this paper contributes to an emerging literature in communication on the computational analysis of video as data.
Research Paper • Faculty • Joerg Matthes, University of Vienna; Nicoleta Corbu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, ROMANIA; Soyeon Jin, Munich Technical; Yannis Theocharis, Technical University in Munich; Christian Schemer, U of Mainz; Karolina Koc-Michalska, Audencia Business School; Peter van Aelst, University of Antwerp; Frank Esser, U of Zurich; Toril Aalberg, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Ana Cardenal, Open University of Catalonia; Laia Castro, University of Zurich; Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam; David Hopmann, University of Southern Denmark; Tamir Sheafer, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Sergio Splendore, Università degli Studi di Milano; James Stanyer, Loughborough University; Agnieszka Stępińska, Adam Mickiewicz University; Jesper Strömbäck, University of Gothenburg; Václav Štětka, Loughborough University • Perceived Exposure to Misinformation Fuels Emotional Concerns about COVID-19: A Cross-Country, Multi-Method Investigation • We tested the relationship between perceived exposure to misinformation and emotional concerns about COVID-19. In Study 1, multilevel regression and propensity score analyses of a survey across 17 countries confirmed this relationship. However, the relationship was weaker with rising levels of case-fatality ratios, but independent from the actual amount of misinformation per country. Study 2 replicated the relationship using experimental data. Furthermore, Study 2 demonstrated the underlying mechanism driving concerns about COVID-19 based on misinformation.
Research Paper • Faculty • Soo Young Shin; Serena Miller, Michigan State University • A Participant Observation Method Guide for Ethnographers based on an Examination of Journalism Newsroom Scholarship • A scholarly social structure that coalesces around a particular method can reveal patterns about how a field interprets that method. Content analysis is a useful way to systematically evaluate behavioral patterns. We studied participant observations of newsrooms and assessed scholars’ adherence to methodological reporting best practices in 135 journal articles. An adherence to reporting quality can improve our understanding of the method. Suggestions are put forth to increase the transparency and rigors of it.
Research Paper • Faculty • Yilang Peng • APL: A Python Library for Computational Aesthetic Analysis of Visual Media in Communication Research • Visual aesthetics are related to a broad range of communication outcomes, yet the tools of computational aesthetic analysis are not widely available in the community of communication scholars. This workshop article addresses this gap and provides a tutorial for social scientists to measure a broad range of hand-crafted aesthetic attributes of visual media, such as colorfulness and visual complexity. It also introduces APL, a Python library developed for computational aesthetic analysis in social science research, which can be readily applied by future researchers. With tools of computational aesthetic analysis, communication researchers can better understand the antecedents and outcomes of visual aesthetics beyond the content of visual media.
Research Paper • Student • Elizabeth Potter, University of Colorado Boulder • CCO model can explain how a nonprofit news organization can remain independent of outside influence • Aspects of McPhee and Zaug’s four-flows model of how communication constitutes organization show how volunteers at a nonprofit news organization can remain independent of outside influence. This case study uses the ontological four-flows model to discuss how volunteer members of the nonprofit news organization create news stories and video content for a website and a local public access channel. The ethnographic research continues with a discussion about the “the dark side” of possible public relations bias as an outside influence. Data from this ethnographic case study shows how news production volunteers negotiate through discourse how to put structures in place that can help the organization remain independent of “the dark side” of outside influence. Because this news organization is one of the first news organizations in the United States to receive direct funding from a governmental entity, the findings in this study can illustrate greater tensions created by such a funding model in a democracy as well as offer an organizational communication frame to resolve them.
Research Paper • Faculty • Kenneth Pybus, Abilene Christian University • Legal Narratives: Establishing Frames for Media Coverage of Appellate Courts • Interviews with members of the Supreme Court of Texas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the journalists who cover both sought to identify the primary news frames jurists and journalists believed were most commonly applied by media outlets when covering decisions of the high courts. Jurists on both Texas high courts indicated they recognize the potential of journalists, consciously or unconsciously, to frame coverage of high court opinions and, through examples, helped identify several frames that could be useful in future research of appellate court coverage. Among the most common frames cited were the winner and loser frame, in which the entirety of coverage focuses on the outcome of the case rather than the rationale, on which jurists say they spend the bulk of their time, the David versus Goliath frame, in which coverage focuses on the decision’s impact on the weaker party in the case, regardless of the outcome or the issues decided, and two related frames, the ideological frame, in which decisions are reported in terms of the court’s preference for or hostility to an industry or institution, and the political frame, in which decisions of the court are cast in terms of political leanings or affiliations. Journalists defended attention to the elements of each frame described as appropriate information to fully develop and explain court decisions.
Research Paper • Student • Martin Johannes Riedl, The University of Texas at Austin; Gina Chen, University of Texas at Austin; Tamar Wilner, University of Texas at Austin • Focus Groups in Communication, Journalism, and Media Research: A Reappraisal • Focus groups are intimately tied to the history of the field of communication research but far from universally appreciated. As this research shows, focus groups constitute a powerful method in their own right, allowing deliberative group decision processes to surface. Drawing from 19 focus groups, 127 participants, five countries, and three research projects, this paper reappraises the method and reflects on a range of challenges. It also catalogs unique methodological opportunities and best practices.
Research Paper • Student • Shaoqing Han; Naipeng Chao; Wensen Huang; Bin Yang • Diffusion of Diffusion: Research on the Interdisciplinary Knowledge Diffusion of Communication Theory • Communication science at the “Crossroads” has always been faced with the problems of “Communication without Theory” and “Involution” of theory, which originated from the dilemma of theoretical contribution of communication studies. It is an important issue throughout the history of communication science, which means that most of the theories are not unique to communication science but “borrow” from other disciplines. At the same time, we should realize that some classical theories in communication science can also supply theoretical resources for other disciplines. The present study takes Diffusion of Innovations Theory as an example, based on the full-scale dataset of Web of Science (WoS), mining the citation relationships between papers, and constructing the citation network, discipline network and diffusion paths of the theory. Based on empirical analysis, we find that Diffusion of Innovations Theory has strong theoretical vitality, and the knowledge diffusion is highly interdisciplinary on time and across disciplines. The results indicate that not all communication theories are borrowed from other disciplines, and there are still some communication theories with “output” mode in the process of knowledge diffusion.
Research Paper • Faculty • Christofer Skurka, Pennsylvania State University; Rainer Romero-Canyas; Helen Joo; David Acup; Jeff Niederdeppe, Cornell University • Emotional Appeals, Climate Change, and Young Adults: A Direct Replication of Skurka et al. (2018) • There is much need to verify the robustness of published findings in the field of communication–particularly regarding the effects of persuasive appeals advocating behaviors that combat social issues. To this end, in this brief replication note, we present the results from a preregistered, direct replication of Skurka et al. (2018). The original study found that a threat appeal about climate change can increase risk perception and activism intentions and that a humor appeal can also increase activism intentions. Using the same stimuli, measures, and experimental design with a similar sample of young adults, we fail to replicate these findings. We do, however, replicate age as a moderator of humor’s effect on perceived risk, such that the humor appeal only persuaded emerging adults (ages 18-21.9). We consider several explanations for these discrepant findings, including the challenges (and opportunities) that communication researchers and practitioners must navigate when communicating about rapidly evolving social issues.
Research Paper • Student • Allison Steinke, University of Minnesota • Cultivating Cognitive Legitimacy: The Case of Solutions Journalism • The theoretical underpinnings of the solutions journalism approach have not been fully developed. By leveraging new institutional theory and cognitive legitimacy, this project provides a theoretically driven empirical investigation of how solutions journalism—defined as rigorous responses to social problems—can renew trust in the news, catalyze economic vitality for global news outlets, and provide readers and journalists alike with hope in the midst of a culture of toxic negativity. The theoretical underpinnings of the solutions journalism approach have not been fully developed. By leveraging new institutional theory and cognitive legitimacy, this project provides a theoretically driven empirical investigation of how solutions journalism—defined as rigorous responses to social problems—can renew trust in the news, catalyze economic vitality for global news outlets, and provide readers and journalists alike with hope in the midst of a culture of toxic negativity. This study presents three major theoretical arguments. First: Institutions are socially constructed with varying levels of legitimacy. Second: Solutions journalism is an emerging institution gaining legitimacy in practice worldwide. Third: Solutions journalism is a journalistic approach that functions globally as a networked organizational form.
Research Paper • Student • Kathryn Thier, University of Maryland • Toward a Theory of Solutions Journalism and Explanation of its Effects • Solutions journalism, an emerging journalism practice that rigorously covers responses to social problems using objective reporting methods, has been shown to produce positive audience attitudes and feelings. Despite increasing interest from scholars and practitioners, there is limited academic development of possible underlying theoretical mechanisms that explain solutions journalism’s effects. Accordingly, the present article seeks to develop such a theoretical framework. In doing so, the article defines solutions journalism, examines its components based on the literature, and considers whether communication theory about attitude change and persuasion offers theoretical explanations for noted effects of solutions journalism. Several propositions are offered and avenues for future research are discussed. Overall, the article provides an examination of solutions journalism and a set of propositions to steer future research of solutions journalism’s attitudinal effects.
Research Paper • Student • Marina F. Thomas; Alice Binder; Joerg Matthes, University of Vienna • Why More Is Less on Dating Apps: The Effects of Excessive Partner Availability • Dating apps advertise with high availability of potential partners. We theorize that such excessive choice could increase fear of being single and partner choice overload while decreasing self-esteem. In a survey (Study 1), dating app use was associated with increased partner availability which, in turn, predicted fear of being single. Study 2 experimentally induced low, moderate, or high partner availability. Higher partner availability increased fear of being single and partner choice overload, and decreased self-esteem.
Research Paper • Faculty • T. Franklin Waddell, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida; Holly Overton, Penn State University; Robert McKeever, College of Information and Communications, University of South Carolina • Does Sample Source Matter for Theory? Testing Model Invariance with the Influence of Presumed Influence Model across Amazon Mechanical Turk and Qualtrics Panels • Online data collection services are increasingly common for testing mass communication theory. However, how consistent are the theoretical tenets of theory when tested across different online data services? A pre-registered online survey (N = 1,546) was conducted that examined the influence of presumed influence model across subjects simultaneously recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and Qualtrics Panels. Results revealed that model parameters were mostly consistent with theory regardless of data source. Theoretical implications are discussed.
Research Paper • Faculty • T. Franklin Waddell, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida; Jessica Sparks; Chelsea Moss • Measuring Sexist Stereotypes about Female Reporters: Scale Development and Validity • Prejudicial behaviors towards female journalists are on the rise, yet few instruments are available to measure stereotyping of female journalists. The present work validates a new scale for measuring female journalist stereotyping (FJS) using exploratory (N = 561) and confirmatory factor analysis (N = 580). Results reveal that the FJS scale has a reliable and replicable factor structure that is distinct from measures of sexism and journalist mistrust. FJS also negatively predicts news credibility.
Research Paper • Student • Yin Yang, Pennsylvania State University • (Extended) Influence of Presumed Influence: Past, Present, and Future • Since Gunther and Storey (2003) originated the influence of presumed influence (IPI), researchers have applied it to examine an indirect route of media effects. This paper reviews this theory, including key constructs of IPI with their relationships, important IPI studies, unsolved problems in IPI research, and future direction to address these problems. In particular, this paper suggests scholars to integrate media features into IPI studies. A theoretical rationale for this suggestion and examples are provided.
Communication Technology Division
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • 360VR and Journalism: Investigating cognitive and persuasive effects of virtual reality community news narratives • Atkins, Aaron • The development and exploration of immersive, 360-degree virtual reality video (360VR) and its potential as a viable medium for information dissemination, has been the subject of both speculation and exploration over the last five years. As such, it becomes important to test/examine and investigate the effects the medium itself in different message contexts. This study details an experiment designed to test memory performance, persuasion and counterargument, and mediated influence in a community news context. It will use a political ideology message factor manipulation in a virtual reality, community journalism story and utilize a general public participant pool as the foundation for the study. It will also make use of the limited capacity model for motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) as its theoretical framework. Findings include differences in memory performance between moderate and liberal participant groups, an increase in spatial presence mediated by sense of community, differences in visual and aural recall, and a ceiling effect in perceptions of journalist and message credibility. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • What do 5G networks, Bill Gates, Agenda 21, and QAnon have in common? Sources, engagement, and characteristics • Borah, Porismita • In this paper we examine Tweets related to five leading conspiracies regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the 15 conspiracy elements that were coded, content that believed in the conspiracy theories were the highest; followed by malicious purpose; and content about the conspirators. Our findings from the quantitative patterns as well as from qualitative narrative coding showed the interconnections among all five conspiracy theories. Findings showed that malicious purposes and secretive actions received the highest engagement.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Media Multitasking and Mood Management: The Positive and Negative Mediation Effects of Entertainment and Flow on Mood Repair • Chang, Yuhmiin • Recent survey studies have found that media multitasking had a negative effect on mood. This study, however, proposes that media multitasking can have both positive and negative effects on mood depending on the messages in the single medium. The results of the experiment demonstrate that media multitasking lead to greater mood repair through the mediation of perceived entertainment than relevant Website and lesser mood repair through the mediation of flow than Netflix sitcoms on PC.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Immersive Shopping and Consumer Decision-Making: Experiencing Flow via Augmented Reality Affordances of Realness and Fluidity • Chen, Ye • This study examined the effects of augmented realness and technology fluidity of (Augmented Reality)AR applications on consumers’ experience. A posttest-only between-subjects experiment was conducted to test a series of hypotheses. Findings demonstrate that both features positively influenced consumer responses through the immersion experience of flow. Specific effects on cognitive and affective response were discussed. The study contributes to theoretical building in AR marketing research and has implications to AR marketing practitioners.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • The Str(AI)ght Scoop: Artificially Intelligent Journalists Reduce Perceptions of Hostile Media Bias • Cloudy, Joshua • Artificially intelligent (AI) journalists have the potential to lower hostile media bias by activating the machine heuristic—a mental shortcut assuming machines are more unbiased, systematic, and accurate than are humans. An online experiment targeting abortion partisans found support for the prediction: an AI journalist activates the machine heuristic that, in turn, mitigates hostile media bias. This mediation effect was moderated: perceived bias was more strongly reduced as partisanship towards the issue became more extreme.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Build your own web experience: Investigating the effectiveness of web-enabled personalization through an online interactive tailored video • Cortese, Juliann • A randomized controlled, within-subjects experiment was conducted to compare user preferences for receiving information through a tailored video website compared to a generic website. Findings suggested that participants significantly preferred the interactive video format compared to the standard format on all but two direct-comparison variables. The interactive format outperformed the generic site in terms of behavioral intentions, user engagement, user fulfillment and positive affect, with significant order effects for information evaluation and elaboration of content.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • The Logic of Cross-breeding Actions: Roles of Telegrams Channels in the 2019 Hong Kong Social Movement • Fu, KW • This study empirically examines the roles of organizational and crowd activists in social movement’s action repertoires (mobilization, framing, and tactical coordination) by analyzing 4 million Telegram channel messages collected in the Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-Extradition Law movement. The findings highlight the logic of cross-breeding metaphorically, a hyper-hybrid mode of Bennett & Segerberg’s logics of connective and collective actions, emphasizing a dynamic power-making process of the networked media in shaping contemporary social movement.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Understanding Fake News Corrective Action: A Mixed Method Approach • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero • Recent scholarship has devoted attention to the spread of fake news in social media, suggesting systematic viable ways to slow down the spread of misinformation. Generally, effective documented interventions rely on fake news identification and social peer corrective actions. Based on a cross-cultural, mixed method sequential design, this study further investigates 1) how citizens develop strategies to identify fake news and generate rational motivations to engage in corrective actions (Study 1, based on fifty-one in-depth adults’ interviews in Spain), and tests 2) whether traditional, social media, and fake news exposure predict taking corrective measures, as well as indirect relationships explained through individual’s news cognitive elaboration (Study 2, with US survey data). Qualitative and quantitative results highlight the distinctive news use effects over fake news corrective actions, placing some individual cognitive processes at the center of fake news counteractive behavior.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • ‘Live’ together with you: Livestream views mitigate the effects of loneliness on well-being • Goh, Zhang Hao • Livestreaming has gained traction in recent years, making it a billion-dollar industry. Owing to its success, most social networking sites today have integrated livestreaming functions in their platforms, as an increasing number of users broadcast, and an even bigger number watch, livestreams. What makes people watch livestreams? Studies have acknowledged how social media use (i.e., social networking) can mitigate the effects of loneliness, but due attention has yet to be given to the consumption of livestream content. Using national survey data (N = 1,606), this study demonstrates that livestream viewing has a positive influence on individuals’ well-being. Notably, the frequency of livestream viewing moderates the negative effects of loneliness on the viewers’ psychological, social, and emotional well-being. Implications of the results were discussed.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: How social shoppers adopt information: The moderating role of social homophily and content provider motivation • Hsu, Ying-Chia • Guided by Information Acceptance Model, this study examines information adoption in the context of social shopping by integrating two moderators, content provider motivation and social homophily. Results of structural equation modeling verify information acceptance model: As perceived information quality increases, information usefulness would also increase, boosting the likelihood of information adoption. Meanwhile, when social shoppers perceived higher similarities with the social media groups, they would be more likely to view the provided information as useful.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • The Influence of Perceived Value of Social Media Affordances on SNS Usage Loyalty • Hsu, Shihhsien • Based on the affordance approach, this study used surveys to explore the relationship among the multi-dimensional aspects of SNS affordance (symbolic, functional, interactive), users’ perceived value, and usage loyalty. Findings indicated that site affordances contribute to perceived value and usage loyalty. Moreover, trust is a significant moderator through the mediated model of affordance and usage loyalty via perceived value. Results show that participants care about social media platforms’ offering and form value perceptions; thus, influencing their posterior behavior of commitment toward the corresponding SNSs.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Mobile Phone Paradox: A Hypothetical Two-pathway Model Connecting Mobile Phone Use and Loneliness for the Filipino Domestic Workers in Hong Kong • Huang, Vincent • This study explores how mobile technologies provide a communication tool to help Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong cope with social and emotional loneliness. Findings from a survey suggest that mobile phone use was only negatively associated with social loneliness. Both problematic mobile phone use and social support mediated the negative relationship, while only problematic mobile phone use was found to mediate the positive association between mobile phone use and emotional loneliness.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • The effect of perceived media influence: Factors affect corrective actions on social media • Jiang, Liefu • Through an experiment with 199 participants, this paper tested the causal relationships between perceived media reach, perceived media influence, and different levels of corrective actions on social media. Findings show that only perceived media reach can influence participants’ likelihood of taking low-level corrective actions. This paper contributes to corrective action studies by providing evidence of causality between antecedents and different levels of corrective actions, which helps researchers investigate corrective actions more accurately.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • “It Will Help Build Immunity”: Preventative Remedies, Herbal Cures, and Role of Uncertainty Reduction of Health Issues in WhatsApp • Kanthawala, Shaheen • “WhatsApp is a highly prevalent form of communication among people in India, with India being the app’s largest market. The app has revolutionized communication within people’s day-to-day lives in the country with discussions including a wide spectrum of topics including health. Health content on these closed platforms can have long-term and dangerous ramifications, especially since WhatsApp has often been under fire for the excessive amount of misinformation spread on the platform. In order to explore the kind of health content prevalent on the platform, we conducted 19 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Indians over the age of 40.
Our findings highlight how most health discussions on the platform predominately involve natural remedies and alternative medication in order to build people’s immunity. However, this content is rarely verified, but people still engage with it in order to reduce feelings of uncertainty that come along with health issues (especially those in light of the COVID-19 pandemic). These ideas also give insights into the folk theories people have surrounding natural health solutions (as compared to Western medication), especially when tied together with historical and cultural narratives, and the role of the government in encouraging these beliefs.”
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Digital Fandom Engagement through Virtual Concert during Covid-19 • Kim, Wonkyung • This study examined the process through which the quality of relationship between fans and a musician influences fans’ experience and engagement of virtual concerts. A structural equation model with the survey data collected from 248 Chinese participants highlights the importance of fan-artist relationship, perceived interactivity, presence, and enjoyment in predicting fans’ eWOM behaviors. Implications are provided on how to utilize virtual platforms and interactivity features to improve audience experience and engagement of the virtual concert.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Close enough to share? The effect of technology media-system dependency on proximity to the impacts of artificial intelligence, and online information sharing • Kirkpatrick, Alex • We surveyed a sample of US citizens regarding their media habits related to staying informed about artificial intelligence (AI). Results suggest that those dependent on media-systems to stay informed about AI perceive the impacts of AI to be nearer and more likely to affect people similar to them. In turn, this psychological proximity increased the chances that respondents themselves would share AI contents online. Perceived rate of technological change was found to enhance this process. Results are conceptualized in relation to Construal-level of Psychological Distances, and Media-System Dependency Theory.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Parasocial Interactions with Live Streamers, Social Capital, and Political Participation • Lee, Heysung • This research investigates relationships between engagement during live streaming, parasocial interactions (PSI), and the role of PSI as social capital promoting offline political participation, using online survey with 504 respondents in South Korea and 510 respondents in the U.S. Results shows that viewer engagement and perceived attitude homophily with the host is positively related to PSI. PSI promote political participation and political efficacy amplifies the positive effects of PSI on political participation in both countries.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Effects of Negativity Bias and Serial Positioning of Consumer Processing of Online Reviews • Lee, Yukyung • This study tested the effects of serial positioning of online consumer reviews on review information process and evaluation. Results suggested that consumer reviews published in the order of “lowest” to “highest” ratings alongside more positive prior brand attitude led to more systematic information processing, which was positively related to perceived review helpfulness. While perceived review helpfulness is positively associated with perceived website credibility, the latter is positively linked to intentions to shop on the website.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • “Now You See Me”: Self-Representation Affordance Moderates Bandwagon-Cues’ Impacts on Information Exposure • Li, Wenbo • News recommender system and popularity metrics (i.e., bandwagon cues) have changed how users encounter and select information. Hypotheses on resulting information exposure were derived from Sundar et al.’s (2015) TIME and Knobloch-Westerwick’s (2020) UCU frameworks. A computerized lab experiment examined how a self-representation affordance (inducing focus on self vs. others) moderates bandwagon cues’ (low vs. high numbers) impact on exposure to political messages. The results show that creating a private self-representation induced self-focus and led to more exposure to messages with high bandwagon-cues numbers than to messages with low bandwagon-cues numbers. Creating a public self-representation induced other focus and led to more exposure to messages with low bandwagon-cues numbers than to messages with high bandwagon-cues numbers. An online field study followed up and yielded similar, albeit weaker effects on information exposure. The findings underscore how user profiles and recommender systems, as on Twitter or Facebook, interact to affect information exposure.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Whom should I blame? How source identifications of computer-generated imagery influencers affect consumer’s responsibility attribution in brand endorsement • Liu, Fanjue • Computer-generated virtual influencers today have humanlike visual representations and function like human social media influencers. Virtual influencers have been increasingly adopted as brand endorsers in influencer marketing with both successes and failures. However, little is known about how consumers would attribute the success or failure regarding virtual influencers’ endorsements. Through the theoretical lens of mind perception theory and attribution theories, this study examines how people attribute responsibility to virtual influencers when they perceive the influencer as a computer-generated virtual person versus as a human in terms of endorsement failure and success. The results of a 2 x 2 experiment showed that when the endorsement had a positive outcome, people attributed more credit to the human influencers than the virtual influencers. In contrast, when the endorsement had a negative outcome, people attributed similar responsibility levels to the human influencers and the virtual influencers. Mind perception was found to mediate the effect of source identification—virtual human versus human—on the responsibility attribution toward influencers. The findings of this research provides theoretical and practical implications for both influencer marketing and human-robot interaction research.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • A Vaccine for Social Media? Factors Moderating the Negative Impact of Social Media Use on COVID-19 Protective Behaviors • Muturi, Nancy • A nationally representative online survey conducted in the United States during the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic examined the moderating role of civic engagement, social capital, and misinformation concerns in the relationship between media use and self-protective health behaviors. Building on the Social Exchange Theory, analyses found that while social media as a whole negatively impacts compliance with recommended health practices, certain affordances and awareness of its potential shortcomings reverse that association. Implications for theory, risk communication via traditional and social media, and public health are discussed.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Uncivil versus Intolerant: Examining Incivility on Social Media Discussions • Oz, Mustafa • “This study is an attempt to further understand uncivil discourse on social media platforms. Instead of solely focusing on incivility, this study distinguishes incivility from intolerance and examines these two concepts in the context of public comments on two social media platforms. More specifically, the study examines whether uncivil and intolerant comments vary based on platforms and topic sensitivity, as well as the relationship between uncivil/intolerant discourse and deliberative attributes.
According to the results, while incivility occurs in both platforms, there is a meaningful difference between Facebook and Twitter in terms of intolerant comments. Also, there is a positive relationship between topic sensitivity and intolerance. Finally, Facebook discussion 46% more likely to contain deliberative comments than Twitter discussion.”
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Fear of Surveillance: Examining Social Media Users’ Perception of Surveillance and Willingness to Express Opinion on Social Media • Oz, Mustafa • Many surveillance studies used the panopticon analogy to understand the impact of government surveillance practices on political participation. In the light of Foucault’s thoughts, this study examined how the perception of government surveillance impacts Turkish social media users’ willingness to express an opinion on social media. Also, we examined whether online privacy skills and perceived majority variables moderate the relationship between perceived surveillance and willingness to speak out on social media. The results suggested that perceived surveillance is negatively related to one’s willingness to speak out. On the other hand, online privacy skills moderate the relationship between perceived surveillance and one’s willingness to speak out.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: Resharing Brands on Social Media: Posts and Reposts from Peers, Influencers, and Brands • Rosenbaum, Judith • With social media seen as central to marketing, understanding how the source of a brand-related social media post impacts attitudes is critical. Building on research into electronic word-of-mouth and warranting theory, an experiment was used to compare the impact of content posted and reshared by peers, influencers, and brands on Facebook and Instagram. Results pointed to the value of third-party claims, but also revealed the interaction between the nature of the source and the platform.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Trade-Off Between Layout Congruency and User Experience in Visual Search Behavior on Pinterest Boards • Shabalina, Olga • Layout congruency and user experience are central predictors of visual search on social media feeds. However, our understanding of their effect on users’ online behavior and attitude towards social media platforms is underdeveloped. The present research fills this gap and explores what Pinterest users think about visual search in one-column (congruent) versus two-column (incongruent) conditions of Pinterest board layout, and how their experience primes perceived processing fluency and attitude towards visual search.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • COVID-19 Risk Perceptions among College Students Social Media for Self and Mass Media for Others • Shin, Inyoung • This study explores the roles of mass and social media use and personal networks in the judgment of COVID-related perceived risk among college students. Extending the impersonal hypothesis, we examine how mass media, social media, and personal networks related to college students’ risk perception at two different levels: personal and societal. Our study shows that mass media use can increase societal risk perception, whereas social media and network-related characteristics have the potential to increase both personal and societal risk perceptions.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Sharing Goodness: Communication Technology Effects and Effectiveness during a Pandemic • Smith, Brian • The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects include extended use of communication technology. This study examines communication technology effects through the lens of missionaries, who faced an unprecedented new normal – the replacement of in-person proselyting with digitally-facilitated interaction. In-depth interviews with 17 participants who served as missionaries during the pandemic reveal both effects and effectiveness of communication technology, including effects on resilience mediated by uncertainty acceptance and integration of personal interest.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Exploring Effects of Gender and Instant Messaging Experience on Organization-Customer Live Chat Communication • Song, Xu • A post-test only 2x2x2 factorial between-subjects experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of gender and instant messaging experience on the organization-customer live chat communication in both schema-resonance and non-schema-resonance conditions. A convenience sample (N=261) was used. Compared to males, females used less live-chat time, demonstrated greater usage intent, and were more satisfied with live chat service, communication approach, and information provided. IM experience had a significant effect on customer intention in schema-resonance live chat.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Correct me if I’m wrong: The role of in-group dynamics in correcting misinformation • Tandoc Jr, Edson • This experimental study investigated the effectiveness of correction message sent by different group members (in-group vs out-group) and through different modes of delivery (group vs interpersonal chat) in reducing participants’ perceived credibility of online fake news. Guided by the social identity theory, this study found that correction messages sent via interpersonal channels were more effective at lowering participants’ perceived credibility of online fake news, but we found no main effect for type of sender.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Integrating Interpersonal Communication Into the Influence of Presumed Media Influence Model: Understanding Intentions to Censor and Correct Misinformation on Social Media • Tsang, Stephanie Jean • We extended the influence of presumed media influence model by taking interpersonal communication into account. Our survey (N = 642) results revealed that individuals’ attention to COVID-19 information on social media and their engagement in interpersonal communication about the disease independently and jointly affected presumed others’ attention. The more that individuals engaged in interpersonal communication, the less that their attention to mediated content factored into how they perceived others’ attention to such content. Presumed others’ attention, in turn, was positively associated with presuming that others were influenced by COVID-19 misinformation and the intention to correct, but not censor, misinformation.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Your Virtue is My Vice: Analyzing Moral Foundations in Pro-Vaping and Anti-Vaping Facebook Communities • Wang, Yunwen • A recent surge of e-cigarette use raised serious public concern. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, this study integrated computational and human strategies to disentangle vaping controversies. We conducted time-series analysis, topic modeling, classification, and chi-square tests on 2,669 public Facebook posts. Results revealed pro-vapers cited more Fairness/Cheating and Authority/Subversion than anti-vapers, while anti-vapers cited more Sanctity/Degradation. Referencing to Care/Harm as well as Loyalty/Betrayal in similar sheer volumes, the two opposing communities sometimes contextualized them differently.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • The Status of Social Media Related Public Relations Research: A Systematic Review of Articles Published in 14 Journals from 2006 to 2018 • Wang, Yuan • This study examines the patterns and trends of social media-related public relations (SMPR) research published in 14 journals from 2006 to 2018. It analyzes the theoretical trends (i.e., research topics, theories and theoretical models, hypotheses, and research questions), methodological trends (i.e., sample types, sampling methods, and research methods), and social media platforms used in 357 published journal articles. The results reveal the trends of SMPR articles across journal areas and stages of social media development.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Twitter and Endorsed Misinformation: Retweeting, Bandwagon Cues, and Conspiracy Theory during COVID-19 Pandemic • Wang, Luxuan • Our study examined how the unique social endorsement systems on Twitter indicating who retweets a post and how many like that post, affected perceived credibility of misinformation and sharing intention. By conducting a 2 by 2 survey experiment among 267 Twitter users, we found the relative effects of an acquaintance as a retweeter over a celebrity on misinformation credibility and retweeting intention and the presence of bandwagon cues increases information credibility and retweeting intentions.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • How Do Individuals’ World Views Shape Their Perceptions of AI • WEN, CHIA-HO RYAN • Enhancing public confidence in revolutionary technology is possibly the most consequential job of government when developing novel science, and one of the greatest obstacles is to figure out why the masses hold highly discrepant views on any specific technology. Based on previous literature, this study hypothesizes that the discordant perceptions of science arise from individuals’ intrinsic divergent world views built upon political orientations, content knowledge, perceived knowledge, and habitual consumption of scientific news. Analysing 502 survey participants, our research concludes first that the dichotomous political ideology (liberalism versus conservativism) is a feeble predictor in Taiwan’s social context and not as indicative as it is for the U.S. society. Second, content knowledge of AI predicts positive attitudes towards AI and its regulation, whereas perceived knowledge of AI predicts risk perceptions of AI. Third and finally, in accordance with content knowledge, scientific news consumption has a direct bearing on both the benefit perceptions of AI as well as its regulation support.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: Media Trust and Comment Argument Strength’s Effects on Journalist Credibility • Wolfgang, David • Negative online reader comments on news sites can hurt journalists’ credibility but much could depend on how the comments are constructed and presented. This study considers how differences in the argument strength of negative comments and the individual’s level of media trust could influence journalist’s credibility ratings. An experimental study with 122 U.S. participants showed comment argument strength can affect a journalist’s credibility and, more importantly, media trust can influence perceived argument strength effects.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: The Link between Online Gaming Behavior and Unethical Decision-Making in Emerging Adults • Wu, Yuehua • Using online survey, this study examines a sample of Chinese college students to assess the relationship between online gaming intensity and real-life unethical decision-making. Results show that gaming intensity has no direct effect on unethical decision-making yet has indirect effect on it via game cheating and serial indirect effect via game cheating and moral disengagement. The relationship between these two variables is positive at low levels of peer cheating and negative at high levels.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Bridging the Academic-Practitioner Divide in AI Advertising: Analysis of Articles in Advertising Trade Publications • Wu, Linwan • In this study, we explored the practitioner perspective of AI advertising by analyzing the articles that mention AI and its related terms from an important advertising trade publication. A computational analysis of natural language processing discovered five salient topics from these articles, including “platform/companies leverage AI in business,” “AI powers content creation,” “AI battles against human wrongdoing,” “using AI for consumer marketing,” and “exhibiting AI-involved work/cases.” We compared these topics with the existing scholarly research of AI advertising and identified the gap between academic and practitioner perspectives. Implications of this study to both researchers and professionals are discussed.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • [EXTENDED ABSTRACT] Consumers’ Responses to Location Privacy Invasive Digital Reality Technologies in Museums: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective • YANG, KENNETH C.C. • “The convergence of mobile technologies and location-aware AR applications in museums has presented an interesting phenomenon for both researchers and practitioners to develop best practices and theoretical exploration. Particularly, the pervasive nature of mobile technologies and the heavy reliance on consumers’ locational information are two major technological advantages that make digital reality applications possible. An important question to explore is how users’ privacy concerns would affect the emerging AR applications in museums that rely on consumers’ locational information to generate location-relevant cultural contents. To better understand these relationships between consumers’ privacy concerns, consumer autonomy, and their privacy management strategies, this employed a questionnaire survey to collect empirical data from conveniently recruited 263 participants. Findings from this study did not support the role of consumer autonomy on concerns over location privacy. However, museum-goers’ own privacy concerns do predict 2 out of 3 privacy management strategies to better protect their location privacy. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.
Extended Abstract • Faculty Paper Competition • Exploring Users’ Co-commenting Behaviors on Social Video Platforms: A Network Analysis of Danmaku Comments • Zhang, Xinzhi • By analyzing users’ real-time comments on the video streaming platforms—known as Danmaku comments—the present study advances research on co-commenting and distinguishes co-commenting based on the same time (two users sending comments at the same time) versus co-commenting based on the same timeline point (two users sending comments at the same points of the video’s timeline). Two co-commenting networks based on users’ danmaku commenting on Bilibili are constructed and analyzed.
Research Paper • Faculty Paper Competition • Norms, Attitudes, and Third-Person Effects in VPN Use of Chinese Users Abroad • Zhu, Ying • Internet censorship and VPN restrictions prevail in mainland China. This study investigates factors influencing overseas Chinese VPN users’ attitudes toward censorship and VPN use guided by theories of the third-person effects and social norms. Results show that third-person effects, injunctive norms, and censorship attitudes influence people’s VPN use. Both injunctive and descriptive norms influence censorship attitudes. Chinese social media use impacts people’s injunctive norms while U.S. social media use influences both injunctive and descriptive norms.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • #Scamdemic, #Plandemic, or #Scaredemic: What Parleys Tell Us About COVID-19 Vaccine • Baines, Annalise • Using echo chambers as a framework, we analyzed 400 Parler posts using the hashtag #COVID19Vaccine and #NoCovidVaccine to understand users’ discussions through text analytics approach. Findings reveal five themes: reasons to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine, side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine, population control through the COVID-19 vaccine, children getting vaccinated without parental consent, and comparison of other health issues with COVID-19. Findings suggest users adopted various terms to express their beliefs regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.
Extended Abstract • Student Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: Visually provocative: How visual elements influence IRA Facebook advertisement engagements • Choi, Jaewon Royce • This study examines relatively understudied aspect in disinformation research: affective nature of contents. We investigate the visual elements of images used in the Facebook ads purchased by Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA). Following systemic functional visual semiotic theory, visual elements of gaze, social distance, and efficacy statement were coded for images in IRA Facebook ads. Multiple regression analysis reveals significant joint effects of these visual elements and political leaning of ads on IRA ad engagements.
Extended Abstract • Student Paper Competition • A Study on the Health Information Sharing Behavior of the Chinese Elderly Adults on WeChat • Gan, Lingbo • This study examines the types and motivations of Chinese elderly adults using social media to share health information through in-depth interviews. Chinese elderly adults tend to share health information about healthcare and specific diseases through group and private chats with their strong relationships. This study concludes five motives for Chinese elderly to share information, and categorizes them according to relationships and information appeal. The cultural traits and local psychology behind the behaviors are also discussed.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • “When thousands and thousands are asking for it, it’s hard to put it off:” Wattpad.com’s technological affordances and teens’ experiences writing erotic One Direction fanfiction • Hedrick, Ashley • This paper uses interviews with 15 One Direction fanfiction writers on Wattpad.com to learn more about the interactions between Wattpad’s technological affordances and fans’ erotic writing about “bad boy” characters. Fanfiction bad boys often mistreat women, sometimes escalating to sexual coercion. While the popularity of erotic writing decreased teen girl writers’ internalized stigma regarding sex, some young writers learned to seek out bad boys in real life romantic relationships.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Hyperpersonal communication in social media: Examining the effect of social media affordance in self-disclosure processes by integrating cognitive load perspective • HUANG, WEI • The proposed perception-behavior linkage effect in present study bridges the gap between perceptions of social media affordances and behaviors, shedding new light on how disclosure perceptions may trigger communication behavior in CMC. Based on Hyperpersonal communication model, it was found that asynchronicity indirectly influence the self-disclosure processes through the affordance of editability, whereby the intensified perception of asynchronicity (or anonymity) could lead to stronger perception of editability as well as more amount of disclosure and depth of disclosure. Meanwhile, the relationship between perception of asynchronicity (or anonymity) and perception of editability was contingency depend on the frequency of social media use. More specifically, suggested by cognitive load theory, the working memory would decay the self-disclosure amount as the increase use of social media. The results are critical to understanding the dynamics and opportunities of self-disclosure in social media services that vary levels of identification and types of audience.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Exploratory Study of the Relationship between Privacy Concerns and Online Political Participation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram • Humayun, Muhammad Fahad • Previous research has concluded that online social network sites (SNS) may be benefiting their users by connecting and communicating with others (Donath & Boyd, 2004; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008) while there is also a growing body of research focusing on social media and privacy concerns (Bode, 2012). In this study, we aim to demonstrate that privacy concerns might limit political participation online using a convenience based sample. Through previous literature review, we hypothesized that a) Individual privacy concerns will predict lower levels of online political participation, b) Individuals’ privacy concerns will predict lower levels of the political use of Facebook, c) Individuals’ privacy concerns will predict higher levels of the political use of Instagram d) Individuals’ privacy concerns will predict lower levels of the political use of Twitter. Results show that the privacy concerns of citizens predict lower political participation on the Internet in general along with Facebook and Twitter but predict higher participation on Instagram.
Extended Abstract • Student Paper Competition • Alexa as perfect pandemic pals: Contextualizing motivations of anthropomorphizing voice assistants during Covid-19 quarantine • Liu, Fanjue • COVID-19 is fundamentally changing the way people connect, collaborate and socialize. With the ongoing pandemic amplifying people’s feeling of loneliness, technology has been integrated into peoples’ lives and used to solve challenges induced by social distancing and quarantines. Specifically, voice assistants are growing as a pandemic-era staple. Combining the uses and gratification approach and three-factor theory of anthropomorphism, this study investigates the psychological factors underlying the interaction between users and voice assistants that motivate users to anthropomorphize voice assistants, and tests whether the lack of sociality during COVID-19 pandemic motivates people to regain the feeling of connectedness through anthropomorphizing voice assistants.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • What Is Government Content Moderation? • McCammon, Muira • This study examines how government agencies negotiate and navigate what is appropriate for users acting on behalf of the U.S. administrative state to say. It traces the digital labor of government employees tasked with intervening when official government social media accounts amplify inappropriate content. The analytical framework proposed—government content moderation—is meant to extend understandings of how digital workers at government institutions negotiate the continued importance of information technology in promoting organizational identity.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • The Power of a Blue Check: Measuring the Impact of Influencers on Instagram Advertisements • McCaul, Emily • Brands increasingly utilize Instagram influencers as a digital marketing tool, because influencers have shown to be effective in engaging customers by offering them relatability and trustworthiness online via digital communication, as suggested by source credibility theory. This study seeks to explore the questions: How do Instagram users identify an Instagram influence, and what factors communicate to the consumer that a user carries “influence?” In this experiment, a 2×2 factorial design is used to present participants with two visual cues: follower counts and verification badges. Then, participants’ attitudes towards the product, attitudes towards the influencer and purchasing intentions are measured via a questionnaire. The results of this study found no significant interactions between the independent variables (i.e., follower count and verification badge) and the attitude towards the product, attitude towards the influencer’s credibility, or purchasing intention. These results carry implications for source credibility of influencers, as this study suggests, that perhaps follower count and verification badges do not play as big of a role in determining an audience’s trust and relatability to an influencer.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Filtering the I from the ideal: Examining preadolescents’ self-presentation in relation to appearance perceptions. • Meeus, Anneleen • This cross-sectional study examined how preadolescents’ different (i.e.,real and false) online self-presentation strategies are associated with their appearance-related perceptions. Results (n=638;52.4% girls,Mage=10.94,SDage=0.85) showed that when preadolescents engaged in more truthful self-presentations, they also felt more positive about their appearance. A significant moderation effect was found for social feedback, with the association becoming stronger as online popularity (e.g., likes) increased. Conversely, false self-presentation was negatively related to appearance-related perceptions, while no significant interaction effect was found.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Do you know what they are doing with your data? Digital Literacy and Perceived Understanding of Institutional Surveillance • Oden, Ayla • Although the divide in terms of technological access has largely been flattened, there remain large disparities in digital and online privacy literacy. Individuals with lower rates of digital literacy are often more vulnerable to online surveillance and privacy invasion threats. Using 2019 data collected by the Pew Research Center, this study investigates how digital literacy can play a mediating role in the perceived understanding of online institutional threats by the government and private companies.
Extended Abstract • Student Paper Competition • Extended Abstract: The Cost of Flow in Media Use: An Eye-tracking Study • Pham, Giang V. • This study examines the process through which flow absorbs media users’ attentional resources and results in a cost of time and effort for goals outside of the flow-inducing activity. An eye-tracking experiment is conducted to observe how video game players– who were assigned a single goal or multiple goals– allocate their attention to the game vs. to external cues. The findings will enhance the understanding of flow’s negative aspects and technology that alleviates flow costs for users.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Listening In: An Assessment of Uses and Gratifications with Clubhouse Users • Porter, Caleb • Clubhouse is a new anonymous, audio-only, invitation-only communication technology. In the year since its inception it has amassed an enormous following. The current study seeks to build foundational knowledge on Clubhouse user’s motivations for use, in accordance with the Uses and Gratifications theory. A big data, computational content analysis was performed using text mining to evaluate the conversation surrounding Clubhouse on Twitter. Results showed “communication utility” and “exclusivity,” among others, as key motivators for use.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Exploring COVID-19 Disinformation Through the Lens of Modality • Soh, Shi Nan • This study investigates the role of multimodal disinformation and fact-checks on message credibility and the intention to share disinformation online. Using the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) to control for variables that could impact credibility perceptions, this study features a 2 x 2 factorial design conducted on a Singapore sample (N = 205). The results show that multimodal fact-checks are more effective than monomodal fact-checks in debunking disinformation, with its impact mediated by message credibility.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Community Building with Discord: Effects of Interface Elements on User Perception and Experiences with Discord Servers • TAN, RYAN • Discord is a videogame-related social platform allowing gamers to join or host and customize chat servers. Customization allows each server to have a unique interface design. With the thousands of servers currently run by players and various corporations, why are some Discord servers more popular than others? We explored these questions through an online experiment (N = 130) coupled with a content analysis of Discord servers’ interface elements at varying levels of popularity. We discovered that players perceived lower community-building opportunities in the presence of automated role assignment and role restricted channels but these perceptions were elevated in the presence of hierarchical roles in the member-list and voice channels. These perceptions of community-building further influenced users’ attitudes and behavioral intention towards the server. These findings have theoretical implications for building an integrated model of new technology adoption as well as practical implications for building better platforms for game communities.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • More Gay Dating Apps Use, More Depressive Symptoms: Exploring How Masculinity Consciousness and Internalized Homophobia Influenced Gay Men in China • Wang, Dongya • The prevalence of masculinity on gay dating apps has negative impacts on gay men’s mental health. When cruising on gay dating apps, gay men often encountered the representation of masculinity from other users, which in turn provoked their own masculinity consciousness. Given masculinity consciousness’ association with internalized homophobia, gay dating apps use may further deteriorate gay men’s mental health. However, few studies have been conducted in the Chinese context. The current study utilized an online survey to examine how gay dating apps use influenced gay men’s depressive symptoms in the Chinese gay community in the neoliberal era. Eventually, 236 eligible participants were recruited via snowball sampling. The results demonstrated the positive relationship between gay dating apps use and users’ depressive symptoms. Moreover, the mediation effect that masculinity consciousness and internalized homophobia respectively had on gay dating apps use and depressive symptoms were demonstrated. Those findings called for attention to the negative impact of heave gay dating apps use, the prevalence of masculinity consciousness and internalized homophobia had on users’ mental health.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Measuring News Verification Behavior: A Scale Development and Cross-cultural Validation Study • Yu, Wenting • The actions that news audiences take to verify news bear great theoretical and practical relevance to journalism and communication studies. In existing literature, there is no standardized scale for measuring news verification behavior. The purpose of this study is to develop and to validate a multidimensional scale of news verification. The model is developed based on U.S participants, and then validated with Sweden samples. The results show that news verification can be considered a hierarchical factor (of second-order), which consists of three lower-order factors: message elements, social cues, and third-party sources. This model is the first news verification behaviour measurement scale developed with validation in communication research.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Using Theory of Planned Behavior, and Operationalization of Political Partisanship and Belief in Misinformation to Predict Individuals’ Intentions to Quit Social Media • Zain, Ali • This study uses the theory of planned behavior to predict individuals’ intentions to quit social media. Attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control significantly predicted intentions to quit social media, accounting for 68 percent of variance among participants (N = 525) representing the US census data. Political partisanship and belief in misinformation were also slightly increasing predictability of the TPB, indicating that they can be used as moderators or antecedents of subjective norms in future.
Research Paper • Student Paper Competition • Competing in Shopping Games: Modelling Gamification Effects of Social Livestreaming Shopping and Chinese Undergraduates’ Impulsive Buying • Zhu, Yicheng • Combining gamified interfaces with popular online influencers, Social Livestream Shopping (SLS) has emerged recently as a powerful format of online marketing in East Asian societies and the West. This paper explores the effect of gamification and influencer perception on Chinese college students’ competitive arousal and impulsive buying tendency. Building on S-O-R model and Competitive Arousal Model, our path analysis found gamification and influencer perception influences competitive arousal through the mediation of immersion.
Communicating Science, Health, Environment, and Risk Division
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • An Ecological Approach to Understand Scientists’ Commitment to Engage: Push, Pull, and Drag Forces • AbiGhannam, Niveen, University of Texas at Austin • Whereas norms have been traditionally linked to behavioral outcomes, their function within public engagement with science (PES) contexts are mixed. This paper takes an ecological approach to examine the PES pressures and expectations perceived by publicly engaged scientists. We found that scientists perceive unidirectional factors within science (push forces) and engagement contexts (pull forces) that drive them towards PES. Running counter to those are drag forces, or pressures not to engage. However, our analyses reveal that such pressures are mitigated through employing goal-oriented engagement strategies. Those findings enrich our understanding of the complex operation of norms in the ever-changing PES landscape.
Research Paper • The growth and disciplinary convergence of environmental communication: A bibliometric analysis of the field (1970-2019) • Akerlof, Karen, George Mason University • Recent reviews describe environmental communication as focused on mass media. However, these reviews may not provide a full picture of the discipline. We searched Scopus for articles published 1970 to 2019 containing the root environment* communicat*. Instead of siloed disciplines, we found dense, interconnected networks of journals across disparate areas of scholarship, including social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and business. This convergence is a positive sign for the field’s ability to answer fundamental questions.
Extended Abstract • Understanding COVID-19-related Stigma: A Topic Modelling and Exploratory Analysis of 353k Tweets • Ali, Mohammad, Syracuse University • This topic modelling and exploratory analysis of 350k Tweets examined people’s discussion on COVID-19 related stigma on Twitter.
Research Paper • Young adults’ preferences of vaping content on Instagram: Qualitative interviews utilizing the associative imagery technique • Alpert, Jordan • Vaping among young adults (YA) continues to rise, resulting in adverse health effects and vulnerability to nicotine dependence. Social influence theory and prior research indicate that vaping content appearing on Instagram is widespread and highly influential. Vaping content on Instagram is often portrayed positively, which may motivate YA to vaping trials. Using a photo-elicitation method, the associative imagery technique, we interviewed 24 YA about their perceptions of vaping content appearing on Instagram. Images representing popular posts were shown, such as colorful devices, people vaping, and depictions of flavors. Data synthesis from the interview transcripts revealed three main themes: 1) the power of color and visual aesthetics, meaning that YA were drawn to Instagram posts that were visually striking, which stood out from other posts, 2) distancing, as participants who vape socially were hesitant to like, share, and comment because they did not want to be labeled as a “vaper” to their followers, and 3) the environment influences perceptions, signifying how there are certain norms associated with using Instagram, and this dictates how content is viewed and the meaning it represents. For instance, warning labels appearing on vaping posts may remind YA about the dangers of vaping, but we also found that they enhanced perceived credibility and transparency of vaping brands. Overall, findings indicate that effective interventional campaigns to reduce YA vaping must get users’ attention through dynamic visuals, while also considering in-group and out-group identities related to vaping culture.
Research Paper • Fast Food Menu Calorie Labeling Contexts as Complex Contributing Factors to Overeating • Bailey, Rachel, Florida State University • The effectiveness of menu calorie labeling in limiting the amount of calories selected has been called into question since it was mandated within the Affordable Care Act. This study examined how contexts that are known to influence motivational and information processing might limit the effectiveness of calorie labeling in order to shed some light on the mixed findings in this area. An online experiment was conducted in which calorie labels were paired or not paired with visual cues in different motivational contexts: greater and lesser variety and energy density choices available. Results contribute to the general conclusions that calorie labels are not particularly effective. Specifically, the only context in which a calorie label succeeded in reducing calories selected was a high variety mix of low and high energy density foods with visual food cues present; however, this type of context elicited the greatest number of calories selected on average, even more than when only highly energy dense items were present. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Research Paper • Cultural Competence in Health Communication: A Concept Explication • Belobrovkina, Evgeniia • Cultural competence constitutes one of the cornerstones of effective health communication. Yet, there is a gap in the explication of cultural competence in health communication outside the healthcare setting. Therefore, the purpose of the study was: (1) to develop the conceptual definition of cultural competence for strategic health communication beyond the healthcare setting, and (2) to distinguish cultural competence from similar concepts. The proposed conceptual definition of cultural competence is presented.
Research Paper • COVID-19 vaccine intention and social cognitive theory: The role of individual responsibility and partisan media use • Borah, Porismita • We use national survey data and a moderated moderated mediation PROCESS model to examine the 1) associations between self-efficacy about COVID-19 and vaccine intention mediated by expectancies 2) moderating roles of individual responsibility and partisan media use. The findings show that the path from efficacy to expectancies is moderated by individual responsibility, while the path from efficacy to vaccine intention is moderated by liberal media use in meaningful ways. Implications are discussed.
Extended Abstract • EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Perceptions of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis on Twitter: Examining beliefs and barriers after approval of Descovy • Calabrese, Christopher • Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective strategy to reduce one’s risk of contracting HIV. To examine perceptions of PrEP on Twitter, we conducted a theoretically driven content analysis of relevant tweets from April 2019 to April 2020, six months before and after the approval of Descovy for PrEP. Results reveal a significant decrease in tweets involving barriers, specifically relating to access. Findings will inform health communication interventions for promoting PrEP among vulnerable populations.
Extended Abstract • A triangulated approach for understanding scientists’ perceptions of public engagement with science • Calice, Mikhaila, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Scientists are expected to engage with the public, especially when society faces challenges like COVID-19, but what public engagement means to scientists is not clear. Based on a mixed methods approach combining survey and focus group data, we find that scientists’ understanding of public engagement is as complex and inconsistent as the literature. Our findings also suggest that, regardless of tenure status, scientists believe public engagement with science includes citizen and community involvement in research.
Research Paper • “La Piedra Rosetta” Content Analysis of Health-specific stories on Genetic Testing from Spanish-language News Outlets • Chavez-Yenter, Daniel, University of Utah / Huntsman Cancer Institute • Genetic testing rates, which can inform disease risk and clinical management recommendations, are lower for Latinx populations than White populations. Explanations for this disparity have focused on individuals’ lack of awareness and greater concerns about testing, but how the news media might affect awareness and attitudes remains unexplored. In this project, we characterize health-specific stories (from 2008-2020) relating to genetic testing from the two largest U.S. Spanish-language news outlets, Telemundo and Univision.
Research Paper • Are Emotion-Expressing Messages More Shared on Social Media? A Meta-Analytic Review • Chen, Junhan, University of Maryland • Given that social media have brought significant change in the communication landscape, researchers have explored factors, such as emotion-expressing as a message feature, that can influence users’ information sharing on social media. The present study meta-analytically summarized 19 studies to advance the understanding of the associations between emotion-expressing messages and information sharing on social media in health and crisis communication contexts. Additional moderator analyses took into account study contexts, social media platforms, study design, theory-guided or not, sampling and coding methods, and emotion valences. Our study supported previous studies’ claim that emotion-expressing messages are more likely to be shared on social media in health and crisis contexts (r = 0.11, k = 19, N = 140,987). Moreover, results from our study showed that sampling and coding methods applied in previous studies moderated the main result. Implications for future study of emotion-expressing messages and information sharing in health and crisis communication contexts are discussed.
Research Paper • An Online Experiment Evaluating the Effects of Social Endorsement Cues, Message Source, and Responsibility Attribution on Young Adults’ COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions • Chen, Li, West Texas A&M University • Adopting the theory of planned behavior framework, this online experiment investigated the effects of social endorsement cues, message source, and responsibility attribution on young adults’ perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination and intentions to get vaccinated. Four major findings are identified. First, social endorsement cues positively affect attitude, subjective norms, and vaccination intentions. Second, individuals perceive an expert source as most credible, but a media outlet source results in most positive subjective norms. Third, responsibility attributions do not generate significant effects on dependent variables. Finally, social endorsement cues and message source each has some interaction effects with perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 on message outcomes.
Research Paper • Danger Control and Fear Control during Public Health Emergencies: Considering the Role of Fear and Hope in the EPPM across Different Levels of Trust • Chen, Liang • Public health emergencies post a great threat to global health and safety. The control of these emergencies needs the efforts of healthcare professionals as well as calls for the public to take protective actions. This study not only puts fear back in the EPPM, but also considers another similarly productive emotion: hope to examine the mechanisms behind the effects of four cognitive perceptions on protective actions and information avoidance. A national online survey was conducted with a total of 1,676 participants during the outbreak of COVID-19 in China from February 1 to February 29, 2020. The results revealed that perceived severity and perceived susceptibility could lead to fear, which in turn positively affect protective actions, while perceived self-efficacy and perceived response efficacy induced hope, which was positively associated with protective actions, but negatively associated with information avoidance. Furthermore, the mechanisms behind the relationships among cognitions, emotions and behaviors varied across different levels of trust in healthcare systems.
Research Paper • Examining Attenuated Response to COVID-19 Risk Through Interaction Effects between Increased Communicative Action, Negative Emotion, and Perceived Personal Knowledge • Choi, Minhee • This study examines attenuated risk responses among individuals who do not adhere to preventive COVID-19 measures (e.g., anti-maskers). Guided by the Social Amplification of Risk Model, a survey (N = 373) of non-abiding populations showed that media use positively influenced risk perceptions, information seeking and sharing, and preventive measures adoption. In contrast, negative emotional responses to COVID-19 and perceived knowledge hindered preventive measure adoption from increased information seeking and sharing. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Research Paper • Light at the end of the tunnel: Implications of COVID-19 vaccine availability and vaccination intention • Chu, Haoran • Due to the inequality in distribution, people in many demographic groups and locations still do not have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Utilizing a longitudinal survey and a choice-based conjoint analysis, this study examines vaccine availability and vaccination intention’s influence on people’s consideration of the COVID-19 vaccine. Low availability and intention increased attention to global barriers and high-level vaccine attributes such as vaccine safety. High availability articulates practical considerations such as cost and logistics.
Extended Abstract • When Do People Wear a Mask in Pandemic? An Integration of TPB and EPT • Chung, Surin, Ohio University • This study examined how perceptual variables (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) are associated with behavioral intention to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic and also how ethical ideologies (relativism, and idealism) moderate the relationship between two perceptual variables (attitude, and subjective norm) and behavioral intention. Using a cross-sectional survey, this study found that the three perceptual variables are positively associated with behavioral intention. Also, this study confirmed that relativism weakens the relationship between the two perceptual variables and behavioral intention.
Research Paper • Air quality just isn’t very sexy”: Audiences, problems, solutions in communicating about wildfire smoke in the Wes • Clotfelter, Susan, Colorado State University • “Environmental and public health professionals increasingly confront wildfire smoke events and the need to communicate air quality information internally and externally. Climate forecasts suggest the next decades will likely bring more frequent and more prolonged heat, drought, and wildfire smoke exposures. We know little, however, about how these professionals conceptualize their communication tasks, challenges, and opportunities. n a time of fragmented, convergent, and sometimes distrusted media. surveys of residents in multiple regions of the U.S. and other nations often show that citizens pay more attention to personal experience of air quality than official measures and alerts.
We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 17 air quality communicators in Colorado. This state has many of the features common to Western states: a wide variety of terrain and local economies; high- and low-population counties; increasingly congested interstates; and wide income disparity. The interviews yielded insights about how environmental and public health workers think about the residents of the state that they serve and the barriers to communicating air quality issues to those residents. These insights suggest that limited resources and lack of data make it difficult to communicate about air quality and that some state residents are more vulnerable to ill health effects, but less likely to be reached by messaging efforts. Creating more robust monitoring networks and multi-agency partnerships might create the capacity necessary to persuade more Colorado residents to engage in health-protecting actions.”
Research Paper • Facing the Strain: The Persuasive Effects of Conversion Messages on COVID-19 Vaccination Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions • Conlin, Jeff, Penn State University • This study examined two-sided conversion messages in relation to one-sided advocacy messages in reducing vaccine hesitancy related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Results demonstrated that, for vaccine-hesitant participants, conversion messages increased pro-COVID-19 vaccination attitudes and behavioral intentions. For high vaccine-hesitant participants, the relationship between conversion messages and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations was mediated through source credibility. For low vaccine-hesitant participants, mediation occurred through counterarguing. Findings have implications for health message tailoring related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
Extended Abstract • The Prevalence of Design Features Known to Hinder the Processing of Drug Risks and Side-Effects: A Content Analysis of TV Ads for Prescription Drugs • Dan, Viorela • Given widespread concerns over the strategic use of visuals in ads for prescription drugs (DTCA) to distract from drug risks and side-effects, a content analysis was conducted. We analyzed N = 88 ads shown during prime-time on ABC, CBS, and NBC for one week in autumn 2019. Low modality correspondence was found, as were high pacing and low visual complexity. DTCA seem to be made in a way that hinders processing of risks and side-effects.
Extended Abstract • Extended abstract: White young adults’ motives for COVID-19 information avoidance • Deline, Mary Beth • Research suggests that White young adults’ health actions contribute to inequitable higher risk burdens for Black, Latinx and Indigenous populations during the pandemic. Utilizing semi-structured qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this study examines the motives driving White young adults’ avoidance intentions and behaviors towards COVID-19 health information, and concomitant individual and collective efficacy. Preliminary findings indicate that perceived inability to act at both individual and collective levels is associated with specific information avoidance motivations.
Research Paper • Systematic Processing of COVID-19 Information: Relevant Channel Beliefs and Perceived Information Gathering Capacity as Moderators • Dong, Xinxia, University at Buffalo • This study applies the risk information seeking and processing (RISP) model to investigate the psychological factors that motivate people to process COVID-19 information in a systematic manner. Data collected from a survey of 519 Chinese respondents indicate that both relevant channel beliefs and perceived information gathering capacity moderate the impact of information insufficiency on systematic processing. These two variables also exert an interactive effect on systematic processing. Among other components of the RISP model, societal-level risk perception, informational subjective norms, and current knowledge are positively related to systematic processing. These findings suggest that science communication surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic needs to pay attention to the target audience’s beliefs about specific information channels, as well as their ability to process relevant information.
Research Paper • “I Had No Idea That Greenwashing Was Even a Thing”: Identifying the Cognitive Mechanisms of Exemplars in Greenwashing Literacy Interventions • Eng, Nicholas, Penn State University • This one factor (base-rate/image/quote/quote and image) between-subjects experiment (N = 476) examined how different presentation styles of a greenwashing literacy intervention influenced psychological processes (i.e., vividness, cognitive load, availability heuristic) and outcomes such as knowledge gain, skepticism, and information seeking. By synthesizing exemplification theory and cognitive theory of multimedia learning, this study finds evidence that vividness was the key mediator that explained the intervention’s effects on the study outcomes. Compared to the base-rate condition, exemplars were significant predictors of vividness, which in turn increased risk perceptions, information seeking, and word-of-mouth intentions. A literacy intervention that embedded both textual quotes and image exemplars had the strongest effect on vividness. No significant relationship was found between the interventions and the availability heuristic or cognitive load. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Research Paper • Promoting COVID-19 Social Distancing on Social Media: The Persuasive Role of Threat and Controlling Language Representation • Eng, Nicholas, Penn State University • This 2 (threat: high/low) x 2 (language: controlling/noncontrolling) between-subjects factorial experimental design (N = 446) examined how the degree of threat and controlling language used in persuasive health messages on social media, influences psychological reactance, threat and coping appraisals, and intentions to social distance. Combining psychological reactance theory and protection motivation theory, we found that a highly threatening message evokes greater psychological reactance, which in turn was negatively associated with threat and coping appraisals. Threat and coping appraisals were then found to be significant and positive predictors of social distancing intentions. However, we did not find evidence that the use of controlling language, nor its interaction with the degree of threat expressed, to have a significant influence on reactance or threat and coping appraisals. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Research Paper • Upping the Ante? The Effects of ‘Emergency’ and ‘Crisis’ Framing in Climate Change News • Feldman, Lauren, Rutgers University • This experiment examined how using the term “climate emergency,” “climate crisis,” or “climate change” in Twitter-based news stories influences public engagement with climate change and news perceptions, as well as whether these effects depend on whether the news focuses on climate impacts or climate actions. Terminology had no effect on climate engagement and only small effects on news perceptions. The focus of the news stories had more consistent effects on both engagement and news perceptions.
Research Paper • The Impact of Social Media Use on Protective Behaviors in Global Epidemics: The Mediating Model of Situation Awareness and Crisis Emotions • Feng, Yulei, School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Although there has been increasing attention to the effect of social media use during epidemics and outbreaks, relatively little is known the underlying mechanism by which social media plays a role in people’s cognitive, affective and preventive responses. Based on data collected during the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the current study investigates the correlations between social media use, situation awareness and public prevention by examining the mediation effect of crisis emotions—anxiety and fear. The results indicate that social media is positively related to situation awareness, anxiety and fear. Furthermore, social media use can predict preventive behaviors via the serial multiple mediation effect of situation awareness and fear. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Research Paper • Examining Antecedents to Accuracy- and Defense-Motivated Information Insufficiency in the COVID-19 Pandemic • Fung, Timothy, Hong Kong Baptist University • This study is to advance the Risk Information Seeking and Processing model by examining (1) the antecedents that induce individuals’ accuracy- and defense-motivated information insufficiency of COVID-19 information and (2) the effect of a broader array of the RISP’s perceived hazard characteristics and affective responses. We collected 960 responses from a probabilistic panel and found that fear and informational subjective norms influenced accuracy- and defense-motivated information sufficiency; risk inequity influenced worry and contentment.
Research Paper • Integrating Psychometric Paradigm of Risk and Issue Attention Cycle: A Study of Risk Information in News Coverage of Avian and Swine Influenza • Fung, Timothy, Hong Kong Baptist University • This study examines how news coverage present risk information of global outbreaks of avian and swine influenza. To that end, we integrated the psychometric paradigm of risk and issue attention cycle into a theoretical framework and conducted a content analysis for 1,626 news articles published in Hong Kong. The finding reveals what risk information and its related risk characteristics emphasized or ignored and how the emphasis differs across the stages within the issue attention cycle.
Research Paper • How Do Food Date Labels Lead to Consumer-level Food Waste? A Mixed-design Experiment • Gong, Ziyang • Waste resulting from consumers’ confusion about foods’ date labels is a multi-billion-dollar problem in the United States. The present study examines the mechanisms underlying such labels’ influence on people’s willingness to consume, and whether exposure to additional information regarding sensory assessment of food products or storage practices could help to reduce food waste. We conducted a mixed-design experiment in which the between-subjects variable comprised five commonly used food date labels (i.e., “Best if Used By”, “Use By”, “Sell By”, “Enjoy By”, and a date without any explanatory phrase), and the within-subjects variable consisted of three information conditions (i.e., basic information, sensory information, and food-storage information). Our data indicate that date labels affected consumers’ willingness to eat yogurt through two mediators, quality concern and safety concern. The direct effects of date-label variation on willingness to consume were non-significant after controlling for the two mediators. Additionally, when the participants were told that the yogurt had a normal color and odor, or were provided with details of how it should have been stored, their intention to eat it rose significantly. These findings enhance our understanding of how food date labels affect consumer-level food waste and provide insights that can aid the development of educational campaigns to reduce it.
Research Paper • Moral hazard or not? The effects of learning about carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on mitigation support. • Hart, P. Sol, University of Michigan • Recent research has yielded mixed results as to whether exposure to information about geoengineering leads to a risk compensation, risk salience, or null effect. Focusing on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), we investigate whether these inconsistent results may be a function of the presence or absence of information about climate change impacts. Through two experimental studies, moderated-mediation analyses reveal that, overall, exposure to CDR information is likely to have a null effect, thus failing to support either risk compensation or risk salience, whereas exposure to climate change risk information can increase perceived threat and, indirectly, policy support.
Extended Abstract • Effectiveness of VR Intervention in Promoting Sustainable Hand Hygiene • Hu, Haohan • Maintaining hand hygiene is one of the most important preventive measures for infectious diseases. However, research finds young adults reported less frequent hand-washing. This study developed an immersive hyperreality intervention in promoting hand hygiene and its effectiveness was tested by 2 (environment: VR vs. 2D video) x 3 (perspective) factorial experiments. Preliminary findings have demonstrated levels of immersion can affect participant’s embodiment and self-efficacy.
Research Paper • How Far into the Future: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Temporal Framing on Risk Perception, Attitude, Behavioral Intention, and Behavior • Huang, Guanxiong • Temporal framing is a messaging strategy that highlights either the proximal or distant consequences of a recommended behavior in communication efforts. This meta-analysis investigated the relative persuasiveness of proximal- versus distal-framed messages. The findings supported the overall small advantage of proximal versus distal frames in facilitating persuasion (r = 0.0706). In terms of specific outcomes, proximal frames were more effective than distal frames in increasing risk perception (r = 0.1216) and behavioral intention (r = 0.0776). However, no such effects were found on attitude or actual behavior. Sample type (student vs. nonstudent) and participant age moderated the temporal framing effect.
Research Paper • To Vax or Not to Vax: The Impact of Issue Interpretation and Trust on Vaccination • Huang, Yi-Hui Christine, City University of Hong Kong • We investigate the interaction between public trust and individuals’ COVID-19 vaccination intentions. A total of 6,231 respondents from Hong Kong and Taiwan completed questionnaires. Results demonstrated that trust plays a crucial role in promoting public vaccine uptake through a motivated reasoning process. Additionally, issue interpretation moderated the relationship between trust and vaccination intention, indirectly affecting vaccination intention via trust. Our findings should help relevant agencies better understand public mindsets and formulate communication strategies accordingly.
Research Paper • Promoting COVID-19 Vaccination: The Interplay of Message Framing, Psychological Uncertainty, and Public Agency • Huang, Yan • The study examines how framing, psychological uncertainty, and message source (national versus local health agencies) influence campaign effectiveness in promoting COVID-19 vaccines. A 2 (gain- vs. loss-frame) × 2 (high vs. low uncertainty) × 2 (CDC vs. Houston Health Department) between-subjects experiment was conducted among Houston residents (N = 408) in mid-December, 2020. Findings revealed that a loss frame led to better persuasion outcomes among participants primed with high uncertainty; a gain frame was more persuasive under conditions of low uncertainty because it reduced perceived threat to freedom and psychological reactance. Additionally, the local agency elicited more favorable vaccine beliefs than the national agency when uncertainty is low; the difference disappeared under conditions of high uncertainty. The study offers theoretical implications for framing research and practical implications for campaign message design.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: Beyond Individualized Responsibility Attributions? How Eco Influencers Communicate Sustainability on TikTok • Huber, Brigitte, University of Vienna • Sustainability communication is of increasing importance. While sustainability communication in traditional media has already been researched, less is known about social media in this regard. We investigate how eco influencers communicate sustainability on TikTok. Findings from a content analysis (n = 242) reveal that individual responsibility attributions are dominant in videos posted on the platform. Videos presenting broader perspectives are more likely to refer to empirical evidence. Implications for science and environmental communicators are discussed.
Research Paper • The framing power of Twitter: Examining whether individual tweets are reframing news media frames • Hubner, Austin, The Ohio State University • This study replicates a traditional framing and source analysis by examining how two mainstream news outlets framed climate change in 2018. We extend the traditional analysis by examining whether individuals reframe the original news media frame when sharing news articles to Twitter. Specifically, we computationally examine the extent to which the user-generated tweets (n = 9,558) are similar to the original news media frame and whether the similarity is dependent on the actor type.
Research Paper • Understanding Public Reaction to Celebrity Suicide Cases in Online News Comments • Ittefaq, Muhammad, University of Kansas • Celebrity suicide reporting is worth exploring as it carries an enormous potential to trigger copycat suicidal behavior among vulnerable populations; yet this topic is under-explored in Muslim countries. This study is aimed at analyzing online readers’ comments related to 12 celebrity suicide news stories in Pakistan (N=2,190) to understand their conversation patterns. By applying a text analytics approach, we assess core themes of online discussions about celebrity suicide news stories published between June 1, 2011 and August 30, 2020 in five mainstream Pakistani English newspapers. The findings revealed seven themes, including: 1) stress, depression, and mental health issues; 2) suspicious and controversial investigation reports; 3) need for stronger accountability to address corruption in the country; 4) conspiracy theories and misinformation; 5) criticizing media and security institutions; 6) sympathy for deceased and their families; 7) suicide and religion (Islam). the most frequent words in the data set were: suicide (51), police (34), sad (18), family (17), officer (17), corruption (15), death (15), murder (14), person (14), news (13), investigation (12). Additionally, Web 2.0 opens an avenue in Muslim-majority countries to discuss suicide-related issues, which are becoming a major public health concern but are often neglected due to religious and other stigmas.
Research Paper • When Scientific Literacy Meets Nationalism: Exploring Factors that underlie the Chinese Public’s Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories • Jia, Hepeng, School of Communication, Soochow University • This paper investigated the Chinese public’s beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories during the current global pandemic, and we explored the factors associated with the belief in conspiracy theories in China. Based on a national sample (N=1000), we categorized widespread COVID-19 conspiracy theories in China into three types: Type Ⅰ that suggested the pandemic’s foreign origin, Type Ⅱ being defined as “China as culprit” conspiracy theories, and Type Ⅲ indicating that the virus was manufactured in the West. Results showed that scientific literacy and nationalism were constant factors associated with the conspiracy beliefs. Scientific literacy was associated with decreased beliefs in all three types of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Nationalism was related to the increased belief in the type of theories favoring China’s stance while minorly related to decreased belief in “China as culprit” theories. Among other factors, the roles of self-efficacy in science and trust in science varied with the nature of the conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the role of the media trust depended on the type of conspiracy theories and the kind of media outlets. These findings reminded us of the multi-faceted conspiracy beliefs in China, the complicity of their contributing factors, and the urgency to study them further.
Research Paper • Self-Disclosure as a Coping: How Self-Disclosure Influences Mental Health in Chinese Online Depression Groups • Jiang, Mulin • This study examines how self-disclosure predicts mental health outcomes in the context of online depression groups in China. We investigated whether engagement with different types of self-disclosure can help mitigate depressive symptoms. Results from online survey (N = 205) indicated that the depth, honesty, intent and valence of self-disclosure have positive relationships with perceived social support, and perceived esteem support served as a key mechanism in the effects of self-disclosure.
Extended Abstract • Has COVID-19 Impacted the Risk Perceptions and Cessation Intent of Youth Vapers? • Jun, Jungmi, University of South Carolina • Emerging evidence indicates vapers’ greater exposure to COVID19 risk. Applying the health belief model, we examine how perceived risk of vaping associated with COVID19 and cessation intent have changed for youth during the pandemic. Data come from two waves of online surveys sampling US youth (aged 18-25) collected in 2020 (N = 165) and 2021 (N = 347). We found significant increases of perceived threats of vaping and benefit of cessation between the two waves.
Research Paper • COVID-19 Vaccine Reviews on YouTube: What Do They Say? • Kang, Da-young, University of Alabama • This study uses the social communication framework to explore the frequently viewed COVID-19 vaccine review contents on YouTube. Quantitative content analysis of 78 review videos reveals the unique features of vaccine review videos. Two-thirds of the vaccine videos reviewed were created by medical experts. None of them displays a negative valence toward vaccination; all have a positive or neutral valence toward vaccination. All videos convey their story with narrative, and their topics were pro-vaccine themes.
Extended Abstract • Vaping Flavors and Flavor Representation: A Test of Youth Risk Perceptions and Novelty Perceptions • Katz, Sherri Jean, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota • This experiment tests whether vaping flavors (tobacco vs. fruit) and flavor representations on packages (flavor color, flavor image) influence how middle school youth perceive vaping products. While results show no difference in risk perceptions based on condition, novelty perceptions are highest among those who view the fruit-flavored vaping product with flavor color and flavor image. Findings suggest that restricting flavor representation on packaging might reduce how fun and interesting youth perceive these products to be.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: How Self-Disclosure and Gender Influence Perceptions of Scientists’ Credibility and Likeability on Social Media • Kim, Nahyun • A 2 (types of disclosure: personal vs. political) x 3 (amount of disclosure: 20% vs. 50% vs. 80%) x 2 (gender of the scientist: male vs. female) between-subjects experiment (N = 734) showed that people favored scientists more for personal disclosure, rated them as being more competent with political disclosure, and liked female scientists more in general. However, the gender of the scientist did not moderate the effect of disclosure type and gender of participants.
Extended Abstract • How attribution of crisis responsibility affects Covid-19 vaccination intent: The mediating mechanism by institutional trust and emotions • Kim, Ji Won • This study examined how attribution of crisis responsibility affects intention to take Covid-19 vaccines, specifically how institutional trust and emotions may play in this process. Results showed that attribution of crisis responsibility had a negative influence on vaccination intent by lowering institutional trust and eliciting ethics-based emotions. Findings provide implications for risk communicators and policy makers to develop strategies to mitigate vaccine hesitancy.
Research Paper • Conspiracy vs debunking: The role of emotion on public engagement with YouTube • Kim, Sang Jung • Conspiracy theories infamous for their emotional manipulation have challenged science epistemology and democratic discourse. Despite the extensive literature on misinformation and the role of emotion in persuasion, less is understood about how emotion is used differently between conspiracy and debunking messages and the impact of emotional framing on public engagement with science. Our paper fills these gaps by collecting and analyzing emotional frames in YouTube videos that propagate or debunk COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
Research Paper • Emotionally connected: Longitudinal relationships between fear of COVID-19, smartphone online self-disclosure, and psychological health • Koban, Kevin, University of Vienna • In a two-wave panel survey conducted during the first lockdown in spring 2020, this study shows that fear of COVID-19 increased online self-disclosure on social media over time. Online self-disclosure then, in turn, fostered individuals’ happiness over time but did not affect psychological well-being. There was also no over-time relationship between online self-disclosure and fear of COVID-19, suggesting that fear can prompt self-disclosure during the pandemic, but self-disclosure does not help alleviate fear over time.
Research Paper • How Sympathy and Fear Mediate the Interplay between Benefit and Scarcity Appeal Organ Donation Messages • Kong, Sining, Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi • This study examines how sympathy and fear mediate the interplay between benefit appeal and scarcity appeal regarding attitude and intention of organ donation. To examine the moderated mediation effect, this study conducted a 2 (other-benefit appeal vs. self-benefit appeal) X 2 (non-scarcity vs. scarcity appeal) online experiment. The results revealed that as altruistic behavior, an other-benefit appeal would generate more sympathy than a self-benefit appeal message. Additionally, the non-scarcity condition generated more positive attitudes toward organ donation compared with the scarcity condition. Besides, both sympathy and fear positively influenced attitudes and intentions of organ donation. This study also provides theoretical and practical implications.
Extended Abstract • Using Machine Learning and Social Network Analysis to Understand the Motives behind the Spread of “Plandemic” Conspiracy Theory during COVID-19 • Kumble, Sushma, Towson University • Conspiracy theories are often disseminated through disinformation, and individuals are attracted to conspiracy theories to fulfill specific epistemic, existential, and social motives. (Douglas et al., 2019). Utilizing these taxonomies, the present study uses unsupervised machine learning to uncover which of these motives were more prevalent in the spread of the documentary “Plandemic.” Further, utilizing social network analysis, the present study also looks at which prominent actors within the network aided in dissemination of such information.
Research Paper • Amplification of Risk Concerns through Social Media and Beyond for Covid-19: A Cross-Country Comparison • Lai, Chih-Hui, Academia Sinica • Social media has been an important venue of obtaining communication during health or environmental risks. This study investigates the questions of the extent to which public expressive use of social media (liking, commenting, sharing, and posting) amplifies the interpretation of risk and influences the subsequent behavioral responses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a cross-country and two-wave survey data in the U.S. and Taiwan, results of this study demonstrate that amplification of risk happened because public expressive use of social media increased personal and global risk concerns, which in turn facilitated protective action taking. Moreover, this study revealed country differences in terms of the circumstances under which social media use shapes risk concerns and the situation in which risk concerns influence behavioral responses. In the U.S., the more individuals use social media in a public and expressive way, the more likely they report societal risk concern, and this happened among people who received risk information from different sources beyond social media. In Taiwan, the relationships between personal/societal risk concerns and engagement in protective action varied by discussion network heterogeneity. Discussion networks strengthened the effects of risk concerns on behavioral responses.
Extended Abstract • Beliefs and Practices around Antibiotics Use and Resistance in Singapore using the Protection Motivation Theory • Lee, Si Yu, Nanyang Technological University Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) • Misuses of antimicrobials in the community have been identified as a salient contributor to antimicrobial resistance in Singapore. However, little is known about the belief, practices, and socio-psychological factors driving antibiotic misuse in the community. As the first nationally representative study to address these gaps, 967 respondents in Singapore were surveyed on their knowledge, attitudes, and practices about antibiotics antimicrobial use. The protection motivation theory was used as the underlying theoretical framework.
Research Paper • Examining COVID-19 tweet diffusion using an integrated social amplification and risk and issue-attention cycle framework • Lee, Edmund, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore • Drawing on the social amplification of risk (SARF) and issue-attention cycle frameworks, we examined amplification of 1,641,273 COVID-19 tweets through: (a) topics: key interests of discussion; (b) temperament: emotions of tweets; (c) topography (i.e., location); and (d) temporality (i.e., over time), using computational and manual content analysis. Amplification patterns across the issue-attention cycle highlighted an inherent and insidious politicization of COVID-19, as well as misplaced premature optimism that COVID-19 would be controlled from the get-go.
Research Paper • Is higher Risk Perception Necessarily Worse? Source Credibility in Government Attributed Media Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic • Li, Longfei, School of media and communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Source credibility in authority is important for “infodemic” prevention and social stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, current understanding is limited with respect to how media usage of residents from worst-hit area is associated with their risk perception and source credibility in government. This study adopted the questionnaire survey method (N=908) and constructed the model of “media use – risk perception – source credibility in government” based on the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). We found that both traditional media use and social media use have positive effects on source credibility in government, and this effect is partly formed through the mediating effect of risk perception. In addition, higher risk perception was accompanied by higher source credibility, but living area factors significantly positively moderated the relationship between them. Rural residents with higher risk perception did not form higher source credibility perception. We suggest that people should pay more attention to the “infomedic” in the rural areas of the pandemic. In addition, the government should objectively view people’s risk perception, timely release information, conduct effective risk communication, and establish information authority. In-depth study on the influence of politicization and socialization of this health issue and its mechanism of action is of great significance for understanding people’s information behavior and providing certain policy enlightenment for media governance during current COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Paper • Recycling as a Planned Behavior: The Moderating Role of Perceived Behavioral Control • Liu, Zhuling, University at Buffalo • This study examines the effectiveness of a public service announcement (PSA) video designed based on the theory of planned behavior in motivating people to engage in proper recycling. Based on a representative sample of New York State residents (N = 707), survey results show that all three variables of the theory of planned behavior are significant predictors of recycling intention. The PSA video increases recycling intention through attitude, but this mediated relationship is only significant among individuals with low perceived behavioral control. These results suggest that environmental campaigns using a video format may be particularly effective among audiences who perceive low self-efficacy in engaging in recycling behavior.
Research Paper • Narrative and Non-Narrative Strategies in Televised Direct-To-Consumer Advertisements for Prescription Drugs Aired in the U.S. • Liu, Jiawei, Cornell University • This study content analyzed narrativity in televised direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs aired on television in the United States between 2003 and 2016 for four different health conditions (heart disease, diabetes, depression, and osteoarthritis). Results showed that while televised DTCA for prescription drugs spent more time discussing drug risks than drug benefits, both narratives and factual evidence were more frequently used to communicate drug benefits than drug risks. Implications are discussed.
Research Paper • Seeing from the eyes of suffered peers: Using distance-framed narrative to communicate risks related to e-cigarette use • Liu, Sixiao, University at Buffalo, SUNY • To address the health risks associated with e-cigarette use among young adults, this research examined the effectiveness of distance-framed narratives in shaping e-cigarette user and non-user’s attitude and behavioral intention. Through the mediation of identification, transportation, and distance perception of risks associated with e-cigarette use, narrative messages featuring a socially similar character were more effective in motivating attitudinal and behavioral change, but high and low-certainty plots differently influenced users and non-users’ response to the messages.
Research Paper • The knowledge gap hypothesis in Malaysia: Assessing factors shaping the public’s perceived familiarity of nuclear energy • Looi, Jiemin, University of Texas at Austin • Perceived familiarity plays an important role in helping laypeople make well-informed policy decisions, thereby facilitating technological developments. However, this knowledge component is often overlooked in extant literature. Hence, this study draws upon the knowledge gap hypothesis to investigate predictors for the public’s perceived familiarity with nuclear energy in Malaysia — an under-studied context in nascent phases of nuclear energy development. A nationally representative survey of 1,000 Malaysians attested to the knowledge gap hypothesis. Education served as a better predictor for perceived familiarity than household income. Attention to television news, interpersonal discussion, and news elaboration were positively related to perceived familiarity. Notably, several three-way interactions were found: Increased attention to television news and interpersonal discussion consistently amplified perceived familiarity gaps regardless of laypeople’s education levels. Meanwhile, increased attention to newspapers and interpersonal discussion mitigated perceived familiarity gaps only among highly educated laypeople. The findings extended the knowledge gap hypothesis by incorporating perceived familiarity and news elaboration in the underrepresented context of nuclear energy in Malaysia. Additionally, the findings informed policymakers regarding the impacts of education while notifying newsmakers about the effectiveness of public education across media platforms. Directions for future research are also provided.
Research Paper • Magnifying the infodemic: Identifying opinion leaders in networks of misinformation about COVID-19 on Twitter • Looi, Jiemin, University of Texas at Austin • Considering the proliferation of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 on social media, this study drew upon the multi-step flow model of communication to identify opinion leaders that drive misinformation and the roles they fulfill within Twitter networks — a platform that has amplified misinformation regarding COVID-19 and prior health crises. Using R, this study conducted social network analysis and topic modeling based on 100 unique Twitter users randomly selected from a corpus of 73,808 tweets collected across several time intervals. The findings revealed that laypeople with online clout (e.g., independent activists, self-proclaimed scientific experts, self-proclaimed journalists) and Twitter bots possessed the greatest prominence (in-degree centrality), outreach (out-degree centrality), and social connections (betweenness centrality) within networks of misinformation about COVID-19. Notably, the results provided mixed support for conventional indicators of opinion leadership on Twitter (e.g., follower count, Twitter verification) as predictors of users’ roles within misinformation networks. Congruent with the multi-step flow model of communication, the results also indicated a highly clustered community structure whereby misinformation about COVID-19 on Twitter cascaded from opinion leaders to their social connections. While prior research has predominantly examined the detriments of misinformation propagated by socially prominent individuals (e.g., politicians, newsmakers, celebrities), the results suggested that misinformation disseminated by laypeople and Twitter bots are extremely damaging and should not be overlooked by academic scholars and social media developers. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.
Research Paper • COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: The effects of direct and indirect online opinion cues on psychological reactance toward health campaigns • Lu, Fangcao • The novel affordances on social media have altered the way people digest health information. This study takes the initiative to examine the roles of direct (user comments) and indirect (reaction emojis) opinion cues on a Facebook post promoting COVID-19 vaccines in influencing audiences’ psychological reactance toward the post and their vaccine hesitancy. We conducted a 2 (comments: support vs. oppose vaccines) × 2 (reaction emojis: support vs. oppose vaccines) between-subjects experiment among both supporters and opponents of COVID-19 vaccines (N = 554). Results showed that anti-vaccine comments accompanying a COVID-19 vaccine promotion post provoke audiences’ psychological reactance toward the post via the mediating effects of bandwagon perception and presumed post influence on others. The psychological reactance, in turn, incurs their COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: From “Blue” Planet to “Our” Planet: Nature documentaries demonstrate increasing emphasis on collective identity over time • Lull, Robert, California State University, Fresno • Using the Social Identity Model of Collective Action as theoretical framework, this study examines how nature documentaries use language indicating collective identity. Closed captions from 39 episodes of five series released between 2001-19 were analyzed for words such as “we,” “our,” and “together.” Results demonstrated a consistent trend in increasing collective identity word density over time, culminating with significant differences between the series Blue Planet II (2017) and Our Planet (2019) and their predecessors.
Research Paper • Understanding scientific optimism across 45 countries: Effects of Internet exposure, trust, and their interdependence • Luo, Chen, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University; School of International Media Education, Communication University of China • Enlightened by the scientific literacy model and the cognitive miser model, this study analyzes determinants of scientific optimism on a global scale. By adopting data from the latest wave of the World Values Survey covering 45 countries (n = 51, 537), the effects of Internet exposure, trust, value predispositions, and their interactions are clarified. Most importantly, results demonstrate displacement relationship and reinforcement relationship between components of the two models. Explanations and implications are further discussed.
Research Paper • Exploring public perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine online: Semantic network analysis of two social media platforms from the United States and China • Luo, Chen, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University; School of International Media Education, Communication University of China • This study adopts tweets (n = 756, 118) and Weibo posts (n = 362, 950) to examine how the American and Chinese people perceive the COVID-19 vaccine on social media. Results from semantic network analysis and automatic sentiment analysis demonstrate distinct discussion themes and emotion distributions on the two platforms. The differences are deeply connected with the cultural characteristics of the two countries. Enlightened by the cultural sensitivity approach, we accentuate the critical role of culture in understanding public health issues.
Research Paper • Pandemic in the age of social media: A content analysis of health organizations social media engagement strategies during COVID-19 outbreak • Lyu, Yuanwei, The university of alabama • Taking the approach of strategic health risk communication, this study examined the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related social media posts by representative public health organizations on Instagram. A content analysis was conducted to identify the types of communication, the use of visual strategies, primary emotion and risk perception in COVID-19 communication. The results suggested that social media messaging may be the best practice of risk communication, when it is based on the strategic use of risk communication principles such as addressing public fears and concerns, incorporating transcendent visual imagery, and providing solution-based information. Furthermore, our findings indicated that Instagram could be a valuable platform for establishing meaningful and interactive communication during the pandemic. The implications for strategic communication professionals are also discussed in the context.
Research Paper • Exploring the Cosmos: The Rhetoric of Successful Science Television • Matthews, Alexandrea • This study investigated how the rhetorical elements of kairos, ethos, and mythos were used in both Cosmos and its remake, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, to determine the similarities and differences between the two series through a coded qualitative data content analysis. The results showed many examples of rhetoric, which may be used with the intention of creating acceptance of science, improving understanding of complicated concepts, and portraying science in a more relatable way.
Research Paper • The Impact of Emotion and Humor on Support for Global Warming Action • McKasy, Meaghan, Utah Valley University • This study aims to understand the influence of mirth and emotions on support for global warming as elicited by different humor types. It also examines the potential moderating role of individual climate views. The mediating paths through mirth and anger were significant, while hope was not. However, a post hoc analysis found a that climate views significantly moderated the influence of hope on support for global warming actions. The implications of our findings are discussed.
Extended Abstract • Understanding the nature of communication in a smartphone-based peer support group for alcohol use disorder • MOON, TAE-JOON, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio • This study examines the nature of communication (e.g., topics of messages, structure of communication) in a smart-phone based peer support group (PSG) for people with alcohol use disorder. Among the 170 study participants, 126 participated in communication with peers within the PSG at least once during the 12-month intervention period. Using a natural language processing approach and sequential analytic methods, this study identified four main topics of discussion and three distinctive sequences of supportive communication.
Extended Abstract • Hydropower in the news: how journalists do (not) cover the environmental and socioeconomic costs of dams in Brazil • Mourao, Rachel, Michigan State University • Despite massive environmental impact and socioeconomic risk, hydropower dams continue to be widely adopted in developing countries. This study uses qualitative and quantitative content analyses to identify how Brazilian media has portrayed hydropower in the past two decades. We found that news about hydropower relies on official and construction companies’ voices and focuses on economic progress, bureaucracy, corruption, and politics, ignoring the risks posed by the dams and silencing local residents and activists.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: The Role of Felt Responsibility in Climate Change Political Participation • Munson, Sammi, George Mason University • This study investigates the role of felt responsibility to reduce climate change as an antecedent to climate change related political participation in the form of willingness to join a campaign, likelihood of supporting pro-climate presidential candidates, and past contacting of elected officials. Using nationally representative survey data (N = 1,029) we found that felt responsibility has a significant positive relationship with future behavioral intent, but not past behavior. Implications and future research are discussed.
Extended Abstract • Measuring the brand of science: Implications for science communication research and practice • Newman, Todd • Research on branding seeks to uncover the emotional, sensory, and cognitive meanings when a person first encounters an object, person, or idea. This paper will uncover these meanings related to science, and why a branding framework is important for science communication theory and practice. Reporting on survey data collected in March 2021, our results suggest a consistent brand image for science, yet a more nuanced context for how different branding constructs relate to science.
Research Paper • Differential Effects of Mass Media and Social Media on Health Prevention for E-cigarettes Among Young Adults • Oh, Sang-Hwa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Despite the importance of examining the effects of different media platforms in addressing emerging public health risks, relatively little studies have investigated the differential effects on the two levels of health prevention, individual- and policy-levels. Guided by the framework of the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) and the differential-impact hypothesis, this study explores the underlying mechanism through which traditional media and social media promote the two levels of health prevention for e-cigarettes. Analyzing survey data from 246 young adults, this study found that obtaining e-cigarette messages from social media was more influential than traditional media in shaping e-cigarette cessation efforts and leading to policy support for regulating the selling and buying of e-cigarettes. Exposure to anti e-cigarette messages in social media affected perceived exposure of close others to anti-vaping messages, and in turn, affected perceived influenced of close others on shaping intention to avoid vaping, which resulting in increased two levels of health prevention for e-cigarettes.
Research Paper • Empowering migrant domestic workers during public health crises through integrated connectedness to storytelling networks • Oktavianus, Jeffry, City University of Hong Kong • Learning from the experience of Indonesian migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic, this study attempts to examine how the integrated connectedness to storytelling networks (ICSN), comprising interpersonal communication, community organizations, and media outlets, produces empowerment effects amid health emergencies. The findings suggested that while ICSN directly affected interactional health empowerment of MDWs, the influences of ICSN on intrapersonal and behavioral health empowerment were mediated by perceived social support.
Research Paper • Challenging the stigma of a “woman’s illness” and “feminine problem”: A cross-cultural analysis of news stories about eating disorders and men • Parrott, Scott • Eating disorders present serious health consequences for men in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Nevertheless, men may not seek treatment for eating disorders because eating disorders are stigmatized by the lay population as feminine. Indeed, health professionals describe men who experience eating disorders as vulnerable to double stigma because of cultural norms concerning mental illness and masculinity. The mass media represent an important source of information concerning mental illnesses, including eating disorders, and research suggests that mass media exposure carries the potential to mitigate or nurture stigma. Given this background, we examined how news organizations in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. covered men and eating disorders between 2010 and 2019. Our study found that journalists often provided men a platform through which to communicate their experiences with eating disorders, challenging assumptions concerning so-called “feminine problems.”
Extended Abstract • Beyond a national sample: Contextualizing underserved communities’ vaccine hesitancy during COVID-19 • Paulin, Lisa, North Carolina Central University • By all accounts, ethnic minorities have suffered more during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Existing health disparities have been amplified along with an infodemic that has caused widespread confusion and mistrust. The study shares results of a concerted effort to reach communities with persistent health and economic disparities in the U.S. southeast through testing events, in-person paper surveys and targeted, accurate communication. The survey results found relationships between vaccine hesitancy, race, and income/education as well as relationships between information sources and emotional well-being.
Research Paper • How Lay Audiences Evaluate Scientific Uncertainty Disclosure: The Roles of Source and Preference for Communication of Uncertainty • Ratcliff, Chelsea, University of Georgia • Understanding how public audiences evaluate science news, especially portrayals of uncertain science, remains a pressing research goal. Contributing to this understanding, the current study compared U.S. adults’ (N = 502) responses to science news stories depicting either certain or uncertain implications of a study about genomics and depression. The (un)certainty was conveyed by either the scientists responsible for the research (“primary” scientists) or by an unaffiliated scientist. Results of this 2 × 2 factorial design showed no main effect of uncertainty disclosure on news article credibility, scientist trustworthiness, or perceived accuracy of the scientists’ depiction. However, primary scientists’ depictions were perceived as significantly more accurate when statements of either certainty or uncertainty came from the primary scientists rather than an unaffiliated scientist. Individual preference for communication of scientific uncertainty also moderated these effects, such that communicating uncertainty (vs. certainty) produced greater scientist trust and news credibility, but only when preference for disclosure was high—and only when disclosure came from the primary scientist. Intolerance of uncertainty and need for cognition did not moderate the effects.
Extended Abstract • Corporate Responsibility in the Global Village: The Roles of Global Identity, CSR Globality, and Construal Level • Ryoo, Yuhosua, Southern Illinois University • Understanding consumers’ prioritization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives is of interest to marketers in the global market. This research showed that consumers with a global (local) identity resonate with global (local) CSR initiatives and this tendency is prevalent when presented with high (low) construal level messages.
Extended Abstract • Scapegoated and Marginalized: European Press Coverage of the Roma During the COVID-19 Pandemic • Schneeweis, Adina, Oakland University • This research evaluates one year of European news during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine the public discourse about the Roma, its largest and most marginalized ethnic community. Drawing from 224 news published in English, French, Italian, and Romanian in 59 outlets, the study finds that much of the coverage highlights how vulnerability and marginalization have been greatly exacerbated by the health crisis, yet with considerable focus on blame and backwardness at the same time.
Research Paper • Beyond Fear Appeals: The Role of Hope in Improving Effectiveness of Health Messages • SEO, YOUNGJI • One of the understudied areas in health communication research is hope. This study examines the effect of efficacy-inducing information on hope and subsequent attitudinal health behaviors. A total of five hundred fifty-three adults in the United States read health promotion social media posts designed to induce perceived self-efficacy (vs. non-efficacy-inducing health information) in fear appeal regarding four different health diseases including melanoma, COVID-19, diabetes, and heart diseases. Results indicated that exposure to efficacy-inducing information enhanced hope, which boosted behavioral intention and intention to seek information. However, the effect was varied by each health topic. Statistical evaluation supported a model where the indirect effect of exposure to efficacy-inducing information on behavioral intention and intention to seek information through feelings of hope. Implications for health communication theory and practice are further discussed.
Research Paper • How Group Identity Polarizes Public Deliberation on Controversial Science • Shao, Anqi • Misinformation and out-group hatred language are two pathologies challenging informed citizenship. This paper examines how identity language is used in misinformation and counter-narratives on controversial science on a Chinese popular Q&A platform and their impact on how the public engage with science. We found that users who debunked misinformation used a similar amount of group identity language as those who propagated misinformation. The use of identity language made public discourse more uncivil and less deliberative.
Extended Abstract • Why Transmedia Edutainment? Exploring Young Adults’ Reception on its Role, Potential, and Limitations for Sustainable Development • Shata, Aya, University of Miami • This paper aims to explore young adults’ attitudes and impressions towards transmedia edutainment (TE-E) to better understand its attributes and role in shaping young adults understanding for social and environmental issues. Using the United Nation’s TE-E to promote the sustainable development goals, a total of five online focus groups discussions were conducted among young adults using photo elicitation to assess participants’ reactions to TE-E. Three dominant themes emerged from the analysis.
Extended Abstract • The medication effects of fear on the relationship between gain/loss message frames and cognitive/conative responses • Shin, Sumin, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • This study investigates the underlying mechanism of fear appeal effects on behavioral changes applying the emotions-as-frame model and protection motivation theory to the green advertising context. The results indicate that a loss-framed message arises fear increasing severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, and self-efficacy, which in turn affect the intention to purchase a green product. Furthermore, this study results that a gain frame is more effective to lead green behavior than a loss frame.
Research Paper • Effects of substantiation and specificity of social media green messages on audience responses • Shin, Sumin, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • This study examines the effects of environmental, social media messages on audiences’ responses. An online experiment results that a substantive or specific message increases favorable attitude toward both the message and organization, credibility of the message and organization, and green organization image. The favorable attitude, high credibility, and green image lead to high intention to engage in the organization’s green campaign, purchase its green product, and respond to the social media message.
Extended Abstract • Closing the Barn Door? Fact-checkers as retroactive gatekeepers of the Covid-19 “infodemic” • Singer, Jane B., City, University of London • Based on a study of U.S.-tagged items in a global database of fact-checked statements about the novel coronavirus, this paper explores the nature of fact-checkers’ “retroactive gatekeeping.” This term is introduced here to describe the process of assessing the veracity of information after it has entered the public domain rather than before. Although an overwhelming majority of statements were deemed false, preliminary findings indicate misinformation proved persistent, global, and reflective of an often-bizarrely refracted reality.
Research Paper • Fighting Misinformation on Social Media: The Roles of Evidence Type and Presentation Mode • Song, Celine Yunya, Hong Kong Baptist U • An online experiment was conducted to examine the impact of evidence type (evidence type: statistical vs. non-statistical) and presentation mode (textual-only vs. pictorial-only vs. textual-plus-pictorial) on individuals’ responses to corrective information about COVID-19 on social media. The results indicated that corrective information backed by non-statistical evidence (in contrast to statistical evidence) enhanced message elaboration, which in turn led to greater misperception reduction, higher ratings of message believability, and stronger intention to engage in viral behaviors (e.g., sharing, liking, and commenting on the post). Compared to the textual-only modality and the textual-plus-pictorial modality, the pictorial-only modality induced a significantly lower level of message elaboration, which subsequently resulted in lower message believability and less viral behavioral intention. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Research Paper • How misinformation and its rebuttals in online comments affect people’s intention to receive COVID-19 vaccines: The role of psychological reactance and misperceptions • Sun, Yanqing • This study investigated the mechanisms by which exposure to negative and misleading online comments on COVID-19 vaccination promotional messages and ensuing corrective rebuttals of the comments could affect people’s vaccination attitudes and intentions. An online experiment was performed with 360 adults in the United States. The results show that rebuttals by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), rather than rebuttals from users, indirectly improve people’s attitude and willingness towards the vaccination by reducing their psychological reactance to the persuasive messages and beliefs in the misinformation reflected in the comments, especially among supporters of the vaccination. For the opponents of vaccination, the CDC’s rebuttals seemed to evoke a backfire effect on these people’s misperceptions. By combining the two lines of research on psychological reactance and misinformation, this study deepens the understanding of the theoretical arguments about these two communication phenomena and the relationship between them.
Research Paper • Integrating Self-affirmation and EPPM to Promote Health Experts’ Misinformation Corrective Actions • Tang, Hongjie • Health misinformation is prevalent in the social media domain. Combating “infodemic” has deemed to be a major agenda for health communication in the post covid-19 era. However, the extant literature of how to mobilize individuals to correct online health misinformation is scant. Based on the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and self-affirmation theory, the current research experimentally examined the persuasiveness of fear appeal messages, as well as self-affirmation on health experts’ misinformation correction intention for others. A 2 (threat: high vs. low) × 2 (efficacy: high vs. low) × 2 (self-affirmation: yes vs. no) between- subject factorial experiment was conducted. The results revealed main effects of threat, efficacy and self-affirmation on intention to correct health misinformation for others. In addition, the two-way interactions between threat and efficacy, as well as threat and self- affirmation were documented. The three-way interaction between these three factors was also significant. Theoretical implications and practical implications for health misinformation debunking were discussed.
Extended Abstract • Impact of Science Journalism Experience on Information Selection from Press Releases: A Novel Quasi-Experimental Approach • Tiffany, Leigh Anne, Michigan State University • This quasi-experiment aims to provide evidence for (or against) the impact of science journalism experience on how reporters cover science when using information from press releases. As data collection must be completed to begin analysis, findings declarations would be premature at this time. However, it can be said that this novel approach will provide insight into if there is a measurable difference in how journalists report on science topics based on science journalism experience.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: Truths, Lies, and Compliance with Covid-19 Guidance • Tully, Melissa, University of Iowa • Uncertainty around Covid-19 has created an environment that is swirling with misinformation. Research shows that exposure to Covid-19 misinformation is associated with less compliance with public health guidelines for disease prevention. This study uses a survey to examine perceptions of information about Covid-19 as mis- or disinformation, and explores the relationship between perceptions and compliance with public health guidance. Results suggest that mis- and disinformation perceptions are high and these perceptions differentially affect compliance likelihood.
Research Paper • “BFF: Beer Friends Forever” Close Friends’ Role in Adolescents’ Sharing of Alcohol References on Social Media • Vanherle, Robyn • By conducting go-along interviews among adolescents (N = 26, M age = 16.31, SD = .83), this study is one of the first to provide a profound insight into the specific role of close friends in adolescents’ motives for sharing, and reacting to, moderate and extreme alcohol-related content on social media. As such, we encourage future research and interventions to target these intimate groups of close friends rather than focusing on broader peer groups.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: A message from grandma: A research on the relationship between social media reposting behavior and subjective well-being in the elderly • Wang, Geng, Shanghai Jiaotong University • In the context of deepening population aging and rapid technological development, we explored the impacts of online reposting behavior on subjective well-being (SWB) of the elderly. We found that reposting significantly predicted SWB through a questionnaire survey conducted in 15 districts of Shanghai, and perceived social support and self-esteem played mediation roles. The moderating effect of positive feedback was not verified. We tried to interpret the results on the basis of ‘digital self’ construction.
Extended Abstract • Characterizing Discourses about COVID-19 Vaccines on Twitter: A Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis Approach • Wang, Yuan, The University of Maryland, College Park • This study identified seven themes of COVID-19 vaccine related discourses on Twitter (N = 304,292), including vaccine advocacy, recognition for healthcare workers, vaccine rollout, vaccine side effects, vaccine policies, vaccine hesitancy, and vaccine facts. Trust is the most salient emotions associated with COVID-19 vaccine discourses, followed by anticipation, fear, joy, sadness, anger, surprise, and disgust. Among the seven themes, vaccine advocacy tweets were most likely to receive likes and comments, and vaccine fact tweets were most likely to receive shares.
Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: Previvorship: How individuals with genetic predispositions for breast cancer present their experiences across social media platforms • Wellman, Mariah, University of Utah • Research on previvors, individuals carrying mutations in known cancer risk genes, examines online information gathering and social support to alleviate uncertainty, however, research exploring online content published by previvors themselves is limited. We collected content across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to understand how previvorship and the processes within (genetic testing, diagnosis, and preventative measures) are presented. Our findings illustrate how each platform functions as part of a holistic picture of previvorship on social media.
Research Paper • Exploratory Research on Health Knowledge, Negative Emotions, Risk Perceptions, and Intentions to Practice the Preventive Guidance during the COVID-19 Pandemic • WEN, CHIA-HO RYAN, Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University • This study is dedicated to understanding the roles of cognition (COVID-19 knowledge), affect (fear and anger), and risk perceptions, as intervening variables between information sources and intentions to apply preventive measures for COVID-19 (i.e. facial coverings, social distancing, self-quarantine, and regular sanitization). Through an online survey of 99 participants at Syracuse University, our results reveal that, first, among all ten types of sources we examined, only cable TV and print media were significantly predictive and associated inversely with knowledge and positively with fear. Second, fear was directly related to risk perceptions, whereas anger and knowledge were insignificant predictors. Third, only risk perceptions were predictive and positively related to facial coverings. Fourth and finally, neither knowledge nor negative emotions were associated with any of the preventive measures.
Research Paper • The Distance Between Us: Effects of Inter-Group Similarity on Donation Intention and Emotions during the COVID-19 Pandemic • Wong, Jody Chin Sing • Guided by construal level theory, this research examines the effects of social distance on prosocial behavior by manipulating inter-group similarity. A theoretical model is proposed in which different levels of inter-group similarity prompt Americans to experience varied emotions toward others and report different donation intentions. Aside from close-ended survey questions, we conduct a computerized textual analysis of open-ended responses using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Based on a nationally-representative sample of American adults (N = 1009), results indicate that in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants exposed to a far social distance message were more likely to construe this event abstractly and less likely to donate to aid COVID-19 response. Nonetheless, this type of mental construal was associated with an increase in emotional responses. This research contributes to the literature on construal level theory and offers important insights on how communication scholars, media establishments, and members of the issue public can communicate more effectively to the public about public health crises.
Extended Abstract • Trauma-informed Messages in Predicting Domestic Violence Attitudes among Battered Women with Childhood Trauma • Wongphothiphan, Thipkanok • In response to a high prevalence of psychological trauma associated with childhood abuse and domestic violence and a low accessible rate of trauma-informed services, the current study designed and tested the effects of trauma-informed messages (TIM) to persuade battered women with childhood trauma to leave their current abusive partner terminate using a survey (N = 284). Findings revealed TIM’s effectiveness in predicting trauma knowledge, leaving intention, empowerment aspects relative to control messages. The moderating roles of borderline personality traits and attachment styles are discussed.
Research Paper • Community Resilience and the News: Local and National Hurricane Coverage • Xie, Lola, Pennsylvania State University • The term “resilience” has gained traction in recent years to mean the ability of communities and individuals to prepare for, respond to and recover from disruptions such as extreme weather events. The goal of this study is to understand how the language of resilience was constructed by national and local media outlets during and after Hurricane Florence. We discuss in comparative context the nuances in news constructions of resilience during a crisis and how those may change over time.
Research Paper • Risk or Efficacy? How Age and Seniority Influenced the Usage of Hearing Protection Devices: A Cross-Sectional Survey in China • Xu, Peng • Through a paper-pencil survey, this study examined whether age and seniority moderated the effect of perceived severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy on hearing protection devices (HPD) usage by 449 Chinese workers at noise-exposure positions. We found perceived severity only motivated HPD usage for younger workers, and response efficacy and self-efficacy exhibited a stronger effect on HPD usage among senior workers than junior workers. These findings provide implications on the subsequent campaign which facilitates HPD usage.
Research Paper • Embedded Contexts and Multilayered Interactions: User Comments and Interactions Analysis on YouTube Related to Climate Change • Xu, Sifan, University of Tennessee Knoxville • As misinformation and climate change denial videos abound on YouTube, a platform that has more than 2 billion monthly active users as of 2021, research of climate change on YouTube is limited. More importantly, it is necessary to go beyond examining how climate change has been discussed and focus on how individuals interact with each other regarding their climate change viewpoints in such a mediated context. By examining and content analyzing a representative sample of YouTube comments and videos on climate change, the current study utilizes coordinated management of meaning theory to understand the multilayered interactions of YouTube users on climate change. The results of the study suggest that coordinated management of meaning theory, particularly the notion of embedded contexts, has implications for interactions in socially mediated and digital interactions. The study results also highlight practical implications for users’ interactions on YouTube regarding climate change, where framing effects, echo chambers, and asymmetrical tendencies of users’ challenge to other viewpoints co-exist.
Extended Abstract • Who am I Connected with? Community Detection and Effects in an Online Peer-to-Peer Support Forum • Yang, Ellie F., University of Wisconsin Madison • This study collected digital trace data from an online peer-to-peer forum designed to support substance use disorder (SUD) recovery. We applied social network analysis (SNA) to detect community formation shaped by users’ communicative interactions, and relate community membership to individual characteristics and health outcomes. Preliminary results reveal five communities in this online forum with distinct racial backgrounds or level of education. Compared to users without community affiliation, users in certain communities showed greater health benefits for SUD recovery.
Research Paper • Media Sources in Risk Communication in China: Official Press, Market-oriented Press, and Medical We Media • Yang, Tianyi, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Using a content analysis and a survey, this study compares the topics and attitudes of media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in official press, market-oriented press, and medical We Media in China, and investigates how media sources affected people’s emotions and risk information-consuming behaviors. Findings suggest official press prioritized measures undertaken by governmental and medical departments and held a more optimistic attitude. Market-oriented press and medical We Media paid extra attention to the status of pandemic situation and self-protective behaviors, respectively. Official press was positively associated with people’s optimistic emotion, whereas medical We Media increased anxiety. Market-oriented press was positively associated with information sharing and information avoidance; Medical We Media was only positively related to information sharing. Comparing to the other media sources, official press exerted less impact on people’s information-consuming behaviors.
Research Paper • Social Media Exposure, Interpersonal Communication, and Tampon Use: A Multigroup Comparison Based on Network Structure • Yang, Yin, Pennsylvania State University • Building upon the integrative model of behavioral prediction and network structure theory, this study examines how interpersonal communication influences the effect of social media exposure on Chinese women’s tampon use intention. Through an online survey (N = 763), we found that social media exposure was positively related to the behavioral intention through attitudes, descriptive norm, and self-efficacy. Furthermore, the effect of social media exposure differed among people with different network structures of interpersonal communication.
Extended Abstract • Extended abstract: Risk perceptions link to prevention intentions during Covid-19 pandemic through affection: A Chinese three-generation study • Yao, Yao • In the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, three generations showed different epidemic responses in China. This study developed a moderated mediation model from the perspective of intergenerational differences to investigate how risk perceptions affected the prevention intentions of different generations through negative affection and self-efficacy. The study clustered out three types of families with different epidemic coping patterns.
Research Paper • The Differential Effects of Science Humor on Three Scientific Issues: Global Warming, Artificial Intelligence, and Microbiomes • Yeo, Sara, University of Utah • This study aims to understand the conditional nature of the mechanism by which science humor affects people’s social media engagement intentions by eliciting mirth. We replicated a previous experiment with three scientific topics. For two of the three issues, AI and microbiomes, the proposed pathways, moderated by need for humor (NFH), were significant. However, humor did not have the same effect on engagement intentions related to global warming. The implications of our findings are discussed.
Extended Abstract • [Extended Abstract] Mapping risk and benefit perceptions of energy sources: Comparing public and expert mental models • Yu, Peihan • Public support for new energy technologies can vary. Thus, understanding public perceptions towards these technologies is crucial for developing effective risk communication. This study uses the mental models approach to understand risk and benefit perceptions of various energy sources in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Public and energy experts’ perceptions were elicited using focus group discussions, enabling the construction and comparison of public and expert mental models, across energy sources and countries. Initial findings are discussed.
Research Paper • Correcting Science Misinformation in an Authoritarian Country: An Experiment from China • Yu, Wenting • In recent years, corrective messages are found to be useful in refuting misconceptions. An increasing number of studies examined the effects of corrective messages. But existing studies mostly focus on correction effect in the Western context. This study aims to compare the effects of different types of corrective messages in an authoritarian country. We focused on the message features that suggest government authoritativeness. Through an online experiment, we compared the impacts of correction sources (official vs. professional vs. layperson) and tones (formal vs. conversational) on the believability of the correction. The results indicated corrections from a government source and delivered in a formal tone were more believable in China. In addition, we examined the moderating role of attitude congruence.
Extended Abstract • Third-person-hypothesis of Climate Change Campaigns in China: the Impact of Disaster Vulnerability and Social Media Use on Conformity Behavior • Zhu, Yicheng, Beijing Normal University • The study focuses on the effect of social media use on public perceptions of climate change campaigns: including their perceived social desirability, presumed media influence (as measure in third-person-hypothesis), and consequent conformity behaviors. The current study also incorporated psychological antecedents including institutional trust and expert trust. With a multi-group structural equation modelling and clustered multiple regressions, this study tends to explore how geographical, political, and economic factors modify how Chinese residents perceive national climate change campaigns and how likely they would conform with governmental recommendations.
Commission on the Status of Women
2021 Abstracts
Research Paper • Framing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Intersectionality and News Frames in Local and National Press Coverage • Bashri, Maha • Minority female politicians receive less frequent media coverage than their counterparts. Even when they do receive media coverage it tends to be negatively framed. The following study analyzes patterns of congruence (or lack of) in news frames and intersectional categories in local and national media coverage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a politician affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The Washington Post has been selected for this study because it is the most circulated newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area, home to many power brokers in the U.S. government. The local newspaper selected for the analysis was the Bronx Times-Reporter, a weekly newspaper covering news from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district. The findings point to the prevalence of thematic frames and class as an intersectional category in local news coverage more than in national news coverage. The shift in coverage patterns has significant implications for both minority women politicians and the DSA in American politics.
Research Paper • An Analysis of Memes and Misinformation about Kamala Harris’s Rise to U.S. Vice President • Bland, Dorothy, University of North Texas • “Kamala Harris made political history in the United States and around the globe when she was elected vice president of the United States in November 2020. She is the first Black female and person of South Asian descent to hold that position. She has been the subject of a variety of memes and misinformation. Using Facebook’s CrowdTangle, a content discovery and social monitoring platform, this study employed framing, feminist and critical race theories to analyze memes and (mis)information that circulated on Facebook during the 2021 U.S. Presidential campaign. Specifically, we analyze Harris-themed memes disseminated over a four-month window between October 1, the month before the November 3, 2020 election, through Jan. 31, 2021. This time frame includes the most heated part of the campaign and Inauguration Day. This study shows that memes ranged from celebrating racial/ethnic pride to misogynistic attacks on Harris.
Extended Abstract • #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor: A Case Study of the Evolution of the Black Lives Matter Movement • Clark, Meredith • In this study, we use complementing quantitative and qualitative methods in an effort to track and trace the efficacy of hashtag activism participants’ engagement in Black Lives Matter related content, while focusing on the subtheme of police brutality toward Black women in the United States.
Research Paper • It was all consensual: The news, sexual assault, and student athletes • Couto, Leticia, Washington State University • This content analysis of 179 newspaper articles investigates the portrayal of college athletes that are involved in sexual assault cases as alleged perpetrator and the presence of rape myths in these stories. Results showed that intoxication might be used as a technique to either blame alleged victims or protect alleged perpetrators. In conclusion, rape myths are still very present in newspaper articles that discuss college athletes as alleged perpetrators of sexual assault.
Research Paper • Covering the Second Wave: Grace Lichtenstein, The New York Times, and the Legacy of Liberal Feminism • Dabek, Dana, Temple University • This paper explores the intersections of journalism, memory, and liberal feminism through a critical textual analysis of New York Times journalist Grace Lichtenstein’s coverage of the Second Wave feminist movement in the United States from 1968-1981. Themes of liberalist ideologies, upholding hegemonic power structures, and women as newsworthy for their “firsts” are analyzed within her coverage. This analysis adds to existing scholarship of how journalistic constraints bound how memory of a social movement is constructed.
Research Paper • Vlogging pregnancy and laboring during the pandemic: Narratives of Chinese pregnant women in diasporas • Dai, Zehui, Radford University • In early 2020, COVID-19 spread nationwide in China and later became a global pandemic. The rapid changing context of the situation may lead to unforeseeable challenges and questions for pregnant women. Through a textual analysis of personal narratives told via pregnancy and/or laboring vlogs during COVID-19, the present study aims to understand how pregnant women in Chinese diasporas utilizes YouTube (a digital media platform) to construct a digital identity as they convey their pregnancy and/or laboring experiences to during the pandemic to a particular audience—the transnational, Mandarin-speaking diaspora. Through the analysis, we identified various challenges that pregnant women in Chinese diasporas experienced in pregnancy and/or laboring. The COVID-19 pandemic exasperated the normal difficulties of these issues, as well as created additional problems for this group of women, including regular pregnancy tests, choice of birthing locations, and the support and caring that was normal during this time period. We also believe narrative creation, in the form of vlogging, helps this cohort to gain a sense of agency and empowerment of their diaspora experience by examining and reimagining their experience.
Research Paper • #MeToo academia: Media coverage of academic sexual misconduct at U.S. universities • Eckert, Stine, Wayne State University • We conducted a systematic textual analysis of media coverage of 201 academic sexual misconduct cases in the United States between 2017 and 2019 in which a university employee was named as perpetrator. In 97 cases media did not mention the #MeToo movement, indicating that cases were treated as “bad behavior” of a single person rather than as a systemic problem in society linked to rape culture. Four of five cases (80%) were broken to the public by a journalistic news medium demonstrating that journalism, especially local journalism, remains the main path to expose academic sexual misconduct of university employees in the wake of the viral #MeToo hashtag. Student journalists especially broke cases that led to news coverage linking individual cases to broader systemic issues in society, recognizing and contributing to a shift in public discourse on sexual misconduct.
Research Paper • Rebel! Rebel! How Megan Rapinoe’s Celebrity Activism Forges New Paths for Athletes • Everbach, Tracy, University of North Texas • After the USA won the 2019 Women’s FIFA World Cup, Megan Rapinoe captured the world’s attention with her lavender hair, athletic build, quick moves on the field, eye for style, and outspoken advocacy for equality. This study employs a feminist standpoint and queer theory approach to examine Rapinoe’s activism, advocacy, and celebrity as an influencer and role model for sports fans as well as LGBTQ+ people, and those fighting for racial and gender equality.
Research Paper • #freebritney, #freekesha, #freemelania: Hashtag Activism and Notions of Feminism in Online Communities • Friedman, Jodi, University of Maryland, Philip Merrill School of Journalism • Britney Spears, Kesha and Melania Trump are Twitter causes célèbres. Disparate discourses of the hashtag campaigns #freebritney, #freekesha, and #freemelania move users from the personal to the collective, presuming these powerful women are prisoners in gilded cages. Users rally around a central White, female figure who largely does not join discussion of her supposed entrapment. An ethnographic field site of 77,435 tweets is thematically analyzed regarding online fan identity and women’s need for rescue.
Research Paper • Femvertising and postfeminist discourse: Advertising to break menstrual taboos in China • Guo, Jingyi • This paper investigates Libresse sanitary napkins commercials in China. Employing feminist critical discourse analysis, we interpret the narration of Libresse’s efforts in China as exemplary of the appropriation of femvertising—women empowerment advertising—to challenge menstrual taboos. Our findings indicate that Libresse creates a postfeminist discourse that has generated contradictions regarding gender issues, both liberating and constraining women in an elaborate dance. Our study thus situates a broader discussion of postfeminism, advertising, and global capitalism.
Extended Abstract • Building the Gender Beat: U.S. Journalists Refocus the News in the Aftermath of #MeToo • Heckman, Meg, Northeastern University • Beats focused on gender have become more common at U.S. news organizations in the last four years—a phenomenon this exploratory study documents in an effort to gauge the prevalence of gender beats and understand the experiences of the journalists (n=66) covering them. Based on semi-structured interviews analyzed using grounded theory, I argue that gender beats are necessary—but ideally temporary—stepping stones to help news organizations move beyond hegemonic masculinity.
Extended Abstract • Momala and Willie Brown’s Mistress: A computational analysis of gendered news coverage of Kamala Harris. • Heckman, Meg, Northeastern University • It’s well documented that female political candidates face systemic bias in news coverage. There is, however, scant research as to how this phenomenon plays out in the modern hyper-polarized digital media ecosystem. We aim to fill that gap by using computational content analysis to explore recent coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris. We find a perpetuation of sexist tropes and stark differences in the news narratives gaining traction among voters of different political persuasions.
Research Paper • An Intersectional Examination of Representations of Muslim Women in Television Series • Jariullah, Sharmeen • The interpretive study analyzes the long-standing impact of the Orientalist gaze on representations of Muslim women in the media, resulting in restrictive tropes and archetypes in contemporary television series from the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper proposes how an intersectional framework can be utilized to dismantle preexisting stereotyped and monolithic representations of Muslim women in the news and entertainment media, to favor holistic representations of Muslim women characters.
Extended Abstract • Women in Communication: Assessing and Advancing Gender Equality • Kim, Solyee, University of Georgia • This study addresses the persistent gender discrepancies in the communication profession at three levels (i.e., the micro level with individual communication professionals, the meso level with communication department and/or agency, and the macro level with the communication profession itself). By conducting an online survey of 1,046 communication professionals in the United States and Canada in the year of 2020-2021, this study provides some of the latest analyses on perceptions and experiences related to women and gender equality in the communication profession. Several key issues are investigated, including the perceptions of women’s leadership status within the organization, the perceived improvement of gender equality, contributing factors to gender inequality, the glass ceiling issue, and the barrier for women’s leadership advancement. Research and practical implications are discussed.
Extended Abstract • Mentorship as a Tool to Close the Leadership Gender Gap: Understanding How Professional Relationships Impact Women During Their First Five Years in the Strategic Communications Industry • Olsen, Katie, Kansas State University • The strategic communications industry is plagued with a lack of gender diversity among its leadership, and little is known about how early-career women (ECW) receive the support necessary to develop their professional identity–and ultimately, their rise to the top. Using in-depth interviews with 31 ECWs in their first five years of employment, this study seeks to understand how mentorship and professional relationships impact their experiences during the formative first five years in industry.
Research Paper • How to Connect: Sexual Assault Activists’ Reliance on Social Media • Pevac, Mikayla, Pennsylvania State University • From social media to smartphones, the 21st century has seen a lot of change. One area that has specifically undergone an extreme shift due to the digital age is the feminist movement in the United States. As Robert Putnam’s work in Bowling Alone (2000) suggested, people are adapting to the influx of technological advances and are responding by reshaping their social networks. The American feminist movement has arguably utilized digital tools, like the various social media platforms, to create and sustain online relationships between like-minded individuals and provide safe spaces for feminist ideas like never before. By analyzing the social media accounts of two American sexual assault activists, Kamillah Willingham and Chanel Miller, this paper will offer insight into different ways feminist activists are using social media to sustain awareness for their respective causes and also share their personal journeys with their followers. In the past, there has been contention over whether social capital theory is an ideal theory to use when studying phenomenon through a feminist lens this paper thus expands on social capital theory and exemplifies how the theory can be applied to the analysis of two female, persons of color, sexual assault activists’ respective social media accounts.
Research Paper • “What a nasty girl!” Incivility and gendered symbolic violence in news discussions • Proust, Valentina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile • This study examines gender exchanges developed in the virtual public sphere to identify if gender affects incivility in news comment sections. By relying on a mixed-method analysis of 1,961 news comments, we observed uncivil speech and gendered symbolic violence traits. We found higher incivility levels in comments posted by men, especially comments mentioning females. Also, we identified hegemonic masculinity discourses in conversation referring to women and their gender roles.
Research Paper • An SEC soccer champion and a winless football team: Media framing and the self-representation of Sarah Fuller’s fall season as a Vanderbilt Commodore student-athlete • Scovel, Shannon, University of Maryland • This paper analyzes the representation of Sarah Fuller in traditional media and on her own social media platforms before and after her historic kick for Vanderbilt’s football team. Results of over 200 social media posts and nearly 400 articles suggest that traditional media focused almost exclusively on Fuller’s experiences as a football player, downplaying her accomplishments as an SEC soccer champion and instead comparing her football success to that of her male peers.
Research Paper • A Feminist New Materialism Analysis of Digital Pelvic Floor Health Messages • Vardeman, Jennifer, University of Houston • This interdisciplinary study examines digital communication strategies used by advocacy groups/social media influencers about a highly stigmatized women’s health issue. Pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) affect one in four women, but many women lack knowledge about them and do not discuss them. Women often report feeling isolation, shame, embarrassment, and dirtiness. Advocacy organizations have recently implemented campaigns to educate women of varying ages about PFDs. This thematic analysis considers digital messages from three PFD advocacy organizations as well as PFD influencers on TikTok. A feminist new materialism theory and shame resilience theory frame this analysis.
Research Paper • Incarcerating Successful Women? Affective Economies in Popular Chinese Television Series • Xu, Jun • Stemming from China’s neoliberal transition, a plethora of women take part in the workforce. In response, representations of ‘successful-yet-single’ women are emerging in China’s popular television series. Following Esther Peeren’s (2018) and Sara Ahmed’s (2004) work, we argue that affective economies that trigger particular feelings and cultural values related to the notion of single womanhood are constituted through these televisual shows. We therefore consider dominant media representations of ‘successful-yet-single’ women by delving into the mediated ways in which these women are ‘punished’ or ‘remunerated’ for their modern lifestyle—coined and developed in this paper as ‘a neoliberal urbanism with Chinese characteristics’. Through discourse analysis and the mobilization of Goffman’s study on stigma (1986 [1963]), we argue that these series epitomize the cultural reality and re-create a mediated ‘punitive society’, suggesting a successful woman’s happiness is only resolved through securing a romantic relationship—a caveat for all single female viewers.
Advertising Division
2021 Abstracts
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • Industry Views on Enhancing Digital Advertising • Research Paper • Agrawal, Ritika • Advertisers of the industry that were once referred to as “Mad Men” are now incorporating data and becoming the “Math Men.” Marketers’ interest in data and analytics has increased from 8% to 12% in the past five years (Forrester, 2021). However, consumers are often reluctant participants in the use of their personal data for advertising targeting and messaging. This study uses social exchange theory to explore the process through which data are used in digital advertising to improve the e-consumer experience. Through in-depth interviews with executives from leading entertainment and media companies, advertising agencies, and tech firms, the researcher offers three attributes that may improve the ad experience for e-consumers: transparency, relevant and engaging imagery, and frequency of retargeting.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • It’s OK to Not Feel OK; Representations of Mental Health in Advertising • Research Paper • Buckley, Christen, Pennsylvania State University • COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on mental health in the United States. In response, advertisements are incorporating representations of the mental health crisis. Using textual analysis to evaluate four television advertisements, (two pre COVID, two post COVID) from two brands, HBO and Headspace, this study investigates the key similarities/differences between the pre versus post COVID ads, and the key similarities/differences between the differing brands’ post COVID ads. Implications of mental health representations in advertisements are discussed
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • Advertising During the Pandemic: The Influence of Susceptibility and Severity on “COVID-19 Appeal” Perceptions and Advertising Effectiveness • Extended Abstract • Piacentine, Colin, University of South Carolina • The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between consumer perceptions of COVID-19 and the effects of advertisements using COVID-19 appeals (as defined in this study). Using an online survey, persuasion knowledge, perceived manipulativeness, and attributions (public- or self-serving) will be observed as mediating variables between susceptibly and severity (IVs) and attitudes and behaviors resulting from exposure to the advertisement (DVs). Implication will be discussed.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • McAds: Where Collectivism and Culture Collide • Research Paper • Ryan, Erin, Kennesaw State University • Cultural differences can be difficult for people on a personal level, but for a brand it is vital to learn how to understand these differences in order to run a successful business. American fast-food brands have had to learn how to deal with these differences when doing business in China. They struggle between keeping their original standardization from the US and knowing when to implement a more localized plan for their ventures in China. Many fast-food brands have tried and failed to open a successful business in China due to lack of knowledge of Chinese culture. One brand that has successfully integrated themselves into China is McDonald’s, with some people even having “weddings” in them. They appear to have found the balance between standardization, localization, and knowledge of the cultural differences between American individualism and Chinese collectivism. They implemented this knowledge in their marketing and product selection, and this study illustrates this by examining menu differences and advertisements to the Chinese populace. This study helps pave the way for future research into ways in which American brands can successfully market to the Chinese audience.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • Humanity for Sale! A Textual Analysis of Zain’s “Mr. President” Commercial • Research Paper • Sonbul, Raghad, The University of Southern Mississippi • This paper analyzed media representation of Muslims through a textual analysis of Zain’s commercial in Ramadan 2018. It examines the commercial through the lenses of myths, Marxist theory, and hegemony, as well as Stuart Hall’s levels of analyzing media–“preferred, negotiated and oppositional” readings. The aim of the study was to evaluate the media representation of Muslims from a different perspective than the dominant stereotypes and to examine media effects on audiences. The findings indicated that the commercial was a response to President Trump’s determination that it is time to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as other Arabs issues. The company used the Arab issues to reach millions of people around the world, draw attention and gain profits. However, the commercial raised a debate on social media among supporters and opponents.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • When Deception Backfires: Attitudinal and Chilling Effects of Targeted Advertising on Social Media • Research Paper • Stubenvoll, Marlis • The following experiment (N = 340) investigates whether individuals activate three dimensions of persuasion knowledge – perceived persuasive intent, perceived manipulative intent, and targeting knowledge – in response to targeted (versus not targeted) ads and the original sponsorship disclosure (versus no disclosure) on Facebook. Results suggest that individuals’ evaluation of targeted ads as manipulative sparks negative brand evaluations. Moreover, perceptions of manipulative intent could cause chilling effects, through which individuals might restrict their online behaviors.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • Virtual or Real?: A Comparative Study on Virtual-influencer- vs. Celebrity- endorsed CSR Message • Extended Abstract • Yang, Jeongwon • Conducting an online experiment with a design of 2×2 between subjects, the study aims to 1) examine the roles of source credibility and source-message fit in enhancing the persuasiveness of messages, by comparing the CSR posts of virtual influencer and celebrity endorsement; and 2) make an interdisciplinary effort to explore an effectiveness of a non-human agent like a virtual influencer in promoting brand equity by drawing virtual reality (VR), influencer marketing, and CSR.
Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research • Consumer Responses to CSR during the Pandemic: Investigating the Role of Context/cause Fit and Attribution of Motives in Cause-related Marketing • Research Paper • Zheng, Huatian • The study set out to explore the effect of context/cause fit and attribution of CSR motives on consumers’ responses, and whether cause involvement moderates the process during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using convenience samplings, the present study adopted a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment in which 146 college students were randomly exposed to one of four different CRM ads. The findings implied that exposure to high context/cause fit CRM ads encourages generally positive consumers’ responses. Although attribution of motives did not significantly influence participants’ judgement, the way participants perceive the motives behind CRM ads instead of the pre-existing motive shapes their attitude and purchase intention. Due to the special nature of the pandemic, most participants indicated a high involvement status, resulting in no significant moderating role for cause involvement. Surprisingly, female participants tend to be more sensitive to firm-serving motives and favorable to public-serving CRM ads compared to males.
Open Research • Demystify Computer Generated Influencers: The Role of Perceived Anthropomorphism and Social Presence on Audience’s Attitudes toward CGI’s Sponsored Posts and the Endorsed Brands • Extended Abstract • Ahn, Regina, University of Miami • This study explores how the perceived humanness of computer-generated imagery (CGI) influencers is associated with consumers’ attitudes toward the brand-sponsored posts and the endorsed brand. Our online survey with Gen Z consumers showed that both perceived anthropomorphism and social presence of CGI influencers positively influence consumer evaluation outcomes via the mediators of perceived physical and social attractiveness of the CGI.
Open Research • Chinese Consumer Resistance and Coping Strategies to Live Stream Shopping • Extended Abstract • Ahn, Regina, University of Miami • Given the explosive growth of live streaming shopping in China, it is critical to explore young consumers’ persuasion knowledge and their coping strategies towards live streaming shopping. Our study aims to understand Chinese consumers’ resistance regarding live streaming experience on e-commerce platforms. Twenty participants were recruited in a local Chinese university to conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews. The study captures several factors that evoke Chinese consumers’ annoyance and counterargument against live streaming tactics, platforms, and sellers.
Open Research • Why Do We Click on Clickbait? Read on to Find Out Why Persuasion Knowledge Matters • Research Paper • Buteau, Emily, University of North Dakota • This study tested the moderating role in the effects of clickbait ad type and metadiscourse characteristics on attitudes and intentions toward clickbait advertising. The findings from a two-part experiment indicated that persuasion knowledge moderated the relationship between the effects of clickbait ad type and metadiscourse characteristic on intention to share the ad. Participants with high persuasion knowledge generated higher intentions when shown evidential metadiscourse and more negative intentions when shown exaggeration clickbait. Implications are discussed.
Open Research • The role of product fit and brand fit on brand co-appearances in television programs • Research Paper • Chan, Fanny, Fong Yee The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong • Brand clutter has gradually extended from traditional advertising to less conventional marketing communication tools. Although brand co-appearance in media content is likely to continue to proliferate, little is known about the phenomenon and its effects. Building on research related to co-branding and comparative advertising, this study systematically examined the moderating role of brand fit and product fit on the effectiveness of brand co-appearance on television programs. Several pre-tests and four experimental studies were conducted. It was found that product fit and brand fit significantly moderated attitudes and purchase intention toward the coappearing products. The empirical results have significant theoretical and practical implications for the field, which are discussed together with the research avenues.
Open Research • Brand activism and political consumerism: Understanding determinants of consumers’ buycotting and boycotting behaviors in the context of brand activism • Extended Abstract • Cho, Moonhee • The study examined the factors influencing consumers’ boycotting and buycotting intentions in response to brand activism. Conducting an online experimental study among 367 consumers, this study found that the consumer-brand stance congruence significantly influenced consumers’ attitude toward the brand, boycotting, and buycotting intentions. The study also revealed moderating effects of issue involvement and brand trust while these moderating effects vary by the product involvement categories. The mediating role of consumer-brand identification was also found.
Open Research • Understanding Ad-block Wall and Its Effects on Online Publisher and Advertising through Psychological Reactance • Research Paper • Chung, Un Chae, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign • As nearly one third of online users installed ad-blockers, websites relying heavily on the advertising revenue try to overcome this threat by installing ad-block wall on their website, which hinders users from accessing website’s contents. To understand the psychological process of website users when facing this wall, the paper adopted psychological reactance theory and found that different level of ad-block wall can generate different level of reactance outcomes and attitudes.
Open Research • Advertising in the times of COVID: A Tight-Loose Analysis of Pandemic-Related TV Commercials • Research Paper • Dodoo, Naa Amponsah, Emerson College • This research explores normative beliefs advocated in the earliest stage of COVID-19 awareness campaigns. The exploration utilizes Tight-Loose Theory and the Hofstede’s dimensions as frameworks to analyze advertisements run from March to June 2020. A content analysis (n=377) found that ad appeals and themes did not strictly follow the predicted expectations of the U.S.’s dominate cultural orientation. This research establishes a benchmark for comparison with the evolutionary stages of COVID-19 advertising.
Open Research • A Literature Review of Influencer Marketing and Research Agenda: From a Social Network Analysis Perspective • Research Paper • Feng, Yang, San Diego State University • The amount of literature on influencer marketing has increased dramatically in recent years. Although extant literature provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of influencer marketing, several research gaps remain, such as inconclusive findings and a lack of a holistic understanding of the endorsement process of influencer marketing. To address the research gaps, we performed a social network analysis (SNA) of findings from 46 journal articles that included 54 distinct studies using Gephi, a network visualization tool. The SNA results revealed seven topic communities and six most important bridging variables (i.e., influencer trustworthiness, parasocial interaction, influencer credibility, brand trust, influencer attachment, and message credibility) in the literature. On the basis of the SNA results and the meaning transfer model, we proposed an integrative theoretical framework to illustrate the independent, mediating, and outcome variables of the endorsement process of influencer marketing. A future research agenda on influencer marketing was also proposed and discussed.
Open Research • Kidfluencing: The Role of Selling Intent, Logo Presence, and Disclosure Modality on Parental Appraisals • Research Paper • Freeman, Jason, Brigham Young University • Kidfluencers are emerging as valuable brand partners, capable of facilitating engaging peer-to-peer interactions with other child viewers. The current experimental study focuses on the role of disclosure modality, selling intent, and logo presence on parental reactions to kidfluencer content. Findings suggest that the negative consequences of advertising recognition can be ameliorated through sponsorship transparency. However, for some parents, advertising recognition led to greater perceptions of negativity, resulting in unfavorable outcomes. These results suggest that advertising recognition can have diverging consequences, depending the evaluation of the message. Advertising recognition acted as the primary predictor of outcomes related to perceptions of appropriateness of the sponsored content, attitudes toward the brand, purchase intention, and desire to regulate. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Open Research • Native Ads in the Neighborhood: Sponsored Posts Versus User-Generated Content on Nextdoor • Extended Abstract • Johnson, Benjamin, University of Florida • This study examines how older adults on the neighborhood-oriented app Nextdoor respond to native advertisements. A within-subjects experiment compared social posts, native ads, and traditional ads. Outcomes included credibility, fear emotion, persuasion knowledge, ad attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intentions. Differences were found in favor of social posts (i.e., posts from neighbors). Native ads were evaluated as more similar to traditional ads than social posts. Finally, the study examines potential mediation and moderation.
Open Research • Seeing a New Self in Dadvertisements: Responses to Ads and Fatherhood Anxiety • Research Paper • Johnson, Benjamin, University of Florida • Advertising portrayals of fathers have the potential to influence new fathers’ self-perceptions. A 2×2 experiment of 269 men, aged 25-40, compared new fathers’ with non- or established fathers’ emotional response, anxiety, and boundary expansion to dad-targeted advertisements. Emotions and perceptions of the “dad in the ad” were proposed to mediate effects on the persuasiveness of the advertisement. The research found that new fathers felt more anxiety, which produced greater boundary expansion and wishful identification.
Open Research • Contoured and In Control: African-American Women, Beauty Brand Representation, and Consumer Satisfaction • Research Paper • Johnson, Benjamin, University of Florida • Beauty brands such as makeup lines continue to struggle with representing the full diversity of women in their products and advertising. This study is a survey of African-American women aged 25-49, in which they provided their perceptions of 10 popular makeup brands. Self-determination theory was used to demonstrate how seeing one’s self represented in products and advertising increases feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and how this translates positively into consumer attitudes and behavior.
Open Research • The Role of Perceived Interactivity and User Gratifications to Use Live-Streaming Commerce • Research Paper • Joo, Eunsin • Live-streaming commerce has recently emerged as a popular selling channel that encourages consumer interaction and participation while shopping online. The purpose of this study was to investigate how consumers’ perceived interactivity influences the use and purchase intents of live streaming commerce, while exploring the mediating roles of cognitive and affective motivation in the relationships. A scenario-based survey study of 187 American consumers was conducted via Prolific.co. The results showed that perceived interactivity in the live-streaming commerce significantly influenced consumers’ usage intention of live-streaming commerce and purchase intention of the recommended products through live-streaming commerce. Specifically, results showed that perceived utility and enjoyment were significant mediators in between the perceived interactivity and consumers’ usage intention of live-streaming commerce. And perceived enjoyment also plays a significant mediating role in between the perceived interactivity and consumers’ purchase intention. Theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and future studies are also discussed.
Open Research • Investigating the Marketing Effectiveness of Virtual Influencers • Research Paper • Kiew, Siu Ting Josie • Guided by the Uses and Gratification approach along with the Uncanny Valley Theory, this study sought to understand the phenomenon of virtual influencers. Based on an in-depth interview with 26 participants who are following virtual influencers, this study identified user motivations – including information motivation, entertainment motivation, surveillance, aesthetics, and social identification – for following. We also found that followers perceive virtual influencers as uncanny and eerie. However, followers expressed acceptance towards virtual influencers where authenticity, human-likeness, and self-justification were found to mitigate the effects of the uncanny valley. Finally, in terms of its role in advertising effectiveness, we found that virtual influencers are effective for building brand image and brand awareness but lack persuasive ability to incite purchase intentions. The findings advanced extant literature on user motivations for following virtual influencers in the new edge of social media influencers, provided insights on mitigating factors of the uncanny valley, as well as delineated the efficacy of virtual influencers in advertising campaigns.
Open Research • Rhetorical Devices in Agency Philosophies: An Analysis of Rhetorical Figures in Slogans of Top Ranking Agencies for Creativity and Effectiveness • Research Paper • Makady, Heidi, University of Florida • Rhetorical figures in slogans are one way agencies emphasize their philosophies. This study explores the use of textual rhetorical figures in agency philosophies of top ranking WARC agencies. In line with the advertising taxonomy framework, content analysis indicated that irregular models (tropes) were most frequently used. Slogan length and semantic complexity were also positively correlated with WARC creativity scores. The sampling frame for this study is the WARC 2019 – 2020 effectiveness and creativity global rankings.
Open Research • Adding or Averaging? How Weak Arguments Influence the Persuasive Effects of Strong Arguments • Research Paper • Obermaier, Magdalena • Mostly relying on a “the-more-the-better” heuristic, persuasive communication research has rarely scrutinized the effects of the mutual presentation of weak and strong arguments. Building on research on judgment formation, we conducted four experimental studies on political and health-related topics and demonstrated that providing supporting arguments of moderate strength along with a strong argument increases persuasion (adding). However, presenting weak supporting arguments along with a strong argument reduces the persuasive effect of the strong argument (averaging).
Open Research • Exploring the Influence of Advertising Spokesperson’s Racial Identity and Product Type Endorsed on Consumer Decision-Making • Research Paper • PIERRE, LOUVINS, University of Connecticut • Limited research has examined how racially diverse models in advertising influence consumers’ decision-making process. This research tested how spokespersons’ racial identity and the product type they endorsed influenced evaluation of spokesperson attributes and consumer behavior. Results showed that spokespersons’ race had a significant effect on all variables, but product type only affected purchase intention. A path model also tested how the interrelations between spokesperson attributes, product involvement and information-seeking contributed to explain purchase intention.
Open Research • Native Twitter Ads: Testing the role of Media Format and Disclosure • Research Paper • PIERRE, LOUVINS, University of Connecticut • Native advertising is now a common strategy that marketers utilize to advertise effectively. This study used an experimental 3 (text only, text plus image, or video) X 2 (disclosure: present/absent between-subjects design (N = 322) to test how media format and disclosure influence attitudes and behavioral intentions. Results show that only media format has a main effect, such that richer media (videos) help to reduce persuasion knowledge. Moreover, skepticism, intrusiveness, and persuasion knowledge negatively predict attitudes, while manipulativeness predicts both attitudes and share intention. This study is one of the first to examine media format and disclosure, and by implication conclude rich media with disclosure help advertising effectiveness.
Open Research • Seeker or Sentry? Consumers’ Coping Mechanism with Third-Party Cookie Driven Advertising: Multidimensional Persuasion Knowledge Perspective • Research Paper • Seok, Ayoung • Majority of digital advertising is delivered by third-party cookie-based targeting technology, but little is known how consumers cope with this unique persuasion technology. To fill the gap, this study integrated multidimensional persuasion knowledge, tactic evaluation, and target response strategy into a model. Employing an online survey (N=204), this study found that conceptual persuasion knowledge was both directly and indirectly associated with sentry or seeker strategy via evaluative persuasion knowledge and tactic evaluations. Implications are discussed.
Open Research • To Tell or Not to Tell: Effects of AI-powered Virtual Try-on Feature and Transparency on Brand Attitudes and Purchase Intentions • Research Paper • Sun, Yuan • Through an online experiment (N = 204) where users virtually tried on products recommended from an augmented reality (AR) site, we found that AR experience positively affected product and brand attitudes through vividness and immersion while it also triggered perceived intrusiveness. Being transparent about data collection increased the privacy protection perception and mitigated perceived intrusiveness. Transparency perception functioned as a crucial antecedent of trust, which was moderated by users’ initial belief in artificial intelligence.
Open Research • Extended Abstract: Examining Employee Reception of Corporate Social Advocacy Communicated by Leadership: Effects on Employee-Organization Relationships and Work Engagement • Extended Abstract • Tackett, Teresa • The advertising industry engaged in corporate social advocacy (CSA) in response to #CommitToChange, which demanded meaningful action from advertising industry leaders regarding lack of BIPOC representation. Organizations have an obligation to understand how CSA efforts impact internal publics, as well as traditionally studied external perceptions. An online survey examines a sample of employees who work at creative agencies, and attitudes toward their agency’s (lack of) participation, communication and leadership authenticity, employee-organization relationships and work engagement.
Open Research • Pride and Prejudice and Country-of-Origin Ecological Images • Research Paper • Xiao, Min • Consumer demand for eco-friendly products is increasing. To respond to the increasing demand, brands and marketers are offering more products that they claim to be green or eco-friendly. Nowadays, many consumers purchase eco-friendly products online. However, it is very difficult for consumers to verify the validity or credibility of green claims of a product listed on online stores because marketers may not provide any evidence to support their green claims and consumers may lack the ability to authenticate the validity of the claims by themselves. Hence, consumers may have no better choice but to rely on information cues, such as the country-of-origin (COO) or the price of a product, to help them evaluate the credibility of green claims. Two online experiments were conducted to examine how product COO, product price, and product involvement affect consumer perception of product greenness and green claim credibility. The findings suggest that product COO exerts an overwhelming influence on consumer perception.
Open Research • (Extended Abstract) Helping A Friend in Need: A Study of Facebook Fundraisers • Extended Abstract • Xue, Fei • Based on Social Impact Theory, the current research examined the effects of different types of Facebook fundraising posts on perceived source credibility, attitude toward the post, intention to click, intention to share, and intention to donate. Three factors of social influence were investigated – relationship strength, immediacy of needs, and number of donations. Main effects were found for immediacy of needs and number of donations. Interaction effects were found in perceived credibility and intention to click.
Open Research • “Do Good and Be ‘Liked’”: Corporate Messaging on Social Media During COVID-19 and Consumer Responses • Research Paper • Yang, Jing • This study explores the types of corporate messaging on social media during the outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S., and its corresponding differences in consumer engagement, attitude, and brand trust. Two independent studies were conducted. In Study 1, we content analyzed corporations’ social media posts and found four types of corporate messaging, namely, internal corporate social responsibility (CSR), external CSR, promotional CSR, and company statement. Among all, internal CSR received the highest consumers’ behavioral engagement as compared to the others. In Study 2, we adopted an online-experimental design to further valid and extend the findings of Study 1. Results showed significant differences among the types of corporate messaging in driving consumers’ behavioral engagement intention, brand attitude and brand trust. Robustly, promotional CSR was the least effective corporate messaging across all. Theoretical contributions, managerial implications and future study directions are also discussed towards the end.
Open Research • Using Funny Memes in Social Media Advertising: The Moderating Role of Bandwagon Cues • Research Paper • Yang, Guolan • The study conducted a 2 (image type: funny meme vs. serious image) x 2 (level of bandwagon cue: high vs. low) between-subjects online experiment (N = 258). Results showed that using memes was more effective than using serious images in the setting of brand-related Twitter posts. Consumers perceived the meme post as humorous, which in turn resulted in positive attitudes toward the post and greater intention to share the post on social media. Furthermore, bandwagon cues moderated the meme effect on persuasion through perceived humor. Consumers’ humor perception was enhanced when they were exposed to a meme post with a large number of likes, comments, and retweets. This study used funny memes as humor stimuli, extending the humor literature to social media advertising. Plus, it illustrated the importance of bandwagon effects for humor persuasion.
Open Research • Realistic skin vs. Flawless skin: An investigation of the appeal of retouch-free advertising • Research Paper • Yang, Tingting, Nanyang Technological University, WKWSCI • “Using retouched models in advertisements to embody idealised beauty prototypes in certain cultures (e.g., flawless skin) has been a widely known yet controversial practice. Considering the emerging trend of “”bare skin look”” in advertising, female consumers’ beliefs about ideal beauty (i.e., skin ideal in this study) and the use of retouching may be changing. Guided by the corporate moral responsibility framework, this study conducted an online experiment to assess ad retouching and disclaimers’ effect on advertising effectiveness. A 2 (model skin: realistic skin vs. flawless skin) x 2 (retouch-free disclaimer: present vs. absent) between-subjects online experiment was conducted among Chinese female participants. Results revealed that although preference of flawless skin still drives Chinese female consumers’ purchase intentions, an ad portraying realistic skin model with a retouch-free disclaimer was more sought after for Chinese female consumers, and Ad honesty mediated the interaction effect of model skin and disclaimer on consumers’ purchase intentions. This study’s findings provide theoretical and practical insights into how brands can better appeal to contemporary female Asian consumers.
Open Research • Outdoor-sports Brand Communities on Instagram: How Message Attributes Relate to Consumer Engagement • Research Paper • Zhang, Jennifer Shiyue • Brands are increasingly using social media to build online communities as part of their marketing efforts. The present study analyzes the Instagram strategies used by three global outdoor sports brands and their respective effects on consumer engagement, operationalized as the number of likes and comments received by posts. Content analysis of 957 Instagram posts from Arc’teryx, Salomon, and Patagonia, focused on messages’ textual, visual, and technical attributes, was conducted. Multiple regression indicated that task- and interaction-oriented posts received more likes than self-oriented ones. Messages that were shorter, posted photos rather than videos, presented “cute” visuals, and mentioned other users were also more likely to motivate consumer engagement. These findings’ implications for marketers seeking to develop Instagram strategies that will effectively boost consumer interaction are discussed.
Professional Freedom & Responsibility (PF&R) • Blending Sex-Positivity and Racial Justice Advocacy in Black-Centric Health Advertising: Intersectional Health Communication Targeting High-Risk Black Cisgender Heterosexual and Black LGBTQ Populations Through a HIV Prevention Social Media Campaign • Research Paper • Li, Minjie, The University of Tampa • Health disparity disproportionately impact people of colors, Black LGBTQ members in particular. In order to effectively persuade members from these communities on issues that impact them—such as HIV prevention, health advertising has started to apply the sex-positive approach in their crafting of visual and messaging. Through integrating intersectionality, social identity theory, and distinctiveness theory, the present study examines how different types of sex-positive depictions (i.e., heterosexual, queer) in a Black-centric health advertising campaign interact with audience’s identity to influence the Black cisgender heterosexual Americans and Black LGBTQ-identified Americans’ adaption of the PrEP regimen, advertising perception, and Black identification. Moreover, the study examines how such joint effects might be moderated by the ways in which the campaign incorporate social activism (i.e., intersectional, non-intersectional, no activism). The findings demonstrate that sex-positive depiction indeed interact with audience identity to significantly increase perceived susceptibility to contracting HIV, perceive response efficacy, intention to adopt the PrEP regimen when offered for free, and positive attitudes towards the PrEP ad campaign.
Professional Freedom & Responsibility (PF&R) • A woman’s view from a man’s world: The reality of being female in advertising • Research Paper • Mueller, Sophia, University of Florida • Few studies to date have sought to understand females’ experiences in all departments of an advertising industry. This paper seeks to explore the challenges women have faced in this industry through an analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 24 practitioners in different agency roles. Interviewees discussed how gender impacted their careers, and their statements were analyzed, revealing five key themes. Implications for advertising practitioners and directions for future research are also addressed.
Professional Freedom & Responsibility (PF&R) • Pressing Issues of Ethnic Diversity in the Ad Industry: The Professionals’ Perspectives • Research Paper • Yang, Fang, Grand Valley State University • “The advertising industry has suffered from lack of ethnic diversity for decades and little progress has been made toward meaningful changes. To probe the reasons for advertising’s diversity lag, in-depth interviews with 17 advertising professionals and a national survey with ad agencies from all 50 states were conducted to gather sentiment and understanding. Research questions ranged from the potential benefits of diversity to the pipeline issue of ethnically diverse talent and the reasons for the persistent imbalance. Emerging insights from this mixed-method study suggest that unconscious bias fueled by political ideology, gender, and size of agency factor into the equation. Suggestions are made to advance ethnic diversity in the advertising workforce with the hope of realizing the many benefits a representative workforce can bring.
Special Topics in Advertising • Sell, Ignore, or Address? Examining Consumers’ Emotional Responses to Different Types of Social Media Influencers’ Posts During the COVID-19 Outbreak • Extended Abstract • Abdollahi, Maral • This study examines consumers’ emotional reactions to different types of social media posts from three types of social media influencers during the COVID-19 outbreak. A computational research method was employed to analyze nine discrete emotions. While followers felt more “relief” toward COVID-related posts from micro-influencers, they also felt more “hate” toward their marketing posts. On the other hand, followers found it more acceptable if mega- and macro-influencers tried to sell something during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Special Topics in Advertising • Social Media Advertising and Big Data at the Intersection: A Diversity Perspective to Interdisciplinary Communication • Research Paper • Chen, Huan, University of Florida • The purpose of this paper is to examine the current status of Big Data research on social media advertising, and investigate obstacles and strategies for effective communication across disciplines. The Big Data approach involves two disciplines: advertising and computer science. Thus, the focus of the studies is collaborative research of these two disciplines. Grounded in the theories of interdisciplinarity, weak and strong communication, interactional expertise, two studies were conducted. Study 1 used LDA+BERT topic modeling, pyLDA and wordcloud visualization, and analyzed 199 abstracts of Big Data advertising research papers from 2016 to 2020. Findings showed a clear trend of incorporating machine learning in interdisciplinary advertising research on social media. Study 2 adopted the perspective of the intercultural workgroup communication theory. By interviewing 20 researchers from each discipline, Study 2 found that there is a lack of adequate listening between the two disciplines. The current remedies rely heavily on a sense of openness at intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, and individual go-betweeners with non-authoritative leadership style and interactional expertise. More scalable solutions have to address the issues of evaluating interdisciplinary research in tenure and promotion systems, and institutionalized platforms for disciplines to mingle with each other.
Special Topics in Advertising • Extended Abstract: What Ad Age’s A-List Agencies Learned from COVID-19: A Phenomenological Approach • Extended Abstract • Hachtmann, Frauke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • This phenomenology explores how some of the most successful advertising agencies’ senior executives experienced the global health pandemic in 2020 and what they learned from serving clients when consumers were forced into lockdown, brands slashed their media budgets, and social unrest unfolded simultaneously. The study is based on in-depth interview data from 13 individuals who worked in 10 different agencies of varying sizes across the United States and reveals five qualitative meta-themes.
Special Topics in Advertising • Effects of narrative-based corporate message and sponsorship disclosure in native CSR advertising • Research Paper • Han, Jiangxue • There has been a rise in the use of native advertising as a tactic to inform stakeholders of a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. In addition, communicating CSR through storytelling has shown to be effective in generating positive brand attitudes through transportation, identification, and engagement. The present study explores the effects of message format (narrative vs. non-narrative) and disclosure prominence (subtle vs. prominent) when communicating a brand’s CSR initiatives on message effectiveness. The findings showed that a narrative CSR advertising message led to greater identification, transportation, and engagement than a non-narrative CSR advertising message. A message with subtle disclosure led to less ad recognition and more positive message evaluations than a message with prominent disclosure. Ad recognition had a negative impact on message attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention.
Special Topics in Advertising • Advertising’s Youthful Obsession: How a Valorization of Youthfulness Has Defined the Advertising Industry and Impacted Its Workforce • Research Paper • Windels, Kasey, University of Florida • Advertisers serve as cultural intermediaries, using cultural references to create symbolic meaning for goods. Youthfulness is one highly desirable quality brands mobilize to create a sense of cutting-edge style. Based on in-depth interviews with 22 advertising practitioners, this study examines what youthfulness has come to represent in advertising and how that affects the experiences of workers in the industry. Findings suggest discourses of passion and hunger for younger workers and discourses of datedness and disillusionment for older workers are common. The valorization of youthfulness, along with its related discourses, prompt younger and older workers each to engage in particular forms of immaterial labor, or activities that contribute value, but are outside of the constraints of paid employment. While younger workers must spend considerable time engaging in the immaterial labor of following youthful social media and cultural trends, older workers must engage in immaterial labor to embody youthfulness.
Special Topics in Advertising • Effectiveness of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities in the COVID-19 Pandemic • Research Paper • Zhang, Jueman (Mandy), New York Institute of Technology • This study compared two types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities tailored to the COVID-19 pandemic—donation of tailored products and innovative manufacturing of needed supplies with two types of regular CSR activities—donation of regular products and release of CSR commercials regarding two nondurable products companies. The findings revealed that tailored CSR activities resulted in greater differentiation and innovativeness. The two types of tailored CSR activities, together with regular donation were superior to CSR commercials in terms of company function-CSR activity fit, CSR activity dynamic and company image. The impact of CSR activity type on CSR activity dynamic and company sincerity vary depending on the company and its detailed activities. Similar interaction patterns suggest the possible association between dynamic of CSR activities and company sincerity. All types of CSR activities increased the company CSR evaluations, with tailored donation revealing the salient advantage over others. None of the CSR activities improved brand equity.
Teaching and Pedagogy • Extended Abstract: Pinterest Discussions to Support Student Learning in Online Advertising and Media Courses • Extended Abstract • Huntington, Heidi West Texas A&M University • Visual bookmarking app Pinterest, known for its aspirational and consumptive qualities of user’s “pinning” work, has recently made concerted forays into the online advertising and marketing space. At the same time, its visual and collaborative qualities offer unique potential for application in pedagogy. This extended abstract describes a pedagogical assessment study examining a Pinterest-based discussion board series, specifically Pinterest’s role in fostering collaboration and learning in an online digital advertising course.
2021 Abstracts
AEJMC 2021 Conference Paper Abstracts
Virtual Conference • August 4 to 7
The following AEJMC groups will conduct research competitions for the 2021 conference. The accepted paper abstracts are listed within each section.
Divisions:
- Advertising
- Communicating Science, Health, Environment, and Risk (ComSHER)
- Communication Technology (CTEC)
- Communication Theory and Methodology
- Cultural and Critical Studies
- Electronic News
- History
- International Communication
- Law and Policy
- Magazine Media
- Mass Communication and Society
- Media Ethics
- Media Management, Economics, and Entrepreneurship
- Minorities and Communication (MAC)
- Newspaper and Online News
- Political Communication
- Public Relations
- Scholastic Journalism
- Visual Communication (VisCom)
Interest Groups:
- Community Journalism
- Entertainment Studies
- Graduate Student
- Internships and Careers
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer
- Participatory Journalism
- Religion and Media
- Small Programs (SPIG)
- Sports Communication (SPORTS)
Commissions:
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