Religion and Media 2019 Abstracts
Social Media, Religious Authority, and the Arab Gulf Crisis • Ibrahim Abusharif • On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates declared a severing of diplomatic relations with the State of Qatar. In addition to the breaking of ties, a land, sea, and air blockade against the country was enforced. The Arab Gulf, since then, has become embroiled in what is arguably the most severe crisis to have beset the region in the modern era. Immediately upon the initiation of the blockade, social media platforms became inundated with texts that commented on the crisis to various degrees of civility, poise, and partisanship. This paper presents sample case studies of social media texts generated by Kuwait-based scholars and influencers in response to the Arab Gulf crisis and analyzes them through an analytical framework of religious authority. In the important case studies presented here, the discourse analyses examine texts for the usage of language that implicitly or explicitly reference scriptural sources of Islam and normative ethics and precepts rooted in Islamic sacred law, often to excoriate or simply support the various sides or divisions created by Arab Gulf crisis. Researchers are increasingly recognizing the relevance of the online public sphere as a venue for communication and manipulation of information and preferences. This study contributes to the academic literature with this regard.
Faith in the White House: Public perceptions of U.S. presidents’ communicative performance of spiritual leadership • Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • American citizens rarely, if ever, personally interact with the president; therefore, the public’s imagined relationships with and understandings of presidential leadership are derived primarily from his communication with the people – both directly, through his speeches, and indirectly, through political news. Using survey data (N = 374), this study assessed public perceptions of six U.S. presidents’ communicative performances of spiritual leadership – ranging from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump – and explored those perceptions in relationship with respondents’ own beliefs, identities, and engagement with political news and presidential communication. These findings suggest, first, that the president already performs as a spiritual leader in ways scholars have generally overlooked – not necessarily by invoking a traditional ideology, but rather by summoning narratives of collectivity through a compelling, unitary vision and uniquely “American” values. But despite a relatively strong normative understanding of the office of the president performing spiritual leadership, this study suggests that in reality, the office-holder does matter: Perceptions of spiritual leadership across the six most-recent presidencies have ebbed and flowed. Aspects of political identity clearly emerged as the strongest predictors of respondents’ perceptions of all six presidents’ performance of spiritual leadership. However, among Republican presidents specifically, patriotism dominated as a predictor variable – with the exception of Trump, for whom nationalism took its place.
Washington, DC-based Religious and Secular Media Coverage of the District’s Death with Dignity Act • Sean Baker, Department of Journalism, Central Michigan University; Kimberly Lauffer, Ball State University, Department of Journalism • In 2016, the District of Columbia passed the Death with Dignity Act, allowing physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medicine to terminally ill patients. A framing analysis of religious and secular media coverage of the passing of the medical aid-in-dying bill, called the “Death with Dignity Act” was conducted. Four frames were found and varied by media type: in the coverage: Preserving Rights, Culture War, Potential for Abuse, and Good Death vs. Bad Death.
Religiosity as a Concept in Communication Research • Taisik Hwang • Religiosity has been increasingly understood as a multidimensional concept across diverse research areas, including journalism and mass communication studies. This paper attempts to conceptualize and operationalize this construct by conducting a systematic review of extant literature and executing reliability and validity tests. This study identifies three basic aspects of religiosity: belief, practice, and affect dimensions. The use of our scale that consists of multiple indicators representing each dimension is recommended. The results of correlation tests that examined the relationships between religiosity and other central variables, including media skepticism, are also presented.
The Impact of Religion in Situational Crisis Communication Theory: An Examination of Religious Rhetoric and Religiosity • Jordan Morehouse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Lucinda Austin, School of Media and Journalism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study examined recommended crisis response strategies, based on the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), with and without religious rhetoric to explore impacts on stakeholder’s skepticism, attitudes, trust, and supportive intentions. Crisis communication scholars have not fully explored religious organization crises, including impacts of religious rhetoric in crisis responses or stakeholder’s religiosity. Results provide support for SCCT strategies and suggest that, overall, no religious rhetoric resulted in more supportive attitudes towards the organization.
Semantic and Visual Primes of Stereotypes of Muslim Women: Evaluative and Behavioral Consequences • Alex Tan; Anastasia Vishnevskaya; Heena Khan • Cultivation and Social Learning theories predict the more intense the prime, the more negative the stereotypes. Activation Control Theory predicts that the most negative stereotypes will result from moderate primes; high intensity primes will trigger less negative stereotypes. We tested these predictions in a one factor randomized experiment. The factor was prime intensity: low, moderate, and high. Results support predictions from Activation Control Theory. Stereotypes and evaluations were consistently highest in the high prime condition.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer 2019 Abstracts
Is India Authentic or Progressive? American Media Framing of India Decriminalizing Gay-Sex from a Colonialism and Post-Colonialism • Noura Al-Duaijani • This study looks at American media framing of India’s ruling to decriminalize gay-sex from a colonialism and post-colonialism perspectives. A content analysis of articles compared America’s coverage of the Indian ruling with the 2015 coverage of U.S. legalizing gay marriage, and also compared it with how the Indian media framed the ruling. A colonial perspective emerged through emphasizing the opposing stance of local India’s religion institutes, and the negative circumstances of the Indian LGBTQ community.
Changing Body Ideals of Marginalized Identities and the Proliferation of Social and Entertainment Media • Cristina Azocar; Ivana Markova • A survey of 565 male undergraduates examined the effects of exposure to social networking sites and entertainment media on young men’s body image. Exposure to social and to entertainment media was found to have negative effects on men’s body satisfaction, social comparison, and thin ideal internalization. Findings indicated significant differences in those men who were more exposed to social and to entertainment media than those who were not as exposed. Consistent with past studies, gay men were found to be more dissatisfied with their bodies than straight men. Gay men compared themselves to other better-looking individuals and internalized ideal body types seen in media significantly more than their straight counterparts. Surprisingly, straight men seem to care as much about their physical attractiveness/appearance as gay men do, but only in public settings such as at the beach, at athletic events (including gyms) and social events. Although on average ethnic groups were more similar than different, small but significant differences occurred with Asian men indicating significantly higher body dissatisfaction than White/European men and Middle Eastern/Arab men their counterparts. The study increases our knowledge about SNS and entertainment use and its associated body image and body satisfaction affects among low-income ethnic minority men.
Is Anyone Surprised? How Journalists Frame the Coming Out of Women Athletes • Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University • Sports journalism coverage of the coming out announcements of Women’s National Basketball Association superstars Sheryl Swoopes and Brittney Griner were analyzed via a two-dimensional measurement scheme for examining media frames. Results found an overall lack of coverage and that journalists framed the two announcements similarly in terms of time and space dimensions. But, compelling differences were found when comparing the results to those of studies examining the coming out stories of gay male athletes.
What’s in a name?: Cultural meanings of the X-marker • Michelle Dreiling, University of Oregon • In 2017, Oregon began issuing driver’s licenses which bear the X-marker for sex, as opposed to M or F. This study uses critical and feminist poststructural discourse analysis to examine newspaper reporting of this policy change. I find that, though the policy change regards sex, reporting of the change shows the term “gender” subsuming “sex.” Additionally, institutional discursive power is magnified through local and national newspapers picking up AP coverage rather than producing original reporting.
Co-constructing a Media Narrative: Interviews with LGBT Activists from the 1960s and 1970s in New Zealand • Linda-Jean Kenix, University of Canterbury; Suvojit Bandhopadyaya • This paper examines how New Zealand activists in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community of the 1960s and 70s worked to create their own media representation and production. Through the memories of 29 activists who were active in the LGBT political movement of the time, this paper explores how LGBT communities used potentially harmful media stereotypes to their own advantage and how they worked to purposefully manage their representation as well as media production. Activists depended upon diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing to amplify, extend, bridge, and transform what it meant to be LGBTQ in New Zealand. At the time, the media represented a very mainstream, and conservative, vision of the LGBT community. These media frames and media representations were systematic processes to reaffirm social, economic and political power. Media narratives of the time were created to project an intended reality. This is, of course, still the case. However, the early work of these activists managed to change that intended reality through dogged determination.
Learning to be Inclusive? Testing the Effects of Media Diet on Attitudes toward LGT Equality • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Gary Hicks, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville • This study analyzed a large national survey to identify the predictors of attitudes toward the equal rights of lesbians, gay men, and transgender individuals. Egalitarian attitudes are associated with being female, younger, more liberal, less Republican, having a higher income and a lower level of fundamentalist religiosity, as well as consuming a wider variety of news media. Also, media diet mediates the effects of political ideology on support for the LGT community.
Getting Bi: An Analysis of Bisexual Characters’ Depiction on the Television Network the CW • Lyric Mandell, University of Houston; Francesca Ervin, University of Houston • “This study aims to understand the depiction of bisexual characters on the popular television network the CW. Through a combination of textual and visual analysis of two episodes of each of the television shows Riverdale and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (four episodes total). It explores the portrayal in modern television of bisexual characters, a subset of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community.
Results from a follow-up Pilot of Patient Self Advocacy Workshops for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals • Richard Mocarski, University of Nebraska at Kearney; Sim Butler, University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences; Nathan Wooduff; Robyn King; Debra Hope; Natalie Holt; Sarah Price, University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences; Jody Kellas • The long-term objective of our research team, Trans Collaborations, is to reduce health disparities for individuals identifying as transgender or gender diverse (TGD) in underserved areas. To do this we are taking a multi-prong approach at the provider, patient, and policy level. This manuscript reports on a pilot of a patient intervention. Specifically, we tested a one day workshop to increase patient self-advocacy through narrative techniques in the TGD population. The ultimate goal is to develop the first evidence-based training program to empower TGNC individuals to self-advocate in health care settings to help reduce health disparities they face. Ideally responsibility for providing culturally sensitive care should reside with health care professionals. Until then, we have developed a self-advocacy skills workshop based on state-of-the-art forensics and communications theory. Preliminary data from an urban sample (36) is reported here and suggests participants have increased self-efficacy following the workshop. Planned follow—up data will test for increased health care utilization and satisfaction.
Information Seeking and MSM’s Attitudes Toward HIV and Condoms • Joseph Schwartz, Northeastern University; Josh Grimm, Louisiana State University • This study examined how frequently men who have sex with men (MSM) used a selection of sources for HIV information and whether MSM’s attitudes toward safer sex could be predicted by the source they used. MSM (N = 969) were surveyed online. Results showed that respondents obtained information most often from HIV/LGBT organizations and dating/hookup apps, particularly the app “Scruff.” Respondents’ attitudes could be predicted by their use of specific sources of HIV information.
Internships and Careers 2019 Abstracts
From Employers’ Perspective: The Relationship Between Internship Performance and Employment Intention in Communication Context • Fei Fan, Hong Kong Baptist University • Fresh university graduates, today, face more severe competition in job market compared with those at old days as the number of university graduates keep boosting. For instance, the number of fresh university graduates hit a new historic record, reaching 7.65 million in 2016 in China. To ensure fresh graduates effectively improve their competitive advantage in employment industry, educational institutions in China, particularly Hong Kong, design compulsory courses about internship to ask students to put knowledge and skills learnt in class into practical actions. Media- and communication-related programs or majors have no exception on this. Facing the popularity and increasing importance of internship, many scholars pay attention to internship-related studies. However, few studies have been done on how internship affects employers’ recruitment intention in discipline-specific areas of marketing, advertising and public relations. To fill in this literature gap, this quantitative study was conducted to explore direct work supervisors’ mindset. Altogether 44 responses from student interns’ direct supervisors were collected during 2016 and 2017. The results postulated that perceived interns’ personal quality determined supervisors’ judgement about student interns’ overall internship performance, which later would play a determining role to help employers screen out qualified job candidates and offer job positions to university graduates with better perceived internship performance. In this continuous causal relationship, professional competence was a bridge, mediating the relationship between personal quality and overall internship performance.
Welcome to the Big Leagues: Exploring Rookie Sports Broadcasters’ Adjustment to New Careers • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • The purpose of this study is to understand how effectively sports journalism programs and internship experiences are preparing graduates for careers in local TV sportscasting. This study also examines how local sports broadcasters are adjusting to the profession. Results demonstrate the value of a sports journalism education and sports media internship when graduates are attempting to land their first jobs in a local television sports department. However, despite the value shown, many local sports broadcasters, while enjoying it, are still having a difficult time in their first few years on the job.
Intercultural competencies needed for evolving media professions: Educating the next generation of globally minded communicators • Pablo Mino, UNC-Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, UNC Chapel Hill • This study investigated which global competencies are sought after in college students applying for internships and jobs that are international in scope. A survey of 40 global communicators and subsequent interviews revealed that respect for other cultures, listening/observation skills, and understanding others’ worldviews were highly valued. It was also recommended that college graduates have experience traveling abroad and a global network of contacts to enhance their job prospects. Implications for updating college curricula are explored.
Graduate Student 2019 Abstracts
Consumers’ Response to Metaphoric Communication of Genetic Modification Technology • Ali Abbasi • Metaphoric communications have been at the heart of the anti-GMO movement for decades. But can they be used to promote GM technology? In this article, we explore different metaphoric messaging strategies that can improve consumers’ perceptions of genetic modification. We test the effectiveness of framing GM technology as either progress or protection, with manmade or natural metaphor sources and with different levels of verbal explanation to determine the best consumer response toward the advertisements.
The Commodification of the Presidency: The Role of Mass Media • Ahmad Alshehab, Arizona State University • Relying on the critical paradigm, the Frankfurt school of thought, and Guy Debord’s concept of media spectacle, this paper examines the consequences of transforming the U.S. presidential election into a commodity to be sold by the media and consumed by the public. The paper addresses several questions, including how the U.S. presidential election was transformed into a commodity for entertainment, what factors contribute to this transformation, and what are the possible consequences and suggested solutions.
Political personalization and gender: 2015 Nigerian presidential candidates on Twitter • Olushola Aromona, University of Kansas • Political personalization has become important to the study of political communication. Particularly, given the possibility of making individualized and personalized messages on Twitter, understanding how political players feature their personal stories in their political messages on Twitter is imperative. In this paper, the tweeting behaviors of presidential candidates in a developing non-western democracy was examined. A content analysis revealed that Nigerian presidential candidates in the 2015 general election highlighted personal stories in campaign message, and male and female candidates differ in the personal topics used, albeit not in stereotypic ways.
“A Woman’s View-point and a Man’s Pen-point”: The Continued Struggle for Gender Equity in Journalism • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While women writers have indeed made strides in the journalism industry, there are still enormous barriers to equity. Although women are indeed assimilating into newsrooms, the standards by which equity is measured are still male-centric. Through a close reading of existing literature, this paper will explore how women have attempted to create “a room of their own,” showing that those spaces are either unavailable to many women due to economic constraints, or become exploited for profit through verticals or the “first person industrial complex.”
Grab your bags: Exploring destination branding through Instagram • Jaisalyn Santiago; America Edwards, University of Central Florida; Michelle Senter, University of Central Florida; Katherine Pursglove, University of Central Florida; My Bui, University of Centrall Florida • This study explores how destination branding on Instagram (advertising either France versus Japan location and solo versus group travel type) impacts the age cohort of 18 to 24, in terms of message attitude, travel intentions, and destination attractiveness. Authors examine destination branding focused on Japan versus France and solo versus group travel. First, authors discuss Instagram as a communication tool and its role in destination branding, how destination branding has a role in attitude conceptualization and the Theory of Planned Behavior, and finally how these concepts align to influence travel motivations and behaviors of the 18 to 24 aged cohort. Then, authors describe how they employed an experiment to test the dependent variables, following by a meaningful discussion of what the results mean.
Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility Efforts in Corporations: A Content Analysis of Amazon’s and Walmart’s Websites • Tugce Ertem-Eray, University of Oregon • This study analyzes how Amazon and Walmart, two of the largest global companies, present the balance among their economic, social, and environmental activities and communicate their CSR efforts via their corporate websites. Findings indicate that expectations and pressures from the public may help trigger companies to report their CSR efforts. In addition, this study also indicates that the TBL concept does not fully explain each companies’ global CSR efforts.
Imported Medical TV Dramas and the Chinese Practice of Constructing Medical Professionalism • Hua FAN • This study explores how the Chinese healthcare professionals’ viewing of imported medical TV dramas can be embedded in their construction of medical professionalism. Specifically, the consumption of imported medical TV drama can spiritually motivate people to pursue a medical career, help healthcare professionals construct, confirm and reinforce the ideal version of medical professionalism, offer them an escape from the heavy workload, and provide resistance to the breaches of the ideal professionalism in actual medical bureaucracies. Protection & Pornography: A comparative content analysis of pornographic films for the presence of safe sex before and after the California Condom Law • Kyla Garrett Wagner • Legislation mandating pornography actors wear condoms during film production gave reason to believe condom use in pornography has increased. To empirically test this hypothesis and assess safe sex depiction in pornography, a content analysis of 24 adult films produced four years before and four years after the law was completed. A total of 137 sexual scenes were coded, and identified 452 sexual acts and 42 safe sex depictions; 27 depictions before the law and 15 depictions after the law. Unexpectedly, findings revealed more condom use before the law and no significant change in safe sex depictions over time. But additional analyses determined condom use was never rejected or endorsed by the actors; condoms were most common in scenes that depicted mixed-sex sex acts, recreational sex, and sex where there was no relationship between the actors; and that condom use was production company-dependent. Altogether, the hypotheses failed but novel findings of condom use in pornography emerged. The closing discussion offers insight on the condom law and its impact on pornography.
The Impacts of Social Media Use, Interest in News, and News Media Literacy on Detecting Fake News • Emily Gibbens • This study tested social media experience, interest in news, and media literacy to understand the characteristics needed to identify fake news. Participants were given examples of real, fabricated, and satire news to test if they could understand the difference and identify each one. The findings indicated that interest in news, media literacy, and education have a positive relationship with identifying fake news. Social media experience did not have an effect on the identification of fake news like hypothesized. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Media strategy analysis of the “new star” in 2019 Thai Election: linguistic perspective • Yuqi Guo • The parliamentary election of Thailand took place on March 24th 2019. The Future Forward Party, which was founded one year ago by the billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, performed very competitive leaving many traditional parties behind. This paper analyzes the media strategy of this party based on a linguistic theory: stance. According the discourse analysis and media corpus data, the party’s strategy involves many stance-taking conditions. These strategies have contributed to the popularity of Future Forward Party.
Thinking about real-world friends: Attachment theory as a framework for explaining self-presentation on social media • Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina; Michael Layer • This study used attachment theory to understand how social media users’ attachment styles influenced their behavior online on either their inner or other directed self-presentation behaviors. Our findings show high-anxiety individuals tend to be receptive to their real-world friends’ feedback on social media. These findings imply real-world friends may be the key factor to explain users’ behavioral patterns of social media use.
CSR Communication on Twitter: How Influential Are Socially Responsible Companies Communicating CSR Issues on Twitter • Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • Whether companies could reap benefits from their CSR activities are contingent on various stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate CSR performances. Thus, the effectiveness of corporate communication regarding CSR is significant. Grounded in the four models of public relations and literature in CSR communication strategies, this study analyzed ten socially responsible companies CSR communication on Twitter. Meanwhile, this study created new formulas to calculate the influential score of CSR communication on Twitter. The results showed that the broadcasting approach was the most applied communication strategy on Twitter overall. The findings may imply that previous studies and the four models of public relations underestimated the power of one-way communication. Surprisingly, generally talking about CSR such as sharing a company’s CSR ranking was the most influential CSR topic on Twitter, which effectively generated stakeholders’ emotional response, retweeting, and mentioning behaviors. However, the socially responsible ranking was not correlated with the effectiveness of corporate CSR communication on Twitter. The results of this study provided both theoretical and practical implications.
Who is Writing About What? A Content Analysis of Science News in The New York Times and the Washington Post • Joshua Jordan, University of Minnesota • To examine how science is communicated to the public via the press, this content analysis examined science news and journalists at The New York Times and the Washington Post. This study found that female science journalists outnumbered male journalists, and journalists with postsecondary degrees outnumbered those with postgraduate degrees. Regarding framing of science news, episodic occurred more often than thematic. The results offer insights into who is writing science news and how it is framed.
Cost-free at all Costs? – A Review of Drivers of Paying Intent and Willingness to Pay for Digital Journalism • Daniel Kunkel; Nicola Kleer • The advertising-based revenue model for journalism is severely challenged due to the effects of digitization. Providers of journalistic content have therefore put increasing emphasis on paid content strategies in recent years. This paper provides a literature review of factors that contribute to consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and paying intent (PI) for digital journalistic content. We identify 18 variables that influence WTP and PI. Due to inconsistent measurements in the literature, however, the results remain ambiguous.
The Role of Immersion and Involvement in Persuasive Games • Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Maral Abdollahi • This study seeks to improve the conceptualizations of involvement and immersion. We identified three distinct dimensions of involvement and immersion in the context of a persuasive game play and its playback. The study shows a significant difference between students playing the game and watching its playback for three dimensions of immersion. We also show the effect of different dimensions of involvement and immersion on attitude and behavioral intention.
Otherization in News: A Qualitative Analysis of Brussels and Lahore Terror Attacks • V. Michelle Michael • This study qualitatively compares how CNN approached the coverage of the terrorist attacks in Belgium and Pakistan. In order to understand any otherization messages in the initial coverage, this paper analyzes the first video story of each event’s coverage in depth. The analysis undertaken in this paper is two-fold: a visual analysis of the moving images used in the video stories and discourse analysis to excavate meaning from accompanying text and language. This mixed-method study uses both semiotics and syntax analysis to explore how similar terrorism events concerning two different social groups (in-group and out-group) are portrayed differently.
Opinion Leaders as Persuasion Agents: Integration of Persuasion Knowledge Into the Theory of Opinion Leadership • Alexander Mueller, University of Saskatchewan • In the healthcare industry, it is a common practice for manufacturers to attempt to persuade customers through opinion leaders (OL) in their specialty. This conceptual paper addresses this challenge by examining the combination and linkage of OL and persuasion agents (PA). OL and PA theories are re-conceptualized in a newly developed Persuasive Opinion Leadership Model. The model´s theoretical relevance is discussed and provides a new perspective on opinion leadership in marketing. Future research is proposed.
On Kichiku as Film and Television Subculture and Its Influences in China • Yu King NG • This paper focuses on the core issues of Kichiku, and refines them into the definition and style characteristics of Kichiku, relationship between the Kichiku as a subculture and China’s mainstream culture, and its influence, which are analyzed separately so as to connect them together. This paper also sorts out the process of meaning shift of the word Kichiku, and change is also a process in which the Kichiku culture gradually comes into being and develops.
A President, a sportsman and a rhetorical vision • Varaidzo Nyamandi, Regent University • The racial, political and social poles in a divided America require solutions towards unity. Presidents Nelson Mandela’s communication of a rhetorical vision to a divided South Africa in 1995 becomes relevant today, as a suggestion of how rhetoric may provide unity. This study explores Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to explore the creation of a worldview shared by South Africans, once separated along racial lines. The symbolic convergence theory is used to explain the meaning of the rhetorical vision of President Mandela. He communicates the vision through his recital of the Victorian era poem “Invictus”, as dramatized in the motion picture Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). The study contributes to the growing body of literature on the use of persuasion, from the perspective of the diverse audience, who chain out the vision, as dramatized in Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). Scholars note that contemporary rhetoric understands the personal nature of creating, receiving and sharing messages and exploring meanings with others. In the pursuit of this general endeavor, this study specifically suggests a way of interpreting shared meaning connecting people of diverse cultures, backgrounds, political views into a new worldview.
An Economic Analysis of the New York Times 1970s Daily Sections • Samantha Peko, Ohio University • In the 1970s, The New York Times Company was in a state of financial decline. The paper instituted a series of changes. Most notably, inserting into the folds of each weekday’s paper a new consumer section (food, home décor, sports, the arts, and science). The sections created a trend that newspapers around the country followed. This paper examines how investors reacted to the idea by looking at changes in the stock price using archival stock market data.
TV Anchors and Reporters use of Emotional Labor: Professional Control Over Personal Health Disclosures Online • Kirstin Pellizzaro, Arizona State University • Using the theoretical lens of emotional labor, this study performs a qualitative content analysis of 24 TV broadcast journalists’ disclosures of personal health-related issues on their professional social media pages – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Findings indicate that emotional labor was negotiated and learned journalistic skills were employed in various ways, indicating control over content. These findings raise concerns that these controlled narratives can influence an audience understanding of health-related issues.
Mental Health Satisfaction and Social Interactions • Jessica Roark, Ohio University • With online health activities becoming more popular, the opportunities to discuss mental health and share information have increased. A secondary analysis of data from the Pew Research Center examined the effects of social interaction on perceived help obtained from health information gathered online. This study looked specifically at respondents interested in mental health. Findings indicate that there are relationships between perceived help gained from online health information, participation in online health and social media activities.
Future Prospects of Female Journalists in Bangladesh • Md Nurus Safa, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • The study found that, female journalist facing many barriers like family pressure, Society problem, pay-allowances and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and even lack of workplace. Now days they are protecting and talking outside if face any discrimination with them. It is possible to survive if the passion, professionalism, and love have on this profession. Day by day increasing the female participation in a significant change has come into the social attitude which represent by women’s advancement in journalism sector of Bangladesh.
Bullying in the Digital Age: Difficulties and Dilemmas Regarding Cyberbullying • Chun Shao, Arizona State University • Various media technologies have developed rapidly, which have fundamentally altered the traditional communication patterns. However, as portrayed in various media, an unfortunate aspect of the use of technologies is the increasing occurrence of cyberbullying. This paper aims to explore cyberbullying, focusing on its harm on teenagers and legislative responses to this problem. Through investigating emotional and physical harm of cyberbullying, this study illustrates how far John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle has progressed not only since Mill’s era but also in the digital age.
The impact of Social Media on Tourism Marketing: Analyzing Young Consumers’ Travel Behavior • Farzana Sharmin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Tourism marketing and promotional strategies are changing from the last few decades. Consumers’ have a more dynamic relationship with social media technology, which is tapping into new tourism marketing dimensions. This study examines the role of social media technology as a utilization trait in shaping young consumers’ travel behavior based on the theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research has largely focused on social media acceptance and usage performance of consumers’ during the travel planning phase. The convenience random sample method used to collect data from prime tourist places of Shanghai (China) and instrument developed support on previous research to test hypotheses. The results of structural analyses revealed that respondents’ attitude towards the use of social media affected by technology self-efficiency. In addition, perceived behavioral control has a partial influence towards the attitude of respondents’. Thus the respondents’ mostly prefer social media in pre-travel phase and during travel. Finally, the managerial implications for tourism marketers are presented with a focus on how to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing in targeting groups.
Reacting Against Climate Change Denial: Role of Anger and Anxiety in the Backfire Effects of Censoring Climate Change • Ran Tao, UW-Madison • Since climate change became one of the national agenda in the 1980s, political divide and contention over climate change issues have been seen in the U.S. The reflexivity forces, particularly environmentalism, advocate for an active response to climate change, whereas the anti-reflexivity forces undermined efforts of environmentalism by delegitimizing climate change and preventing progress in climate change policies. Such anti-reflexivity is witnessed as the Trump administration censored and manipulated climate change information online. However, the public’s reaction toward the information control stayed unclear. Applying the psychological reactance theory, this study argues that citizens will react against information control on climate change issues by the government through negative emotions. When citizens receive a high volume of threat message that informed them of information control on climate change from the government, they will feel more anger, which leads to more intention to view the repressed information, learn more about climate change, share climate change information with friends, families, and the public, regardless of their political ideology and pre-exited climate change attitude. The results have implications for advancing reactance theory and understanding citizens’ reactance against governmental information control on climate change.
Participatory Journalism in China: An Extended Newsroom and Power, Network, State • Luxuan Wang, New York University • By analyzing different producers’ identities and posts, this paper explores how participatory journalism differs from traditional media and how organizational structure influences framings in China’s context. Generally, the elite community dominated the discourse of participatory journalism on social media, producing a different framing from that of Chinese traditional news agencies. This paper examined the “extended newsroom” of participatory journalism in Chinese context involving dispositions of capitals, heterogeneous network of human-nonhuman interactions, and the state’s manifestation.
Hacker groups and social movements: A systematic review of literature • Yiping Xia, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Hackers are groups of people with a common concern with information technologies and a shared set of fundamental beliefs, such as the protection of privacy and freedom of information. While there are numerous studies about how social movements and technology intersect, there has been relatively less social movement scholarship devoted to hackers that push for social change via technological means, or make technology the central issue of their agenda. By systematically examining the extant literature using McAdam et al’s (1996) framework, this paper aims to map our current knowledge about hacking/hackers as social movement players, and to generate discussions about future research directions for scholars of interest.
Linkages among Individual Values, Attitudes, and Political Actions: A Cross-Cultural Study • Leping You, University of Florida • Communicating values is crucial to motivating people to be engaged in political/social actions globally. While many studies have examined how cultures influence individuals’ attitudes toward social issues and their intentions of participating in civic actions, research exploring civic engagement in comparison with individualistic and collectivistic cultures on the individual level is relatively scarce. Drawing on Schwartz’s theory of values, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationships among individual values, attitudes toward human rights such as equal pay, and political action behavior. The results of this study revealed that people in Asian cultures were found to value both personal-focus and social-focus values more highly than people in America. In addition, personal-focus values were negatively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay, while social-focus values such as universalism-nature and universalism-society were positively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay. The political environment is suggested as a potential moderator in predicting people’s political activism behavior from behavioral intentions.
The impact of Next Media Animation framing on university students’ attitudes towards, perception of, and participation in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong • Runping Zhu, University of Western Australia; Chesca Ka Po Wong • The most significant social protest in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 was the 2014 Umbrella Movement seeking democratic processes for the appointment of the Region’s chief executive. This study examines how the framing of the police, government, and opponents of the protests in the Next Media Animation news videos prepared by Apple Daily, an important Hong Kong newspaper, influenced university students’ attitudes, perceptions, and political behavior in terms of the Umbrella Movement events. The findings from a qualitative content-analysis and a quantitative survey (N=212) showed that students viewing negative images of the police, government and anti-protestors framed by the Next Media Animation formed unfavorable attitudes towards the three parties and were consequently more likely than non-viewers to participate in the Movement. The study extends the previous work on audience responses to news framing by demonstrating how animated news frames may, by manipulation of the story facts and enhancing the presentation with emotive music and commentary, prompt stronger audience reactions than those created by other news frames. The finding raises the possibility of misuse of technology by animation practitioners and the risk of exploitation of animated media to promote the ideologies supported by media owners.
Entertainment Studies 2019 Abstracts
‘Live Fast, Die Young’: Programming Strategies of the Phonograph, FOX, and CBS • Anna Aupperle • Everything old is new again on broadcast television, or so it seems. When comparing the programming strategies of broadcast networks, it is imperative to look back to history to see how other media have sold similar content to audiences. This paper compares the programming of the phonograph at the height of its popularity and case studies of three Fox and CBS programs, in an effort to rectify these differing content strategies.
Expecting Victory due to TV or Identity?: Examining media consumption, social identification, and fan expectations • Natalie Brown-Devlin, The University of Texas at Austin; Michael Devlin, Texas State University • This study used a nationwide, purposive sample to simultaneously examine how media consumption and levels of team identification contribute to the formation of fan expectations. Guided by both cultivation theory and social identification theory as an underpinning, this study utilized a survey of 310 highly-identified fans of two teams competing in the NCAA College Football Championship game. Participants reported their media consumption habits, level of team identity, and expectations for the game outcome. Results determined the extent to which sports media consumption contributes to the formation of sport fans’ expectations regarding their preferred team’s performance, and then, examined the extent to which team identification (using the SSIS) contributed to either mediating or moderating the effects of expectations after media consumption.
Binge Watching: Motivations, Demographics, and Television Program Genres • Jiyoung Cha, San Francisco State University; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Binge watching is a notable phenomenon that is changing the production, distribution, and consumption of television programs. Building upon the uses and gratification theory, this study seeks to better understand binge-watching behaviors. A national survey of U.S. adults identified motivations that predict the frequency of binge watching, the amount of time spent binge watching and the quantity of binge watching episodes. It also uncovered the demographic characteristics and genre consumption patterns of frequent binge viewers.
Teaching Diversity through Satire Literacy • Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University; Kiah Bennett • Several studies reveal that satire is popular among young audiences, making it a potential didactic tool for in-classroom discussions; however, satire criticized for making jokes that only resonate with those already familiar with the topic (Flanagan, 2017). The current work describes best practices for using satire in the classroom to discuss issues of representation and diversity in media by presenting rhetorical and pedagogical tactics that provide students insight into issues of marginalization with respect to class, gender, and race.
Potterheads: A Cultural Overview • Danielle Deavours, The University of Alabama • All humans have patterns of behavior, thought, and actions that are learned from outside influences, and these aspects make up our cultural identities. Culture can be defined as “learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people” (Martin & Nakayama, 2017). People learn about the world by selecting, evaluating, and organizing various stimuli from the external environment and then creating their perception of self and worldviews. Media is one of these external stimuli by which humans build personal worldviews, and research shows that certain media have great influence over the development of self-perception and other behavioral predictors (Agha, 2010; Ionoaia, 2009). One instance of an influential media is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Arguably one of the most successful book series in history, Harry Potter is a world-wide phenomena that has helped shape the worldviews of millions of readers and fans. The influence of the series is so great that researchers have begun referring to Harry Potter fans as members of a singular culture, known as Potterheads. This paper addresses some of the cultural aspects of Harry Potter fans, including pop culture, language, symbols, games, and arts. The author will also explore Harry Potter fan culture’s viewpoints on nerd versus mainstream identity, relationships, politics, prejudice, gender, philanthropy, and collectivism.
It’s Obviously Funny to be a Meme: Using Memes for Political Entertainment & Observation • Bingbing Zhang, Texas Tech University; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University • Memes are cultural units that transmit among online users. Appearing as jokes, memes are a popular form of expression and appear to serve a greater role in the formation and spread of public opinion, changing the way citizens engage with politics. Driven by uses and gratifications theory, this work examines users’ motivations for viewing, sharing, and creating political memes. A nationwide survey (N = 1,000) of Facebook users identified unique gratifications obtained from political meme use. Results show the use of politically-related memes is a nuanced behavior strategically done to fulfill needs for political entertainment and observation. Specifically, individuals with high political trust, who think of themselves as being humorous, and frequently share or create memes used them to observe politics in action. Alternatively, those who prefer to observe humorous circumstances and frequently share and view memes, without engaging in creation, used politically-related memes for entertainment. Practical and theoretical implications regarding use of memes for engagement and effects are discussed.
Out of the Shadows: Female Representation in Shadow of the Tomb Raider • Jordin Howell, University of Memphis • A textual analysis of Shadow of the Tomb Raider provides insight on the current level of female representation within the video game community. Calls for equal representation peaked during the #GamerGate controversy; the present research concludes this game is a direct answer to that call. Findings show that Shadow of the Tomb Raider presents Lara Croft as a feminist role model who has been transformed into a three-dimensional character. The research also highlights that, while it is important to find areas lacking in representation, it is also important to note when it is done right.
“Slutty ambitious monsters”: The cultivation of female journalists in pop culture • Kelsey Husnick, Wayne State University • Negative, inaccurate portrayals of female journalists have persisted in movies, television shows and other cultural artifacts for decades and little change has been made in the movie and television industry. This paper uses cultivation theory and news processes as a basis for analyzing HBO’s Sharp Objects, which features female journalist as protagonist. Findings include plot elements and themes supporting and pushing back on traditional journalistic scripts.
Looking through the selfie: An analysis of Snapchat Filter/Lens Use in the Context of Objectification Theory and Uses and Gratifications • Angelina Cruz, University of Central Florida; Amanda Brown, University of Central Florida; Elise Legrout, University of Central Florida; Edward Matthew Coyle, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • Highly visual social media like Snapchat have become a mainstays in modern culture, particularly among young people. These services offer filters and lenses that people use to alter their visual messages. However, little is known about why young people use lenses and filters and what the potential effects might be. This study examines the relationship between college students’ use of Snapchat’s silly and beauty lenses and their association with self-objectification and self-esteem. College students responded to an online survey including measures of social media use, motives for using lenses, as well as feelings of self-objectification and self-esteem. Results revealed that three motives accounted for lens and filter use: entertainment/pass time, beautification, and impression management. There was no connection between Snapchat filter and lens use and participant’s tendency toward self-objectification but there was a correlation between Snapchat use and self-esteem. Participant’s sex as well as the entertainment/pass time and beautification motives were the only predictors of their use of Snapchat’s familiar filters/lenses.
Immersion Matters: Trait Empathy, Presence, and Enjoyment in Cinematic Virtual Reality Experience • Zexin “Marsha” Ma, Oakland University • Cinematic virtual reality (CVR), in the format of 360° sphere videos, has gained an increasing popularity over the past few years. As CVR can be viewed in different media platforms that differ in immersion, it is important to understand the impact of immersion on viewers’ psychological experience. This study investigates the role of immersion and its interactive effects with trait empathy on CVR viewers’ spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment. A sample of 112 young adults were randomly assigned to watch a CVR film either in mobile phone-based VR headsets (high immersion) or tablets (low immersion). Results indicated that viewers experienced greater spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment when the film was viewed in high (vs. low) immersion. Spatial presence and social presence were also found to jointly mediate the effect of immersion on enjoyment. Furthermore, trait empathy interacted with immersion to influence social presence. Contrary to our expectation, we found that social presence was more strongly influenced by immersion among individuals low (vs. high) in trait empathy. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Hostile Media Bias and Third-Person Effect in Film and Television: A Study of Diversity • Michele Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Abstract: The issue of diversity and stereotyping in film and television has become a politicized, hotly contested topic in discussions of pop culture. In this paper, I use portrayals and audience perceptions of race, gender, sexual orientation, body type, and class to investigate the idea that hostile media bias and third-person effect apply to entertainment media in addition to news. Survey results (n=317) indicate that audiences believe film and television to be more diverse than they actually are. A positive sentiment toward diversity in film and television predicted the perception that creators exclude people from marginalized groups in their productions. Furthermore, when asked if stereotypical portrayals contributed the marginalization of minorities, audiences displayed third-person effect perceptions, believing that others could buy into stereotypes but they do not.
Misogyny and Erotic Pleasure in Bollywood’s ‘Item Numbers’ • Suman Mishra • “Item numbers” are controversial song and dance sequences that have gained popularity in Bollywood cinema in the last two decades. In this study, item numbers produced between 2000-2018 in Bollywood films are analyzed, a period which saw rapid growth in item numbers. Thematic analysis of item number videos shows a trend towards increased sexual objectification of women, along with several other sub-themes such as use of Eurocentric models. The transformation of Bollywood’s song and dances from sensual depictions into an “erotic spectacle” is discussed in the context of globalization and misogyny. Elements of erotic spectacles are noted.
DudeBros Could Love Lady Shows: Gender Expectations, Enjoyment, and Willingness to Recommend Television Among Males • Renee Mitson, University of Minnesota; Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Jonathan Anderson; Maral Abdollahi • This research quantifies gendered beliefs, enjoyment, and willingness to recommend television programs expected to be viewed by the opposite gender. We surveyed 350 heterosexual males, and measured gendered beliefs, expected audience gender of popular television programs, enjoyment of shows, and social recommendations. Results found gendered beliefs are not an obstacle for enjoyment or willingness to recommend television shows, but expected audience gender is, and enjoyment and recommendations decreased when participants expected shows were watched by women.
‘Fight the Power’: Themes of Racial Tension in Different Rap Music Eras – A Content Analysis • Dante Mozie, University of South Carolina • Rap music has served as a platform for many artists over the years to tackle issues that affect the African American community, from racial profiling and police misconduct to criticizing government leaders and societal woes. A content analysis of the Billboard Hot Rap Song charts in two different eras for the genre, 1989-1999 and 2008-2018, was conducted to examine the frequency of rap artists mentioning the police in their songs, how often artists criticize racism and oppressive institutions, such as the government, and how often rappers offer advice or self-reflection in their songs. Results found that most artists preferred to discuss themselves, love, sex, drugs, wealth, and other topics besides the police or social and racial topics. However, a small connection was found between the tone of artists (“angry”) and those who tackled racial profiling in their songs, an encouraging sign of support for the African-American Offending Theory, which is discussed and used in this study.
Coming out of the Celebrity Closet: LGBTQ and Authentic Mediated Confessions • Nathian Rodriguez, San Diego State University; Mary Liz Brooks • The current study’s goal is to examine how LGBTQ celebrities frame their coming out messages, with specific attention to mediated platforms, between 2013 and 2018. In addition, the study examined what identities were most salient in those celebrities who did come out. The analysis revealed themes of promoting marriage equality, representation to LGBTQ youth, specific cause-related issues, response to violence, representation in media, celebratory timing, authenticity and honesty, and reputation management. A majority of the celebrities were primarily actors and actresses, athletes, and musicians. The analysis also revealed that more than 62% of the celebrities were male, White, and between the ages of 21 and 35 years-old. Most came out on social media.
Gendered #selfie? An analysis of Selfies, Face-ism, and Sexual Self-Identification on Instagram • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University; Cynthia Nichols, US Department of State • Decades of research on face-ism in traditional media report women are more likely to be pictured from a more distant perspective than men, and users of social networks are mirroring this presentation. This analysis used the face-ism index to determine facial prominence of 621 Instagram users who did and did not self-identify as #gay or #lesbian. The analysis revealed users who sexually self-identified did not follow the hetero-normative face-ism trends seen in traditional, gendered media.
Corporate Affirmations of the True Self and Mutual Self Help: Transmedia Rhetorics of Marvel Rising • Burton St. John, University of Colorado – Boulder; J. Richard Stevens, University of Colorado – Boulder • In 2018, Disney launched a Marvel Rising transmedia campaign introducing a line of female superhero dolls and supporting media narratives with Marvel Comics and Hasbro. Utilizing textual and industry analysis, we find that the concentration of ownership and the need to attract a new clientele surprisingly resulted in a “commercialized feminism” text, one that thematically supports Disney’s pro-social messaging agenda, linking its products to what it perceives as the preferred social identity for its audience.
Just One More Episode: Binge-Watching Poetics and Big Data in Non-Linear Television Portals • Ryan Stoldt • In 2013, Netflix declared binge-watching “the new normal” in a press release. Binge-watching, or watching two or more episodes of a television series in one sitting, emerged as a popular way of consuming television as an increasing number of internet-distributed television services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime offered consumers access to a library of content to watch on their own time. This paper offers the concept of binge-watching poetics to describe the technological and narrative poetic devices employed by internet-distributed television services to encourage audiences to continue consuming television. I argue that the seasonal release strategies, algorithmic flows between episodes, and the narrative devices within shows all serve as binge-watching poetics. The employment of binge-watching poetics functions as a socio-historic extension of many previous televisual production practices to keep audiences returning but serves a different economic purpose for the television companies. Through the encouragement of continual consumption in binge-watching poetics, internet-distributed television services gather data on consumption practices. This data production allows the businesses to continually reemploy the audiences’ productive behavior for the businesses’ own economic interest by informing programming decisions and selling advertisements. Thus, this paper argues that the Foucauldian power knowledge created through audience consumption continues to allow the television industry to recreate its own existence, although the power knowledge is employed in slightly different ways from the linear television broadcasting industry.
Shakin’ the Delta: The Evolution and Misrepresentation of Hill Country Blues in Print Journalism • GREENBERRY TAYLOR, University of Florida • R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are two of the most prolific Hill Country bluesmen from northeast Mississippi. For most of the 20th century, however, music journalists mislabeled their music as Delta blues. This historical study examines magazine and newspaper articles from 1985 to 2002 on Burnside and Kimbrough, while also incorporating oral histories and in-depth interviews, in order to understand the evolution of Hill Country coverage on its rise to mainstream success.
Facing the Music: Analyzing the Depiction and Objectification of Women in American Music Journalism • Kelsey Whipple; Renita Coleman • This content analysis finds significant objectification of female musicians in major music publications during 2016. The stories, predominantly about male artists and by male authors, were more likely to discuss female musicians’ appearance and relationships, and used more sexualized and emotional language. Female writers were just as likely to objectify women musicians. We expand objectification theory with the concept of “vicarious self-objectification,” capturing how women have internalized the sexualized identities and then objectify other women.
Explore horror movie genre preference with miniMAM: An exploratory study in Taiwan • Yu-Lun Wu; Hsiu-Ping Yueh • Media has become the main resource of contemporary entertainment, and people usually approach it for something positive. In between, frightening entertainment has long been an interesting issue in media study. Followed by the tradition of intensity-based models, the study attempted to explore the correlation between media preference, behavior, and individual differences. Since Motivation Activation Measure (MAM) has been an emerging and reliable indicator of biologically based individual difference, the study conducted correlational approach to examine the short version MAM (miniMAM) in correlation with horror preference and watching frequency. Gender was also verified in further analysis. The data were collected from a total of 160 participants. The results showed that the horror movie genre preference is positive correlating to horror movie watching frequency, and ASA scores has positive correlation with horror movie genre preference, especially the more intensive genres, and males performed higher preference in specific genres than females. Nevertheless, due to the limitation of the study, cultural issue and research design needed more consideration in the future study.
Community Journalism 2019 Abstracts
It’s Who You Know: Twitter, Media Trust, and Local News • Ivy Ashe, University of Texas at Austin; Ryan Wallace, University of Texas, Austin; Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin • Using results from a national survey, this study employs the theoretical lens of reciprocal journalism to examine correspondence between Twitter engagement with journalists and levels of general media trust. We find that Twitter users who engage in reciprocal actions with journalists, such as follows and interactions (likes, retweets, replies) have higher trust levels than other online users. We also find a significant relationship between trust levels and the journalist’s geographic base (local or national).
African-American Online Newspapers’ Coverage of Policy Debate on the Affordable Care Act in 2017 • Masudul Biswas, Loyola University Maryland; Nam Young Kim, Sam Houston State University • Using content analysis, this study examined the coverage on the repeal and replace efforts of Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2017 in three African-American online newspapers – Afro.Com, AtlantaBlackStar.Com and PhillyTrib.com. Top three news frames across the news coverage by these online newspapers reflected political contention and political maneuverings around the ACA and potential policy implications of the Republicans’ proposed bills to replace the ACA. Except in the use of politically-focused conflict frame, there was no significant difference in the use of four other news frames among these African-American news outlets that dwelt on policy implications (i.e., consequence frame), positive aspects of the ACA and policy recommendations to improve it (i.e., solutions frame), political maneuverings around repealing and protecting the ACA (i.e., strategy frame), and attribution of responsibility for potential consequences of a new health care law (i.e., responsibility frame).
A sense of community at NPR member stations and its influence on giving • Joseph Kasko, Winthrop University • This research is composed of 20 in-depth, qualitative interviews with managers at public radio stations across the U.S. to examine if listeners perceive that they are part of a community and how that feeling might influence giving. The findings suggest public radio managers believe their listeners view themselves as part of a media community of supporters. Most of the managers also expressed that a sense of community contributed to the decision to support the station financially.
‘Life Is Harder:” The Perceived Impact of a Newspaper Closure on a Community • Nick Mathews • This study presents findings from 18 in-depth interviews with residents of a recent news desert and offers a systematic qualitative investigation of the perceived impact of a newspaper’s closure on community members’ everyday lives and, just as important, their sense of community. This case study, using the psychological theory of sense of community as its theoretical framework, shows a noticeable negative effect on community members’ sense of community, with participants missing celebrated gatherings, suffering from an increased sensation of isolation and diminished pride in the community. In addition, without newspaper reporters stationed in the county, residents function as reporters themselves, laboring to obtain information. Overall, these findings present a picture of life in Caroline County, Virginia, following the Caroline Progress’ closure after 99 years of service to the county.
VR as Community News Solution – Connecting communities, helping audiences trust community journalists more with immersive technology • Aaron Atkins, Graduate Student Interest Group; Hans Meyer, Ohio University; Samantha Peko, Ohio University • One of the compelling aspects of 360-degree virtual reality news content, research suggests, is that it engages many of the hallmarks of community journalism, namely geographic community, online community, cultural identity, and community-oriented information needs. Yet community news organizations remain reluctant to use it. This experiment compared a non-linear, interactive VR news experience about a small town in West Virginia facing environmental challenges with a traditional print news story and examined the effects the story type had on learning, enjoyment, credibility, and sense of community. It found that VR can enhance the overall credibility a participant assigned to the media and the sense of community they feel, especially for women over men. While it did not find VR had a significant impact on story credibility, perceptions of media bias, and learning, it provide suggestions for further study of these concepts. Overall, it suggests that VR could be an alternative for community news organizations looking to foster greater connections with communities outside of main readership areas.
Signal Interruption in Baldwin City: Filling a Communication Vacuum in a Small-Town ‘News Desert’ • Steve Smethers, Kansas State University; Samuel Mwangi, Kansas State University; Bonnie Bressers • This study examines newspaper loss in a small Kansas college town and its impact on social and economic information flow. Focus-group research with community leaders recounts the realities of newspaper loss and how resultant alternative social media and other digital platforms were used to communicate with specific audiences, creating peer communication networks that failed to get general information to the community at large. Confusion over new media adaptation supports predictions of the channel expansion theory that familiarity with platforms is a predictor of its adoption and use, a hindering factor in reaching older populations.
Visual Communication 2019 Abstracts
Plastics and Polar Bears: Measuring Environmental Framing Effects on Perceived Distance and Sense of Motivation • Danielle Quichocho; Kathleen I. Alaimo, U of Colorado • A critical form of communication for environmental NGOs is the use of photographs to inform and advocate. Therefore, the way in which those images are framed has broad implications for the NGO and the public. This study examines the effect of psychological distance frames upon motivation to help the environment by conducting a survey of college students (n=52). Findings indicate that while distance is salient for all images, a sense of urgency is not.
Video Convergence: Factors Affecting Photojournalists’ Satisfaction and Adoption • Christopher Assaf, University of Texas at Austin • A survey of visual journalists (N=132) shooting online video finds that factors affecting photojournalists satisfaction and perceptions of quality are related to training and experience. As the convergence of still and video continues at media outlets after more than ten years, overall, more than half of visual journalists surveyed are satisfied shooting online video. Survey respondents who had more video training had higher satisfaction with their video shooting and higher their perception of quality in their video shooting. However, when it comes to convergence, only 44% of respondent had combined still photography and video shooting on assignment at some or all the time — showing a low rate of video technology being adopted and combined with the still photography skillset. Of that, 55% showed dissatisfaction with shooting both stills and video. Findings are discussed in regard to diffusion of innovations theory.
A lion or a lone wolf? Developing a visual measure of archetypal personality for communication research • Jared Brickman, Carnegie Dartlet • The accurate measure of psychological predictors like personality is pivotal to communication research seeking to tailor messages or explain behaviors. Unfortunately, measuring personality is difficult due to desirability bias and lack of universality in understanding trait-based questionnaires. This research builds on literature that suggests visual measures, like icons or emojis, can eliminate some of this bias. Icons were developed for measuring archetypal personality and were tested with two surveys and dozens of real-world case studies.
Visualizing Candidates and Graphicating the News: Evidence from US Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1992-2012 • Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Othello Richards, Texas Tech University • The systematic subdivision and increasing graphication of television screen space has proceeded apace in the digital era with little systematic scrutiny despite its widespread application in newscasts locally, nationally, and internationally. The handful of studies that do exist suggest that graphication of broadcast news can aid in story comprehension but also distract from the traditional audiovisual content of news reporting. No analysis has yet considered the prevalence of television news graphics from a systematic, longitudinal perspective. In this paper we perform a visual content analysis of 20 years’ worth of presidential campaign coverage (1992 to 2012) to examine longitudinal trends in the use of graphication by the major broadcast networks since the rise of digital editing. In particular, we examine the use of boxes and split screens by the three main evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC, which despite experiencing declines in viewership during this period still maintained the largest television news audience during the study period. Beyond documenting a steady—and dramatic—increase in the use of graphication elements, the study finds that candidates are graphicated far more than journalists, although the gap is closing, and Republicans are more often put into boxes and split screens than Democrats. NBC uses these visual elements the most of any network. Trailing candidates are also put into boxes and split screens more than front-runners and candidates who are running in close races. Implications for candidate evaluations and informed citizenship, and the need for experimental studies to document graphication effects, are discussed.
Framing Me Too: A Visual Analysis of the Social Movement’s News Coverage on Twitter • Holly Cowart, Georgia Southern University • This content analysis examines how major U.S. news outlets represent the Me Too movement on Twitter. Using framing, it focuses on images of people in tweets as a form of visual communication. Nine news outlets’ Twitter accounts were sampled to identify relevant themes and explore their potential role in shaping society’s understanding of the movement. Findings include a greater visual emphasis on those accused of sexual misconduct than its victims and a reliance on celebrities.
The impact of imagery: Visual journalists’ assessment of the power of images • Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; Brent Walth, University of Oregon; Kaitlin Bane, University of Oregon • Academic debate exists regarding the actual power that images possess to create outcomes or journalistic “impact.” While there is a growing body of research on journalistic impact, it is a generally underexplored research area, and there are no known studies specifically bringing together journalistic impact research with photojournalism literature on the power of imagery. Through surveys with visual journalists, this research explores fundamental questions about journalists’ perceptions of, and experiences with, images and impact.
No, Memes No! Digital Persuasion in the #MeToo Era • Shahira Fahmy; Omneya Ibrahim, American University in Cairo • This study bridges a gap in communication research by conducting an integrative framing analysis of Twitter memes based on the pathos, ethos and logos persuasion appeals. Specifically, this study examines both visual and textual information in the most popular memes of the #MeToo campaign. Results are based on a quantitative content analysis of the top 1,000 Me Too memes on Twitter during the week in which sexual misconduct allegations were made against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then nominee for the US Supreme Court justice. Findings reveal the role of different persuasion principles in online social movements. Results showed anti-#MeToo memes significantly focused more on the emotional appeal and less on the logos and ethos appeals than pro-#MeToo memes. Overall, the work contributes to the growing memes literature that empirically explores the integration between visual and verbal modalities in the contemporary digital media environment.
On the boundaries: Professional photojournalists navigating identity in an age of technological democratization • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Ross Taylor, U of Colorado; Kathleen I. Alaimo, U of Colorado • In the wake of an influx of interlopers populating photojournalism, this study utilizes in-depth interviews with 21 professional photojournalists to better understand how they construct their identity. With a framework of social identity theory, this research found photojournalists consider clear role conception, adherence to normative journalism ethics and organizational backing as key components of their in-group. They consider a loyalty to citizens second, a lack of professional processes, and advocacy key parts of the out-group.
Visualizing the finish line: Exploring capstone courses in visual communications programs • Matthew Haught, University of Memphis; David Morris II, University of South Carolina Aiken • As the number of journalism and mass communications programs offering a visual communications focused program grows, the curriculum of programs should be examined. This study uses open-ended questionnaire responses with program coordinators and capstone instructors in journalism and mass communications-based visual communications programs. It finds that capstones include internships, ethics courses, campaigns courses, and advanced praxis courses. It concludes that the blend of theoretical and practical understanding and application is the overriding outcome for programs.
Night and day: A visual diptych of hate and horror in Charlottesville • Susan Keith, Rutgers University; Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University • Two photographs from the Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017—Samuel Corum’s flame-lit image of marcher Peter Cvjetanovic and Ryan M. Kelly’s Pulitzer-winning image of the car attack that killed Heather Heyer—captured the American imagination. This paper examines the rhetorics of contrast, emotion and resonance embedded in the images and argues that they have the potential to become iconic images.
The Visual Effects of Electronic Cigarette Warning Statement Features on Harm Perceptions of E-cigarette among Young Adults • Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Jim Thrasher, University of South Carolina; Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Yoo Jin Cho, University of South Carolina • This study investigates young adults’ reactions to varying electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) warning statements. The results of a 3 (warning statement size: 30%, 50%, or 70% of magazine advertisement surface) by 2 (warning statement background: white or yellow) between-subject experiment (N = 320) with one nonfactorial control condition (advertisement with no warning statement) indicate that enlarged and yellow warning statements increased viewers’ perceived harm of e-cigarette use and in turn decreased their susceptibility to e-cigarette use.
Venus, Mars and the Sun: Gender Differences in the Persuasive Efficacy of GIFs with Positive and Negative Emotional Valence on Promoting Sunscreen Use • Bianca Ann Lee; Lena Cheng Yeng Lee; Tessa Su En Liang; Zandra Rui Yi Ang • This study explored the persuasive efficacy of Graphics Interchange Formats (GIFs) and gender’s moderating effect on visual format and emotional valence with a 2 (visual format) x 2 (emotional valence) x 3 (message repetition) mixed design. Key findings were: (a) men were more persuaded by animated GIFs, (b) valence had no significant effect on persuasion within animated GIFs, and (c) within negative valence, men were more persuaded by animated GIFs and women by static graphics.
You Are What You Post: The Interaction of Personality Traits and Visual Content on Instagram • Yuchen Liu • Drawing on the Big Five theory of personality, this study examined how personality traits influence the visual content theme that individuals post on Instagram as well as their posting behavior. An online questionnaire was conducted with 283 undergraduate students, followed by a visual content analysis with 1,000 Instagram posts. Although inconsistency exists between self-reported data and content analysis data, results revealed that personality traits predicted participants’ posting behavior the visual content theme that they post on Instagram. Scholarly and practical implications of this research were discussed in the context of growing visual content in both interpersonal and strategic communication and increasing availability of online social networking.
Journalism’s visual construction of place in environmental coverage • Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin; Ivy Ashe, University of Texas at Austin • This study builds on our understanding of how visual journalism is used with environmental reporting to create a sense of place and understanding in the audience. While most American photojournalism tends to favor close-up photos that include people, environmental coverage leans the opposite way— sweeping landscape photos depicting more of the earth and less of the people that inhabit it. Thus, a contradiction is presented to photojournalists attempting to create imagery to accompany environmental stories. Through a content analysis of wire and non-wire environmental photos on US newspaper front pages, our findings show support that person-focused feature imagery is being used more, though still mostly at an informational level.
U.S. front-pages: Visual news values in wire versus non-wire photographs • Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin; Tara Mortensen • The present study uses a sample of US daily front-pages to examine visual differences between wire and non-wire photography on front pages. The results show that the sample of wire images contain more people than non-wire images, were more emotional and more graphically-appealing, and were used as stand-alone art more frequently than non-wire images. Further, wire images were most-commonly implemented for topics about policy / politics and international relations, while non-wire images more commonly accompanied stories about ceremonies and festivals, as well as stories about the economy. Finally, higher-circulation newspapers in the sample used wire images more often than small-circulation newspapers.
Cost-efficient, Copious, and Not-So Credible? An examination of the credibility of staff and stock photography • Tara Mortensen; Brian McDermott, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Khadija Ejaz • This study addressed audience perceptions of the credibility of stock photography versus photographs taken by professional photojournalists. These audience perceptions were gauged using a newly-developed, reliable scale that measured the construct “photo credibility.” The results of the study suggest that people perceive the credibility of stock images as significantly lower than those taken by professional staff photographers. Professionally-shot, staff photographs were rated particularly high, and higher than stock images, in the variables of photojournalism professionalism, trust and accuracy. However, stock photographs were rated more credible in journalism professionalism, and there was no significant difference between the two groups within the area of completeness.
Photographs’ Role in Creating an Online Social Movement in Kuwait: A Case Study of Manshoor Blog Using Visual Frame Alignment Process • Noura Al-Duaijani; Tara Mortensen • This paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the role images can play in mobilizing online social movements’ values in conservative societies through the frame alignment process. The case study is of liberal Kuwaiti blog, Manshoor. The main frames used were the injustice frame, followed by the fear of personal suffering, the multiculturalism frame and the boundary frame. In addition to a traditional, qualitative analysis, three visual cues that are frequently used in semiotic analysis (social distance, contact, and point-of-view) are matched with traditional frames in order to visually, quantitatively code images. In this way, a reliable visual coding scheme for frame alignment analysis that makes use of cues was developed.
Race, Gender & Rationale: The Global Image in the Western Mind • Tara Pixley, Loyola Marymount University • This paper unpacks a content analysis of 15 years of photojournalism awarded by World Press Photo and Photographer of the Year International —the two most lauded photojournalism awards. Analyzing images in situ must account for both the subject pictured and the picture’s producer. As such, the project’s foundational questions are: who takes these images that represent the height of photojournalism and the most publicized views of human experience? What ideas do they ultimately produce about the world’s most vulnerable people and places? The study finds photojournalists are primarily white, male and Western, while award-winning images are most often of black and brown bodies immured in chaos, defined by catastrophe. Central to my argument is that if photojournalism purports to tell the visual story of all humanity, the fact that we continue to view the world’s entirety primarily through this white, male, colonial perspective has frightening implications. Joining a very recent upswing of interest in how journalism lacks diversity and equity within its producers and production processes, this research is an integral addition to the existing canon of visual communication knowledge. As it interrogates existing visual communication practices, it also offers questions to apply in the journalism classroom that can steer the next generation of storytellers toward improved production practices.
Creepy babies and the phenomenon of data distraction • Abby Rinaldi, University of Iowa • This paper examines three data visualizations from three prominent news sites (The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Independent) to identify trends of visual interference which disrupt sense-making and communication of narrative within the stories they seek to tell. The paper groups these different kinds of obstruction under the term data distraction. Data distraction defines the ways in which visualization design can inhibit understanding and clash with the goals and norms of data journalism.
Key Trends Visualizing Green and CSR on Skin Care and Cosmetic Websites • Michelle Seelig, University of Miami; Ruoyu Sun, University of Miami; Sanchary Pal; Huixin Deng • Advertisers and marketers have long used power visual representations of the natural world as a conceptual strategy to sell a variety of goods and services. In the last decade or so, some research has started to emerge that found more companies providing details how their brand or product is made beneficial to protecting the environment. Literature also supports that green branding extends to the web aimed at consumers looking for brands and products aligned with their value system. We believe green themes and CSR important for online branding and informing consumers about their ecological stewardship. Drawing from the literature on green advertising, CSR, and visual framing, we explore the current state of environmental brand identification on skin care and cosmetic websites and the various elements used to frame greenness portraying a pro-environmental stewardship. Overall, findings show improvements including more substantive claims and CSR activities on websites, but for now, associative claims were still more prevalent framing brands green image and implying eco-friendly ideals.
Crowdsmashing: A content analysis of Brand New’s branding reviews and reader response • Robert Wertz, University of South Carolina • This study uses content analysis to examine the relationship between the presentation of new corporate visual identities and how people respond to them by evaluating one year of reviews on the design critique web site Brand New. Results indicate that several structural elements correlate with better reader response, while others seem to have no relationship.
Scholastic Journalism 2019 Abstracts
Developing critical consciousness about coverage of Latinx communities: a service-learning approach in journalism education • Alison Burns • In the summer of 2018, a suburban Maryland middle school whose students are from mostly Salvadoran immigrant families became the subject of a barrage of negative press attention. That fall college journalism students in a “Community-Engaged Research and Service” class accepted an invitation to collaborate on journalism-related projects with students at the middle school. This qualitative phenomenological study explores what student reflections during the service-learning experience tell us about the college students’ development of critical consciousness, specifically related to coverage of Latinx communities.
ICTs in Educational Contexts: Digital Storytelling in Journalism Education • Tao Fu, University of International Business and Economics; William Babcock • This paper examines how digital storytelling (DST) can be used as an educational tool. By experimenting at a Beijing university offering a small English business journalism program where there were no audio/video production courses, this study showed that DST might be used not just in primary and secondary education, but in higher education. Given the high penetration of smartphones and accessibility of mobile Internet in China, DST particularly can be niched in journalism and media studies programs without professional faculty and equipment for audio/video production – limitations shared by countless colleges and universities in developing countries. Thus, this study confirmed how DST instruction might contribute to students’ digital media competence, technology literacy, collaborative learning, and engagement. By producing digital stories, students developed a deeper understanding of the social issues and relevant theories introduced in class. By acquiring video shooting and editing skills, students prepared themselves for future careers that increasingly demand such skills.
Principals and the Press: Factors Affecting Censorship in Scholastic Media • R.J. Morgan, University of Mississippi • Qualitative interviews with practicing school administrators indicate that students’ right to publish content in their school publications is determined more by the values and beliefs of their school administrator than by the guidelines set down by the First Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court. Administrators believe their roles as keepers of the peace and arbiters of public sentiment trump the individual rights of student journalists.
Drones on High Uses and Challenges of Incorporating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Into Higher Education • Jean Norman, Weber State University; Avery Holton, University of Utah; Quint Randle, Brigham Young University • In 2016, Federal Aviation Administration regulations allowed for commercial UAV use including universities. With loosened federal restrictions, commercial registrations of UAVs grew and opportunities for their use in higher education increased. Yet, little is known about UAV adoption into curricula. A survey of 95 U.S. universities finds UAV use grew in 2017 and 2018 and that regulation of use by universities remains unclear. Issues of barriers and opportunity in higher education are discussed.
“Wise Freedom” in Scholastic Journalism: A Case Study of a Free Student Press in an Independent, Catholic High School • Kristin Taylor, Kent State University / The Archer School for Girls • This study investigates the factors that allowed a student-controlled free press to be successful at one independent school. Data gathered from on-site observations and interviews with students, the journalism adviser, and the head of school suggest five factors worked in concert to make this program successful: a direct connection between the school’s mission and press freedom, the program’s strong reputation, a supportive administrator, an experienced adviser who grounded students in journalistic ethics, and highly trained student leaders. Experiencing press freedom in this environment appears to have increased students’ ethical fitness, made their reporting more independent, improved their news judgment and civic awareness, and improved their confidence and preparation for adult life because they felt their voices were valued.
Children’s Views of Media Ratings in the Context of a Media Literacy Program • Erica Scharrer, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Stephen Warren, UMass Amherst; Christine Olson, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Porntip Israsena Twishime • This study qualitatively analyzed sixth-graders’ knowledge about media ratings as part of a Media Literacy Education program on media violence and bullying. Textual analysis revealed differing opinions, with some acknowledging not utilizing the ratings and others calling for increased content descriptors. The results suggest media literacy programs may inspire increased awareness, knowledge, and critical thinking about ratings, and that the existing ratings are both succeeding and failing at the goal of informing audiences effectively.
Public Relations 2019 Abstracts
Doug Newsom Award for Global Ethics and Global Diversity
An Appeal to Shared Values: Faith, Advocacy, and Persuasion in the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Public Relations • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University; Derek Moscato, Western Washington University; Mariam Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University • While much attention has been paid to the way news media both represent and misrepresent Muslims, much less work has been devoted to Muslim self-representation in the public sphere. This study examines press releases issued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to begin to close this gap in understanding of Muslim American self-representation. The study explores four strategic frames related to incident reports, legal responses, public sphere engagement and interfaith solidarity. It also examines the calls to action employed in the press releases. Finally, the findings show that releases also emphasized moral language related to protect the rights of individuals to be fully included in public life.
Open Competition
Toward an Emotional Intelligence Approach to Public Relations • Weiwu Zhang, Texas Tech University; Oluseyi Adegbola • This study provides an overview of the role of emotional intelligence in public relations and assesses the research in this area. Existing research has focused mostly on emotional intelligence as a competency vital to effective leadership. This study calls for further research investigating the role of emotional intelligence in different aspects of public relations such as media and customer relations, as well as methodological pluralism in future research.
Resilient Aging: Examining how AARP Constructs Public Resilience Through its #DisruptAging Campaign • Lindsey Anderson, University of Maryland; Sylvia (Jiankun) Guo • We completed an analysis of AARP’s #DisruptAging campaign to understand how the organization crafts messages about resilience to facilitate successful aging among its publics. We found the campaign reflected the processes of resilience communication, as well as a new strategy—acceptance/appreciation. These findings illuminate the societal role of organizational discourse by showing how inclusive organizational-public communication can disrupt stereotypes; thus contributing to a fully functioning society and marking the future of public relations scholarship.
The role of self-transcendent emotions and empathy in motivating communication about social and environmental issues • Denise Bortree, Penn State University; Michail Vafeiadis, Auburn University; Pratiti Diddi, Pennsylvania State University; Julia Gessner, Penn State University; Virginia Harrison; Yiting Chai, Penn State University • This study examines the role of emotions in situational motivations toward communication. In specific, the study looks at how self-transcendent emotions and empathy predict problem recognition, constraint recognition, involvement recognition and situational motivation in problem solving for two issues – climate change and immigration. A 2×2 experimental study found that self-transcendent emotions increase empathy which significantly influences communication motivators. However, not all self-transcendent emotions work in a positive direction for both issues. Implications are discussed.
Exploring the Influence of Stakeholder Personality on Crisis Response Evaluations and Outcomes • Natalie Brown-Devlin, The University of Texas at Austin; Hayoung Lim; Lindsay Bouchacourt, The University of Texas at Austin; Michael Devlin, Texas State University • While public relations professionals are beginning to utilize psychographic data points for more refined methods of audience targeting, this study proposes a novel approach for understanding stakeholders by examining how their elemental personality traits impact 1) crisis communication outcomes (lessen levels of attributed crisis responsibility, improve individual’s image, and increase positive word-of-mouth) and 2) evaluations of employed crisis response strategies. Stakeholder personality traits provide unique psychographics about the target audience, which may assist public relations professionals by micro-targeting strategic crisis response strategies. This study utilized an experimental design with 368 collegiate participants from two Texas universities. Results suggest that several underlying personality traits predict image repair-outcomes regardless of the communication strategy used, while others are more likely to interact certain strategies that embody certain ideal crisis communication outcomes. Several theoretical and practical implications were provided.
Enhancing Perceptions of the value of public relations through MBA education • Kristie Byrum, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania; Kathleen Rennie Ph.D APR Fellow PRSA Professor, New Jersey City University • The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) launched its MBA/Business School Program in fall 2012 to help MBA programs in the United States introduce strategic communication into the business school curriculum. The leading professional organization in the United States launched the program after finding that MBA curricula do not typically include a focus on communication topics. Since launching the program, the PRSA has engaged 16 colleges and universities across the country as participants in the program, allowing them to offer courses specifically designated to strategic communications. This qualitative study set out to better understand outcomes of the courses, most notably how the course can influence the individual’s perception of the public relations process. The study gauged the impact of the class on the perceptions of students (seasoned business professionals) about the public relations profession and the value of strategic communication. This study reports on the students’ perceptions of the business value of public relations, the use of strategic communication, and why the students’ perceptions are meaningful.
(Re)centering human experience: A provocation for a critical humanistic orientation for public relations • Erica Ciszek, University of Texas at Austin • The article reflects on the contemporary status of public relations, highlighting the tensions between functionalist traditions and emergent critical perspectives. It presents critical humanism as an avenue for propelling public relations research and practice. This article imagines possibilities for critical humanistic work in public relations, drawing from and building upon research on feminism, queer theory and critical theories of race, advocating for the discipline to function as an avenue for social change.
Personal Influence in Public Relations • Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, University of Colorado Boulder; Jolene Fisher, University of Colorado Boulder • Personal influence plays an important role in the functioning of public relations across all cultural contexts, yet the concept has been neglected in the field’s scholarship. This study presents a review of the origins and use of the term, an examination of the current state of the personal influence model as it relates to the body of knowledge of public relations, and a research agenda that advances understanding of personal influence in public relations.
Assessing the Relationship between Self-Benefit and Other-Benefit Message Framing, Perceived Transparency Effectiveness, and Organizational Trust • Jolene Fisher, University of Colorado Boulder; Toby Hopp, University of Colorado Boulder • The frames used in organizational transparency messages have meaningful implications as they pertain to the formation of organizational trust among publics. Specifically, in this study, we proposed that transparency messages that emphasize an organization’s commitment to the social good are more likely to elicit trust-based gains than transparency messages that emphasize the organization’s value to the self. The results of two experiments supported this contention.
Understanding the Church of Scientology’s Interpretation of Effective Public Relations • Melanie Formentin, Towson University; Cylor Spaulding, Georgetown University • Scientology’s public relations (PR) function is based on research and writing by L. Ron Hubbard, who studied PR and drafted documents directing Church communication strategies. Hubbard had the textbook Effective Public Relations reprinted with annotations for Church practitioners. Textual analysis shows Hubbard selectively adopted PR strategies; he embraced identifying primary publics and using interpersonal communication but eschewed psychological principles and media relations strategies. The findings show how a religious organization has employed industry principles.
How institutional pressure influences corporate crisis communication practice?: A comparative case study from China • Qijun He, School of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai University • This study aims to explore the influence of institutional pressure on corporate crisis communication practice in China. Through comparing six cases in three pairs of crisis type, i.e., victim, accidental and intentional, the study showed that the firms depended on its willingness to conform to institutional pressure and resistant ability to adopt various strategic responses to cope with institutional pressure in crisis, and accordingly adapt their crisis communication strategies and forms of response to satisfy both self-interest and institutional pressure with less communicative strategies yet more invisible strategies, low-profile stance, and a more timely, active and consistent form of response.
Is fake news the new social media crisis?: Examining the public evaluation of crisis management for organizations targeted in viral fake news • Rosie Jahng, Wayne State University; Scott Burgess; Maria Clara Martucci, Wayne State University • This study conducted a mixed-design experiment to test the main effect of intention to damage the brand and political motivation on crisis identification, crisis severity, and audience acceptance of crisis responses was tested. Also, the moderating role of intention to damage the brand in fake news on the proposed dependent variables were further tested. Results indicated that while fake news with high intention to damage the brands are perceived and evaluated as a severe crisis, fake news with political motivation is not considered as a reputational crisis as much. Organizations should make strategic decisions based on the strength of intention to damage the brand reputation and the presence of political motivations when they find themselves as victims of fake news spreading on social media.
Toward A Relational Theory of Employee Engagement: Understanding Authenticity, Transparency, and Employee Behaviors • Hua Jiang, Syracuse University; Hongmei Shen, San Diego State University • Based on the relationship management paradigm in public relations and the job demands-resources model, we proposed a relational theory of employee engagement integrating employees’ immediate supervisors’ authentic leadership behavior and transparent organizational communication as antecedents of engagement and contextual performance behavior and turnover intention as behavioral outcomes that engagement leads to. Results from an employee survey (N = 727) indicated that immediate supervisors’ authentic leadership exchange with employees helped promote transparent organizational communication. Both authentic leadership and transparent organizational communication predicted employees’ level of physical, emotional, and cognitive engagement, which, in turn, largely explained employees’ contextual performance behavior and turnover intention. Moreover, transparent organizational communication was directly associated with employees’ turnover intention, and indirectly related to their contextual performance behavior via employee engagement. Finally, transparent organizational communication and employee engagement directly mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and two behavioral outcome variables in our model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Social Media Research in Public Relations, 1998 – 2018: Status and Future Directions • Ran Ju; Sandra Braun; Dat Huynh; Sarah McCaffrey • This study examined the development of social media PR research by analyzing 189 articles published between 2008 and 2018 from two leading PR academic journals through quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Quantitative findings suggested a steady increase in scholarly attention on this topic, an international development of social media research, and a shift of perspectives used to examine this topic. Qualitative findings revealed themes on prominent results and practical implications from the examined articles.
A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Public Relations as A Scholarly Field • Eyun-Jung Ki, University of Alabama; Yorgo Pasadeos, University of Alabama; Tugce Ertem-Eray, University of Oregon • This bibliometric study aims to evaluate the state of the art in the global public relations literature since its inception to 2017. A total of 24,922 citations from 442 articles permit us to conclude that the growth and popularity of global public relations is steady in the scholarship. The literature is still in the process of interdisciplinary borrowing. The topics of interest in the global public relations research can be generally categorized into three groups: culture or cultural dimensions, application of public relations theory or perspective to another country, and public diplomacy.
The Role of Social Distance, Crisis Severity, and Crisis Response Strategy in Crisis Communication: A Construal Level Perspective • Jeesun Kim, Incheon National University; HyunJee Oh; Chang-Dae Ham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Despite growing research on public attributions of crisis responsibility, relatively little is known about the role of perceived social distance to organizations along with crisis severity and crisis response strategies. Applying Construal Level Theory (CLT) to the context of crisis communication, we examine the role of construal fit between social distance, crisis severity, and crisis response strategy in determining crisis responsibility and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. A test of 2 (social distance: close vs. distant) x 2 (crisis response strategy: defensive vs. accommodating) x 2 (crisis severity: low vs. high) between-subjects experiment finds three two-way interaction effects: 1) between social distance and crisis response strategy; 2) between social distance and crisis severity; and 3) crisis response strategy and crisis severity on negative WOM. No interaction effect was found on crisis responsibility, however. The psychological mechanism based on social distance plays a role in drawing different public reactions to crisis response strategies and different levels of severity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Activating constructive employee behavioral responses in crisis situations: Examining the effects of pre-crisis internal reputation and crisis communication strategies on constructive and destructive employee voice behaviors • Young Kim, Marquette University; Hyunji Lim, Marquette University • This study explores how organizational management can promote employee voice behaviors, as positive behavioral reactions with constructive ideas, in responding to organizational crisis. Using an experimental study (N=640) among full-time employees in the United States, the study found that pre-crisis internal reputation and crisis communication strategies—accommodative response and stealing thunder—positively and directly affected constructive employee voice behaviors in a crisis situation. Furthermore, the study revealed how post-crisis internal reputation mediates the influences of pre-crisis internal reputation and stealing thunder on positive/constructive and negative/destructive employee voice behaviors.
An Ecological View and A Multi-Level Analysis of Public Organizations’ Communication Behaviors on Social Media • Chih-Hui Lai, National Chiao Tung U; Rebecca Yu, National Chiao Tung University • This study applies an ecological view and a multi-level analysis to unpack public organizations’ communication on social media as embedded in the broader environment. Through manual and automated content analysis of 617 public organizations’ one-year Facebook posts in Taiwan, the data reveal the unique patterns of public organizations’ social media communication as manifested in both message function and message content, as well as the association between these two, after controlling for time and organizational influence.
Crisis Response Strategy Differences: U.S. vs South Korea • Soehyeon Lee; Moon Lee, University of Florida • In this study, we compared the types of crisis response strategies in terms of crisis types utilized in two different countries (i.e., the USA and South Korea) and tested the applicability of a major theoretical approach, Situational Crisis Theory, by analyzing 222 actual crisis cases (USA: n = 114; KOR: n = 108) happened during the last decade (from January 2009 to March 2018). Rebuilding strategy was the most often used strategy, regardless of countries. We also found differences between these two countries in terms of response strategies/specifics in organizations’ responses to crises. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed in this study.
Toward an Integrated Model of Employees’ Communicative Behaviors on Social Media: Individual and Organizational Determinants • Yeunjae Lee; Katie Kim • To advance theoretical understanding of employees’ communicative behaviors on social media, this study proposes and tests an integrative model that incorporates individual and organizational antecedents. The model specifically examines the collective impacts of the social media-related behavioral motivations of individuals and the quality of organization-employee relationship (OER) on their positive and negative information sharing intentions on personal social networking sites and anonymous social media. The results of an online survey with full-time employees in the U.S. showed that OER significantly increases employees’ positive behavioral intentions and social media-related motivations. Further, OER significantly decreases employees’ negative information sharing intentions on anonymous websites but not on their own social media. Considerable and distinct effects of individuals’ positive (i.e., help organization, self-enhancement, enjoyment) and negative (i.e., vent negative feelings, warn others) behavioral motivations on social media are also found. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and employee behaviors are discussed.
The Value of Public Relations in Enhancing Employees’ Health Information Disclosure Intentions in the Workplace • Jo-Yun Li, University of Miami; Yeunjae Lee • Various mechanisms and processes have been established that lead to employees’ decisions to disclose their health information in the workplace. The existing literature has emphasized individuals’ stigma, privacy, or discrimination but often overlooked the influence of organizations’ internal communication effort. This study focused on organizations’ public relations practices and explored the antecedents of employees’ health-related perceptions, communicative behaviors, and intentions to disclose their health information in the workplace. In particular, this study tested the impact of symmetrical internal communication and the quality of organization–employee relationship (OER) on employees’ perceived risks and benefits of information disclosure and their communication strategies for their health information. The results of an online survey showed that a positive OER increased the employees’ perceived benefits and direct communication behaviors within an organization. In addition, the OER quality decreased the employees’ perceived risks for disclosing their health information to their supervisors but not to their colleagues. Results also found the varying impact of employees’ perceptions and communication strategies on their intention to disclose their physical and mental health problems. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and health communication were discussed in this study.
Being honest in crisis communication: Implications of pre-crisis engagement and stealing thunder • SANG LEE, 1961; Jiyoung Lee, WVU • This research reports on the buffering effects of two proactive crisis communication strategies: pre-crisis engagement and stealing thunder, which is an organization’s voluntary revelation of crisis information when facing a crisis. The results showed that the effectiveness of stealing thunder was moderated by the pre-crisis engagement with stakeholder petitions such that the effects of stealing thunder were only observed when the organization engaged with stakeholder complaints in the pre-crisis stage. A moderated parallel mediation model explored the underlying mechanism in which crisis responsibility and crisis severity parallelly mediated the interaction effects between pre-crisis engagement and stealing thunder.
Empowered giving: Understanding the role of psychosocial empowerment in charitable giving behavior to mental health organizations • Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina; Jo-Yun Li, University of Miami • Although mental illness constitutes a large part of the burden of disease, it is one of the least funded diseases in the United States. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of giving behaviors and psychological empowerment, this study seeks to understand the effects of individual characteristics (i.e., altruistic personality traits) and contextual factors (i.e., social capital) on individuals’ cognitions of psychological empowerment and individuals’ subsequent donation behaviors. A survey of 604 participants found that individuals’ beliefs about the meanings and impacts of their charitable giving (i.e., meaning and impact) and the control they have over their ability to make such donations (i.e., competence) are the specific dimensions that reinforce the effects of altruism and social capital on donation intentions. The incorporation of different cognitions of psychological empowerment may help mental health organizations and communication practitioners to address the issue of the relative lack of monetary contributions from the public. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Information vetting as a key component in social-mediated crisis communication: An exploratory study • Xuerong Lu, University of Georgia; Yan Jin; Taeyeon Kim • In order to understand publics’ information consumption behavior in current media environment, this study addresses how and why individuals vet information (or not) in crisis situations. Grounded in dual-process model and meta-cognition theory, an initial conceptual framework of crisis information vetting was outlined. An exploratory study, including four focus groups and 13 in-depth interviews, was conducted to investigate: 1) indicators of information vetting behavior according to participants’ self-reported experience; and 2) what motivate and what prohibit participants from engaging themselves emotionally and cognitively in the process of crisis information vetting. Our qualitative data provided evidence for a two-step process of crisis information vetting, namely, primary vetting and secondary vetting. A total of 48 vetting behavior indicators were further rendered, which serve as a strong content base for future scale development and further conceptual model refinement.
Corporate vanguards: The contemporary role of organization altruism • Lincoln Lu, University of Florida; Kalyca Lynn Becktel, University of Florida; Myiah Hutchens, University of Florida • Dramatic influx of brands embracing diplomatic action as part of their strategic marketing and public relations tactics is muddying the definition of corporate social responsibility. This study utilizes the recent Central American migrant caravan as the context to examine participants’ reactions to corporate philanthropy. A 2×3 experimental design was utilized with an online sample. Organizations adopting explicit positions did not increase brand-public relationship, but perceived altruism was increased for all participants regardless of political identity.
The strive for legitimacy? Corporate diplomacy practices of European MNEs in the UAE • Sarah Marschlich; Diana Ingenhoff • Applying a neo-institutional public relations approach, the purpose of this study is to assess to what extent corporate diplomacy in the United Arab Emirates is used as a legitimation strategy. For this, we conducted in-depth interviews with public relations executives (N=20). Our findings imply that companies engage in corporate diplomacy to align with governmental social expectations in their host country, which can contribute to the companies’ moral legitimacy.
A Different Kind of Public Sector Practice: Local Law Enforcement Public Relations • Lindsay McCluskey, SUNY Oswego • Researchers have distinguished between public and private sector public relations, identifying critical environmental factors that influence public relations practices and ultimately organization-public relationships (Horsley, et al., 2010; Liu & Horsley, 2007; Liu & Levenshus, 2010; Liu et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2012). Taking these variables into consideration, scholars created (Liu & Horsley, 2007) and refined (Horsley et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2012) the Government Communication Decision Wheel, a theoretical model. The GCDW studies did not focus on understanding practices and characteristics associated with specific segments of the profession; therefore, they did not account for variables that may be specific to departments or segments within levels of government. Horsley et al. (2010) and Liu et al. (2012) acknowledged such limitations to their research. This study adds to the theoretical understanding surrounding the GCDW by addressing some of the more “nuanced differences” (Liu et al., 2012, p. 237) associated with a segment of public relations practice that shares “similar missions or tasks” – local law enforcement public relations (Horsley et al., 2010, p. 288). This work is based on 20 interviews with local law enforcement public relations personnel across the United States. Several prominent themes emerged regarding the perceived differences associated with local law enforcement public relations. These include demand and being “24/7;” the level of attention paid to, the level of interest in, and the level of media scrutiny associated with local law enforcement; and the inherent nature and complexity of law enforcement interactions and information.
Communication Strategies to Drive Internal Social Media Usage and Relationship Cultivation with Employees • Rita Men; Julie O’Neil, Texas Christian University; Michele Ewing • This study examined the administrative and communication strategies used by organizations to encourage employee participation on internal social media and analyzed whether employees’ internal social media usage engenders increased transparency and relational outcomes. Specifically, researchers proposed and tested a conceptual model that links organizational communication strategies (i.e., strategic information dissemination, two-way symmetrical communication), employee internal social media usage, perceived organizational transparency, and employee-organization relationships. Through an online survey of 1,150 employees from various organizations in the United States that had adopted internal social media, results showed that strategic information dissemination and social-mediated, two-way symmetrical communication both encouraged employees’ use of internal social media, which in turn, led to employees’ perception of organizational transparency and quality relationship outcomes with the organization. The study also found that organizations primarily use internal social media to post information about news and events in order to keep employees informed and updated. Companies most often utilized Facebook to communicate with employees. While majority companies had a social media policy in place, over half of them did not provide social media training. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Exploring the Role of Stakeholder Engagement in Enhancing Resilience in Emergency Communication: A Qualitative Study • Lan Ni, University of Houston; Weidong Shi, University of Houston • This paper explores the role and mechanism of stakeholder engagement in addressing challenges and enhancing resilience in emergency communication. Through qualitative interviews with 16 emergency managers, this study identified four levels of challenges in enhancing resilience (information challenges, expectation challenges, perception challenges, and personnel challenges). Findings also revealed how key stakeholder engagement processes such as stakeholder identification and relationship management can address these challenges and better activate and empower stakeholders to be partners.
A Human Touch and Content Matter for Consumer Engagement • Hyojung Park, Louisiana State University; Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • This study explores the roles of consumer motivations and brand communication in increasing consumer engagement with a brand on social media. Data from a survey of a quota sample of 691 U.S. consumers indicate that the motivations of entertainment and remuneration are positively associated with consuming and contributing to brand content on social media. In addition, the motive of obtaining information prompts people to consume brand content (e.g., reading a brand’s posts or watching videos), while the motivation for self-expression leads to contributing activities (e.g., conversing on a brand’s account and uploading videos). After controlling for these motivations, brand communication strategy (such as content and tone) appears to influence consumers’ brand-related activities on social media, which subsequently results in consumer intentions in favor of the brand.
Cultivating #Cupfusion: An Exploration of the Unintended Consequences of Communication in a Public Relations Campaign • Timothy Penn, Towson University • This case study is an exploration into the application of Merton’s (1936) typology of unanticipated consequences of purposeful social actions to a public relations campaign. Merton used scientific analysis to understand factors leading to unintended consequences, rather than attributing them to chance or fate. Using qualitative methods,including in-depth interviews, organization-provided document analysis, and content analysis of the Reese’s brand Facebook page, this study found four of his five factors, including lack of foreknowledge, habit, myopia, and values, have proved applicable to the 2016 Reese’s #Cupfusion campaign. Merton’s typology and the idea of unintended consequences has application for public relations theory and practice. The concept of lack of foreknowledge has implications for both chaos and complexity theory, and how they can be applied to unintended consequences and crisis. This research also supports and adds to social media and strategic campaign planning practice, by providing a lens for the analysis and execution of both pre-implementation and evaluation of public relations campaigns.
Activating Audiences: Using STOPS to Predict Engagement with Issues of Women’s Mass Incarceration • Geah Pressgrove; Crisobal Barra, Universidad de Chile; Melissa Janoske, University of Memphis • Rates of women’s incarceration in the United States are growing at an alarming rate leading to a host of negative economic and familial outcomes. Despite this, little attention has been given to the topic and few people know the extent of the issue. Employing STOPS, this study seeks to understand the confluence of factors that might lead to individuals engaging in prosocial action. Qualitative and quantitative findings indicate that both situational motivation and referent criterion predict active communication, however only situational motivation predicts passive communication. Further, passive communicative action is the best predictor of common support behaviors including donating money, volunteering time and participating in policy advocacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Bollywood Diplomacy: A critical Analysis of the Role of Hindi Film Industry in International Public Relations • Mian Asim, Zayed University; Azmat Rasul, Florida State University; Muhammad Ehab Rasul • Through the lens of Propaganda Model, this article explores the relationship between the Hindi film industry, Bollywood, and the international public relations strategies devised by the Indian government during the last couple of decades. After receiving the industry status in 1998, Bollywood carefully filtered movie content due to its dependence on the Indian government for tax-relief, foreign direct investment, soft loans from the banking sector, and the government’s ability to produce flak. We focused on flak as a content filter and argued that Bollywood produced films promoting Indian government’s international public relations agenda and the movie-makers followed the official policy for fear of flak from the government. We found that Bollywood, being one of the most significant culture industries in the world, worked closely with the government and, in return, harvested tangible economic benefits (e.g., tax cuts and soft loans) from the Indian government.
Explicating Alumni Engagement: When Conversational Voice Matters More than Openness and Assurances of Legitimacy • Hongmei Shen, San Diego State University; Bey-Ling Sha, San Diego State University • The question of how organizations engage with their stakeholders has seen increasing investigation in recent years, with public relations researchers examining the concept of engagement from cognitive, affective, and behavioral perspectives (e.g., Dhanesh, 2017; Jelen-Sanchez, 2017). This study examined the engagement of university alumni with their alma mater, with data collected from qualitative interviews, a pilot survey, and a main survey. Results identified three dimensions of alumni engagement: instrumental, communicative and affective, and confirmatory factor analysis supported this three-dimensional structure. Structural equation modeling showed that, while conversational voice was conducive to alumni engagement, openness and assurances of legitimacy did not exert any significant impacts. The findings offer concrete ways in which universities can better engage with alumni, as well as conceptual and methodological ways in which public relations scholars might continue to refine the notion of engagement between organizations and their publics.
The Interplay Between Post-Crisis Response Strategy and Pre-Crisis Corporate Associations • Weiting Tao, University of Miami; Baobao Song, Virginia Commonwealth University • How should a company respond to a crisis related to its social responsibility (CSR) by capitalizing on consumers’ existing corporate associations? To answer this question, this study examined the interaction between consumers’ pre-crisis associations with a company and post-crisis response strategies. Results of an experiment render support for the predicted interaction effect. Additionally, results show in dealing with a CSR crisis, a CSR-related response works better than a response that stresses the company’s product expertise.
A Qualitative Study of the Perceptions of Physically Disabled Public Relations Practitioners • Amanda Sebesta, University of Houston; Jennifer Vardeman, University of Houston • This paper explores the perceptions of physically disabled practitioners in the public relations field. Literature about diversity in public relations, workplace discrimination, and feminist theory of disability framed this study. A qualitative study was conducted using open-ended interview questions, talking with practitioners that have a range of disabilities–including wheelchair-bound, amputee and dwarfism. Themes emerged according to structural factors contributing to a limited inclusivity of disabled practitioners in the field, negotiations of power within disability by practitioners, and complicated representation of disabled practitioners. Theoretical and practical implications are presented.
The overlooked public: The role of citizens in countries hosting mega-events • Kelly Vibber; Alessandro Lovari, Università degli studi di Cagliari • This research expands the work that has been done around nation branding and the impact of hosting mega-events (e.g., diplomacy, national reputation, soft power). Previous work has focused primarily on the ways in which hosting mega-events builds, improves or expands the perception foreign and external publics have of the hosting country and external relations. This research instead focuses inward and aims to answer questions about how hosting mega-events is perceived by citizens of the hosting country, how they view their role in interacting with foreign visitors (e.g., person-to-person or sociological diplomacy) and to what extent they communicate in support of, or against, their country’s efforts. A convenience sample of 426 Italian citizens completed the survey. Results indicate that citizens who placed high importance on their interactions with foreigners reported significantly higher scores on attitudes toward Italy hosting the World Exposition, positive megaphoning behaviors about Italy hosting the Expo and perceived themselves as ambassadors during the Expo. The findings highlight the importance of governments engaging with citizens when taking on mega-events. This intentional communication and relationship management with citizens is critical to internal relations during the mega-event, and has the potential to magnify the positive impact of hosting mega-events.
Bridging the Gap between Relationships and Situations: Exploring the Antecedents and Outcomes of Organization-Employee Relationships • Yuan Wang, City University of Hong Kong • Grounded in the frameworks of the relationship management theory and the situational theory of publics, this study examined the effects of employees’ perceived symmetrical and transparent communication on their perceived relationships with their organization and how the relationships influenced employees’ situational perceptions through a national survey of 449 employees working in large organizations in the U.S. This study found that transparent and symmetrical communication were significant predictors of organization-employee relationships (OERs). Another finding was that employees’ perceived symmetrical communication with their organization positively influenced their transparent communication. Furthermore, OERs facilitated employees’ problem recognition and level of involvement as well as weakened their constraint recognition. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were also discussed.
Volunteer motivation fulfillment: The antecedents and outcomes • Anli Xiao; Virginia Harrison; Christen Buckley • The questions of how nonprofit organizations can best fulfill people’s motivations to volunteer and how volunteers’ motivation fulfillment influences people’s supportive intentions to volunteer remain unclear. This study argues that different status of volunteer motivation fulfillment may have different implications on their future supportive intentions. This online survey found that organizations can enhance volunteers’ degree of volunteer motivation fulfillment through effective stewardship strategies. Interesting results involving the effect of volunteer motivation fulfillment were evidenced by data analysis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
How CEO Disclosure and Gender Affect Perceived CEO Attributes, Relationship Investment, and Engagement Intention • April Yue, University of Florida; Yoo Jin Chung; Amanda Bradshaw; Tom Kelleher, University of Florida; Mary Ann Ferguson • How does a CEO’s social media content disclosure on Twitter affect CEO attributes, relationship investment, and public engagement, and to what extent does the CEO’s gender (male vs. female) moderate how publics evaluate content disclosures? A 2 (CEO gender: male vs. female) X 4 (level of disclosure: 100% corporate vs. 70% corporate and 30% personal vs. 30% corporate and 70% personal vs. 100% personal disclosure) between-subject experimental design was used to address these questions. A random sample of 465 adult participants in the United States was selected. Results showed that posts that featured high personal disclosure did not increase the perceived likability or competence of the CEO. Neither did CEO gender impact these outcomes. However, CEO professional disclosure proved to be an effective means to gain high levels of perceived relationship investment from publics. Finally, publics may hold implicit gender bias when revealing cognitive (i.e., perceived relationship investment) and behavioral evaluation (i.e., engagement intention) toward a female CEO.
Examining the Effects of Internal Communications and Emotional Culture on Employees’ Organizational Identification • April Yue, University of Florida; Rita Men; Mary Ann Ferguson • As one of the first empirical studies investigating the emerging role of positive emotional culture within organizations, we aim to understand how a symmetrical internal communication system and leaders’ use of motivating language contribute to fostering a positive emotional culture featured by joy, companionate love, pride, and gratitude. Furthermore, we examined the linkage between a positive emotional culture and employees’ organizational identification. Through a quantitative survey with 482 full-time employees in the U.S., we found that both symmetrical internal communication and leaders’ use of motivating language induced the perception of a positive emotional culture, which in turn enhanced employees’ organizational identification. Theoretically, the study showcased the value of strategic internal communications at both the leader’s and organizational levels in fostering positive organizational outcomes and added to the body of knowledge on why emotional culture matters. From a pragmatic point of view, the study findings offered strategic insights into how organizations and leaders should communicate to create a benign cultural environment filled with positive emotions and boost employees’ sense of belonging in the organization.
Improve employee-organization relationships (EOR) and workplace performance through CSR: Insights from an electric and energy company in China • Yafei Zhang; Chuqing Dong • This study examined the impact of employee perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their employee-organization identification (EOI), corporate ability (CA), employee-organization relationships (EOR), and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results, based on a survey (N = 248) with employees from a large, private company in the electric and energy industry in China, revealed that employee perceptions of CSR were positively associated with EOI, CA, EOR, and OCB. In addition, there was a positive spillover effect between CSR and CA. Findings also indicated the positive associations between CA and EOR, and EOI and OCB. This study contributes to the scant research on employee-centered CSR and suggests CSR as an effective strategy to cultivate relationships with employees and to increase their job performance in the Chinese context.
Teaching
Demystifying Data: A Constructivist Approach to Teaching Statistical Concepts Using SPSS • Lauren Bayliss, Georgia Southern University • To improve public relations students’ self-efficacy and knowledge of statistics, two hands-on activities were created. One activity used data simulation in the software program SPSS, and the other used printed statistical outputs. Both activities were introduced in a flipped-classroom format as part of a crossover experimental design. The results indicate that knowledge of statistics increased through both activities. However, the activity using data simulation in SPSS led to significantly higher self-efficacy for learning statistics.
Cut Me Some Slack: Simulation, Experiential Learning, and Slack Bots to Teach Crisis Communication • Julia Daisy Fraustino, West Virginia University; Amanda Kennedy, St. Mary’s University • This research explores using the newly popular online collaboration hub Slack (and Slack bots) for in-class crisis simulation. Qualitative direct observation of two simulations—(1) a workshop and simulation shadow experience with a state National Guard and (2) a crisis communication class culminating in simulation—along with textual analyses of simulation responses and student reflections probe findings. This study partially replicates and expands previous simulation research to generate new insights and options for PR instruction based in experiential learning theory.
Media Literacy among Public Relations Students: An Analysis of Future PR Professionals in the Post-Truth Era • Jami Fullerton, Oklahoma State University; Lori McKinnon; Alice Kendrick • This study assessed various aspects of media literacy among a national sample of US public relations students. Definitions of media literacy transcended basic interpretation of messages and extended to higher-level concepts such as understanding and how media organizations operate. PR students considered themselves to be fairly media literate, and had higher estimates of their own media literacy than a sample of advertising students in a previous study. Implications for public relations educators are discussed.
Curriculum Rebuilding in Public Relations: A Multi Managerial-Level Analysis of PR Practitioners’ Expectations of Graduates • Arunima Krishna, Boston University; Donald Wright, Boston University; Raymond Kotcher, Boston University • This manuscript reports on a survey of practicing public relations practitioners about the professional attributes and job skills necessary for those who intend to enter the public relations field. Analyses compared differences and similarities between senior-level, mid-level and entry-level practitioners. Results indicate that writing, listening, and creativity are the three most significant skills aspiring public relations people should have followed by creative thinking, the ability to deal with an online reputation crisis, the ability to communicate effectively in today’s environment of disinformation, and the ability to build a crisis response plan. Results found statistically significant differences across senior management, middle management, and junior level respondents on items measuring these skills and attributes: possessing business acumen, creativity, research/measurement skills, new technologies, digital story telling, and how to best interact with public relations firms.
Creating Career Confidence: Fostering Professional Self-Efficacy Through Student-Run Agencies and Integrative Learning • Jeffrey Ranta, Coastal Carolina University/Teal Nation Communications; Debbie Davis, Texas Tech University; Andrea Bergstrom, Coastal Carolina University • This study investigates integrative learning linkages provided through student-run agencies (SRAs) and fostering professional self-efficacy (confidence). Based on survey results of 182 SRA student participants, this research measured professional self-efficacy in performing 23 communication tasks and measures attributions awarded by respondents to student-run agency experiences in developing that confidence. Results suggest changes to pedagogy and offers evidence of SRA effectiveness in preparing graduates for responsibilities in public relations, advertising, integrated and strategic communication.
Student
A Concept Explication of Stance: The Leading Strategy to an Organization’s Crisis Response • Courtney D. Boman, University of Missouri School of Journalism • The stance, or series of stances, an organization takes following a crisis encapsulates its thinking and influences its response strategies. Following requirements outlined by McLeod and Pan, this paper explicates stance as a critical and deliberate position an organization takes that is influenced by internal and external variables, that leads to response strategies. This conceptualization can lead to a vanguard of a third generation of theory development for contingency theory of strategic conflict management.
Gun Control Debate on Twitter: Social Media Advocacy & Advocacy Communication • Minhee Choi, University of South Carolina • This study explores agenda setting, message framing, and the concepts of social media advocacy and mobilizing information through content analysis of tweets from competing pro-gun and gun control advocacy organizations, the NRA and Moms Demand Action. Findings revealed that the two organizations actively set the gun rights and gun control agenda through issue framing. Tweets from both organizations were more likely to frame the cause and solution as episodic frames. Mentions of mobilizing information were actively used by both organizations. However, the NRA showed more active communication with their followers through use of hashtags, replies, retweets, and likes.
ICTs Intrusion: The Effects of Using Communication Technology after Hours on Employees’ Counterproductive Work Behaviors • Katie Kim, University of Oklahoma • The integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the workplace has brought a new internal communication environment in the organization. In particular, ICTs enabled internal communication to be extended beyond the workplace and after work hours, which led to an intrusion of work into employees’ private domains. The study examines the impact of ICTs intrusion on employees’ counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) in the context of internal communication management. The results showed that the extent of ICTs intrusion is positively associated with CWB toward the organization’s members. Moreover, the effects of ICTs intrusion on CWB are accentuated when individuals perceive higher stress of being always connected to internal members during non-work hours. The findings of the study suggest practical guidance to organizational managers and public relations professionals on how ICTs should be utilized as an effective internal communication tool to promote a healthy and productive workforce.
Why Do Publics Engage in Negative Communication Behavior on Social Media? • Bitt Moon, Indiana University Bloomington; Eugene Kim, The Media School at the Indiana University, Bloomington • This study explored how consumer publics participate in negative communication behavior (NCB): Brand-related information seeking and sharing on social media. We examined the effects of cognitive, relational, and emotional drivers on NCB through an online survey of 475 participants. The results showed that cognitive factors -brand incompetence and irresponsibility- affect relational distrust and brand hate, which in turn lead to NCB. The findings indicated the significant role of brand hate in consumer publics‘ NCB.
Exploring the Social Networks of Environmental Nonprofit Organizations and Public Reactions to Facebook Postings Contingent on Message Types • Jeyoung Oh, University of Alabama; Bumsoo Kim, University of Alabama • Environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) use social media to generate organization-level networks and distribute diverse informational and promotional messages to the public. However, little is known about how they build organization-level networks in social media and what types of environmental messages they mainly provide. To fill these gaps, this study explores 1) how ENPOs are likely to have organization-level networks and 2) what types of environmental messages they have distributed and publics’ reactions to them. To answer these research questions, a quantitative content analysis was conducted. The results showed that ENPOs actively maintain networks with 1) other types of nonprofit organizations, 2) community-building organizations, and 3) various news media companies or websites. Regarding the second research question, the results showed that when ENPOs provide accurate messages with informational context, social media users are more likely to respond to the message. Furthermore, when they employ human voice with informational context, social media users tend to react more to the messages.
Examining the influence of personal discussion network on consumer engagement behavior: An egocentric network study • Yan Qu, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Consumer engagement has been a central component in corporations’ relationship management with consumers. This study examines the antecedents of consumer online behavioral engagement through an egocentric network analysis approach. Specifically, how structural and compositional traits of consumers’ brand discussion networks influence their engagement behavior online were explored. Data from an online survey indicated that the size, heterogeneity, and density of personal discussion network were associated with certain engagement behaviors. Findings and implications are discussed.
Is the Organization Ever the Victim? Reassessing Crisis Responsibility • Erika Schneider, University of Missouri-Columbia • This research investigates the theoretical concept of crisis responsibility to realign its effectiveness in crisis communication. The revision, proposing crisis responsibility as the failure to prevent a risk, illustrates that crisis responsibility is heavily weighted on organizational deficiencies. Strategies that deny responsibility are less effective for the organization because stakeholder perceptions emphasize the preventable nature of all crises. Implications of this concept explication includes strengthening tools for scholars to measure and evaluate crisis response strategies.
Relative efficacy of differentiation and bolstering in mitigating the negative spillover effect from a rival brand’s product-harm crisis: A study of market leader and market challenger • Jun Zhang, Newhouse School of Syracuse University • In light of a brand’s recall crisis, rival brands can mitigate the negative spillover effect by distancing themselves from the brand in crisis. This experimental research examines the relative efficacy of a rival brand’s using either bolstering or differentiation strategy in mitigating the negative spillover effect. Results showed that bolstering by a market leader and differentiation by a market challenger had an indirect effect on protecting brand attitude and purchase intent through heightened message evaluations.
Newspaper and Online News 2019 Abstracts
Open Competition
Embracing the visual, verbal and viral media: How post-millennial consumption habits are reshaping the news • Chris Gentilviso, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Deb Aikat, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The post-millennial or Generation Z constitutes people born in 1997 or after. This study theorizes how news consumption habits of the post-millennial generation are reshaping the news. Based on a 2019 meta-analytical research review of 16 key studies (published between 2017 and 2019) of media consumption habits of post-millennials, this research study delineates news consumption habits of post-millennials. It theorizes how this new generation of media users are embracing the visual, verbal and viral media and, in turn, reshaping news content. The propensity of the post-millennials to participate in the news cycle shapes their rapidly-changing preferences and usage patterns
Written in code: Exploring the negative effects of acronyms and abbreviations in news headlines • Alyssa Appelman, Northern Kentucky University • Through an experiment (N = 131), this study looks at whether the negative effects of acronyms and abbreviations in news articles are based on their presence or their difficulty. In all, it finds support for a presence/absence effect rather than a difficulty/ease effect. Rather than explaining acronyms and abbreviations in news articles, this suggests that journalists should strive to avoid such constructions altogether.
Journalistic compatibility: How social networking sites fit with users’ preferences for consuming hard, soft news • Steve Bien-Aime, Northern Kentucky University; Mu Wu, California State University, Los Angeles • Through a MTurk survey, this study explored whether users perceived Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat as compatible with consuming hard and soft news on those platforms. Participants reported Twitter and Facebook as the most compatible social networking sites in terms of consuming hard and soft news. Additionally, heightened perceived compatibility was significantly positively associated with individuals’ future intentions to use a SNS for news consumption.
(MacDougall Student Paper Award) Newspaper editors’ interactions with journalistic serendipity • Matt Bird-Meyer, University of Missouri • This mixed-methods study explores the information behavior of newspaper reporters regarding their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to story ideas, and how newspaper editors affect their ability to pursue such encountered ideas. As an interdisciplinary examination in human information behavior and journalism studies, behaviors and routines emerged that encouraged and potentially limited certain behaviors and routines. The findings also identify behaviors wherein newspaper editors match reporters with certain traits to certain story assignments.
Misrepresentation of cosmetic and reconstructive surgery in the American and French press • Sandrine Boudana, Tel Aviv; David Boudana • Research on media representation of plastic surgery has focused on American television and magazines to conclude that these media give a distortedly positive image of plastic surgery. Our study tests the hypothesis that, due to a more critically-orientated tradition, the print press rather emphasizes the negative aspects of plastic surgery and raises concerns about the procedures. Extending our study to a comparison with the French press, we also test the hypothesis that, given its polemicist tradition, the French press might be more critical than the American press towards plastic surgery. Content and framing analyses of 500 American and French newspaper articles show that the press is equally – although in different ways – critical of plastic surgery in both countries. However the comparison of media representations with statistical realities reveals that the negative judgment is not based on accurate representations of the realities of the profession.
Conservative News Nonprofits: Claiming legitimacy without transparency • Michael Buozis, Temple University; Magda Konieczna, Temple University • This study is the first examining and categorizing conservative news nonprofits. Using discourse analysis to explore their missions and other public statements, we note that many of these organizations draw on the legitimacy of mainstream journalism outlets while critiquing them, at once associating with and dissociating from them. This enables them to justify their engagement in the kind of activism normally found outside of journalism, even as they obscure their ideological orientations and funding sources.
Understanding the Nonprofit News Landscape in the United States • Monica Chadha, Arizona State University; Jesse Lecy, Arizona State University • This paper attempts to create a landscape of digital nonprofit news sites by examining their categorization as provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the use of National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE). The study also used a content analysis to examine the sites’ mission statements and find out which ones emphasized public journalism, investigative journalism, or both, thus providing nuance to scholarship that until now, has highlighted both as nonprofit news offerings.
Framing of the 2016 Presidential Election of Donald Trump from the World Press • Yu-li Chang, Bethel University • The ascent of Trump as the president of the United States after the 2016 election offered an excellent opportunity to look into how the world press opined on this surprising outcome. This study examined the editorials and columns from the English-language world press on the moral judgment frame, that is, the lessons learned from Trump’s election and the future prospects of the Trump presidency. Mixed methods were chosen as the tool for data analysis – a quantitative content analysis followed by a qualitative narrative analysis to dig deeper into nuances in the thematic frames generated from the content analysis. The findings showed that the world opinion framed Trump’s election more unfavorably than favorably. This study discovered a central narrative relating to the world’s concerns over Trump’s ability to lead the world to solve its pressing challenges and to do so on moral and cultural grounds. World opinion framed Trump’s unpredictable personality and policy ignorance as the largest sources of uncertainty, horror, cataclysm facing the world. Trump was viewed not only being incapable of leading the world to solve its problems; he was portrayed as being capable of bringing catastrophe to the already uncertain and dangerous situation. World opinion also predicted a degradation of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and democracy because of the resurgent racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny manifested in Trump and his followers.
Do Students Know the Code? How Coding is (and isn’t) Taught in Accredited Journalism Programs • Jim Foust; Katherine Bradshaw • A census of ACEJMC-accredited journalism programs reveals that less than a quarter require students to learn code. Despite industry desires for journalists with coding skills nearly 40 percent of the units offer no coding classes. Among programs that require code, most rely on a course or courses taught by full-time faculty in the accredited unit. About one third of units that do not require code currently have plans to add it in the future.
Who perpetuates “fake new” in China? Rumor diffusion on mainstream news websites, Weibo, and WeChat • Lei Guo, Boston University; Yiyan Zhang, Boston University • This study examined the diffusion of online rumors on mainstream news websites, Weibo, and WeChat—the three major media platforms for online news consumption in China. The results show that Weibo was most likely to advance rumors, while WeChat performed the best in refuting rumors. Additionally, mainstream news websites set the agenda of Weibo and WeChat in both advancing and refuting rumors. Within social media, governmental accounts took the leading agenda-setting role in refuting rumors.
Examining the Narratives of Syria: A Longitudinal Frame Analysis of the Syrian Conflict • Emily Burns, Texas State University; Michel Haigh, Texas State University • This study examined news coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis from 2011-2018. Specifically, it investigated how various mainstream news publications framed the Syrian refugee story, the overall tone of coverage, and shifts in coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis over time. Refugees were depicted positively. Tone of coverage became more positive over time, and the most common frames employed were the foreign government response frame and the conflict frame.
Political Polarization and Digital Discourse: Cross-National Analysis of Negativity in Facebook News Comments • Edda Humprecht; Lea Hellmueller • Negativity in news comments arguably leads to a polarization of public debates. We examine how commercialization, but also market-orientation and political leaning of media organizations explain negativity. The study content-analyzed comments on Facebook of six news organizations (N = 1800) in the US and Germany. We find that negative sentiments are particulary prevalent in the polarized information environment of the US. Moreover, hyper-partisan outlets in both countries provoke significantly higher levels of negativity.
Does Newspaper Presence in Household Affect Subscribers’ and Non-Subscribers’ Perceptions of Their Buying Behavior? A Mixed-Method Study • Anastasia Kononova; Esther Thorson, Michigan State University; Jef Richards; Kristen Lynch, Michigan State University • With the ascendancy of digital advertising, there have been only a handful of studies of the newspaper free-standing inserts (FSIs), also known as preprint, as an advertising medium. Given the threatened health of America’s newspapers, the value of FSIs as the primary source of revenue is critical. This paper looks at the impact on newspaper presence in subscribers’ and non-subscribers’ households on their self-reported buying behavior. Individuals from two segments: 1) subscribers to a local daily newspaper (N = 60) and 2) non-subscribers (N = 58) participated in a field study, where the newspaper was delivered to their households for 14 days and was put on hold for another 14 days. Each day, participants reported if they used the newspaper and if they bought anything. Subscribers were found to be older, wealthier, more educated, more likely retired, longer-term community residents, and greater comparison shoppers than non-subscribers. They reported more instances of buying behavior than non-subscribers. Paradoxically, participants who received the newspaper during the study reported fewer instances of buying behavior. Newspaper delivery was associated with increased instances of shopping for health and beauty products. Focus groups were conducted to explain the findings, and the implications were discussed using consumer socialization approach.
Newspaper coverage of Colorado’s 2016 End of Life Options Act • Kimberly Lauffer, Ball State University, Department of Journalism; Sean Baker, Department of Journalism, Central Michigan University; Natalee Seely, Ball State University • Since 2014, several states have introduced and passed legislation permitting aid in dying. In Colorado, Proposition 106, the End of Life Options Act, passed Nov. 8, 2016, with 65 percent of Coloradans approving the law. How newspapers cover contentious issues is important because these representations influence public opinion. This study found a relationship between item type and overall stance, as well as a difference in the content produced by journalists and laypersons or columnists.
Approach or Avoid? Emotional Sentiments and Reactions in News of Sexual Assault • Yu-Hao Lee, University of Florida; Mo Chen, University of Florida • We conducted a sentiment analysis on the news headlines and the social media descriptions of 2340 news articles on sexual assault accusations and #MeToo from October 2017 to February 2018. Based on the emotions-as-frames perspective and theories of political ideologies. We examined whether news organizations with more conservative users used more words that signaled anger, anxiety, and sex. Furthermore, we examined to what extent do the news sentiments of anger, anxiety, and sexual-framed messages predict social media engagement behaviors (like, share, comments) among mostly conservative or liberal users. The results showed that news organizations with more conservative users used more emotional sentiments in their headlines and descriptions. Moreover, anxiety sentiments were associated with less engagement while sexual sentiments were associated with more engagement among most-conservative users.
Drowning out the message: How online comments on news stories about Nike’s ad campaign contributed to polarization and gatekeeping • Jinhee Lee; Zulfia Zaher; Ed Simpson; Elina Erzikova • This study examined audience commentary on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC’s YouTube and Facebook platforms associated with news stories on Nike’s selection of controversial former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as spokesman for its 2018 campaign. The study, using the theory of gatekeeping as a starting point, sought evidence for a drowning effect, in which the audience strayed from the primary message of the journalism presented to it. A significant drowning effect was found, across platforms and outlets.
Understanding the Typology of Native Advertising on News Websites • You LI, Eastern Michigan U; Ye Wang • This study explored how 57 U.S. news websites integrated native advertising through placement locations and yet differentiated it from editorial content through disclosure languages and designs. The websites placed native ads in more than two locations on average. While 79% of websites met FTC’s disclosure guideline, only a quarter used maximum disclosure tactics. The publishers with more cultural capital (i.e., the number of Pulitzer awards) differentiated native advertising from editorial content to a greater extent.
News Media Credibility Ratings and Perceptions of Fake News Exposure among Internet Users in Five Countries • Justin Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar; Fouad Hassan, Northwestern University • This study examined media credibility ratings and perceptions of fake news exposure online among internet users in five Arab countries: Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and UAE (N=4,616). Perceptions of fake news exposure were not consistently associated with either ratings of news media credibility or news consumption; rather, respondents who said governments and the public should stop the spread of fake news online were reported coming across fake news online more often.
The Story Behind the Story: How Transparency About the Journalistic Process Boosts Perceptions of News Outlet Credibility • Gina Masullo Chen, University of Texas at Austin; Alex Curry, The University of Texas at Austin; Kelsey Whipple, The University of Texas at Austin • This two-study package (Study 1: N = 753; Study 2: N = 599) sought to understand whether adding a transparency box that explains how journalists did a news story could improve perceptions of the credibility of a news outlet. Our findings from Study 2 demonstrated this box was effective in boosting perceptions of news outlet credibility when used with real news sites among the audience members for those sites.
Responding to Online Disagreement Comments: It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It • Gina Masullo Chen, University of Texas at Austin; Marc Ziegele, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf; Martin Johannes Riedl, The University of Texas at Austin & Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society; Pablo Jost, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Teresa Naab, University of Augsburg • An experiment (N = 1,231) in Germany found that moderators responding to disagreement comments on a news site’s Facebook page should use high-person-centered (HPC) messages, which acknowledge people’s emotions, rather than low-person-centered (LPC) messages, which dismiss feelings. HPC messages improved attitudes toward the news site and loyalty to the site’s online community, regardless of whether the disagreement comments were civil, uncivil, or impolite. Improved attitudes toward the news site were heightened if journalists were moderating.
Mediating Transnational Movement: Indian News Media and the #MeToo Movement • Suman Mishra • This study explores the media coverage of the #MeToo movement in India. Using thematic analysis of news articles from six prominent Indian newspapers (The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Telegraph, The Pioneer, and The Economic Times), the study reveals the unique way in which this transnational movement was discussed in the Indian context. Patriarchal conditioning, fear of retaliation and reputational harm, and lack of recourse through slow and unresponsive judiciary, were some prominent cultural themes in the coverage. In addition, there was a focus on the entertainment industry and its celebrities. This focus limits “Me Too” movement’s potential and resonance with the larger Indian public who are likely to see it as an elite Hollywood-Bollywood phenomenon. Further discussion is provided.
Guilt by association: How chum box advertising affects news readers’ perceptions • Logan Molyneux; Bartosz Wojdynski, University of Georgia • As content referral widgets and other forms of native advertising continue to be lucrative means of subsidizing journalism, critics and industry observers have derided these “chum boxes” as damaging to the user experience and the journalism they’re adjacent to. This study theorizes mechanisms behind this proposition and tests it in two controlled experiments. Results suggest that chum box ads damage message and source credibility in circumstances where readers are motivated and attentive.
Journalism Practice in a Digital Age: Utilization of Social Media in Online News • Mirjana Pantic, Pace University; Ivana Cvetkovic, University of New Mexico • This study employed the gatekeeping perspective to examine what practices 10 prominent U.S.-based news websites embrace when deriving content and sources from social media. A thorough content analysis of 180 online news shows that journalists primarily rely on institutional, official sources when utilizing social media in the news production process. Furthermore, journalists are most likely to employ written information from Twitter in online news and publish such information in entertainment and politics sections.
“Why the h**l is there a White House Correspondents’ Dinner?” Field Theory in Political Journalism • Gregory Perreault; Kellie Stanfield, Missouri School of Journalism; Shelby Luttman • This study aimed to analyze the shifting role conceptions of journalists in the field, primarily in reference to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Researchers conducted 32 phone interviews with political journalists from news outlets ranging from the Los Angeles Times to VICE. This study argues that the present format of the dinner presents a challenge to the journalistic field, one that political journalists have difficulty managing within their journalistic role.
Media Literacy to Rebuild Trust in Journalism: A Typology for a Changing News Audience • Sue Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Kelly Nelson, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Carlos Davalos, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Trust in all institutions has plummeted across the board, internationally – especially trust in the political institution that is the press. One popular solution to rebuilding trust calls on increased forms of media literacy. Using a series of 15 case studies involving initiatives around the globe to rebuild citizen trust in news media, this research explores the links between media literacy and relationships with information in a digital, populist age through both textual analysis of these projects’ materials as well as in-depth interviews with their founders and directors. It puts forth a more complex definition of media literacy, typologizes kinds of literacy (settling on civic consumption, amateur (co-)production (sharing), professional information production (newsrooms), and algorithms/technology), and reimagines who is responsible to become literate and to teach literacy. We find that the notion of “literacy” has application for not only schools, universities and adult citizens, but also for journalists and platforms themselves.
Border Patrol: The Rise and Role of Fact-Checkers and Their Challenge to Journalists’ Normative Boundaries • Jane B. Singer, City, University of London • Although most research to date has focused on leading U.S. fact-checkers, similar initiatives are springing up all over the world. This study draws on a globally disseminated questionnaire, plus interviews with fact-checkers on four continents, to examine how they describe their fundamental norms, understand their social role, and engage their audiences. A conceptual framework of journalistic boundary-setting helps guide exploration of the ways that fact-checkers see themselves in relation to legacy journalists.
Diffusion of Video Advertising on Community Newspaper Websites? • Burton Speakman, Kennesaw State University; Michael Clay Carey, Samford University • This study reviews diffusion of innovation at community media websites regarding the use of video and video advertising. Results suggest that video reached a point where a sizable number of community media outlets publish them online. Yet, video advertising lags behind in use. Furthermore, it appears that elements such as circulation and size of a media corporation have little influence in the development and use of video and video advertising on community media websites.
When do people share fake news online? The effect of social network size and homophily • Ruoyu Sun, University of Miami; Cong Li, University of Miami; Barbara Millet; Khudejah Ali; John Petit • “This study examined the impact of social network size and homophily on people’s intention to share news, especially fake news, on Facebook. Based on an experiment, it was found that perceived homophily with Facebook contacts was positively associated with news sharing intention. A significant three-way interaction effect between network size, homophily, and news type on news sharing intention was also discovered, and this effect was mediated by motivation to socialize with online contacts.
Enacted Journalism Takes the Stage: How Audiences Respond to Reporting-Based Theater • Ori Tenenboim, The University of Texas at Austin; Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud, The University of Texas at Austin • From offering comment sections to hosting town hall meetings, news organizations have experimented with different ways of engaging audiences. This paper focuses on reporting-based live-theater performances followed by conversation. Drawing on surveys of audiences attending performances of three different plays (n=279) and in-depth interviews with 13 people involved in the plays, this paper shows that what we term “enacted journalism” can increase knowledge, boost efficacy, and influence what people think about the media’s role.
A New Kind of Journalistic Paradigm Repair: How U.S. News Outlets Rejected the Label “Enemy of the People” • Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University; Susan Keith, Rutgers University; Sue Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • “In August 2018, more than 600 news organizations answered the Boston Globe’s call for a united editorial stand against more than two years of unprecedented attacks by the U.S. President. Qualitative analysis revealed movement beyond paradigm repair into paradigm justification through oppositional identity markers, affinity reminders, and validity claims. This represents a more substantial defense of the foundational idea that a press is necessary for a vibrant democracy.
Here’s what to know about clickbait: Effects of image, headline and editing on audience attitudes • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University; Scott Burgess; Darryl Frazier, Wayne State University; Kelsey Husnick, Wayne State University • “This quantitative study examines responses to three features of news practice: headline style, selection of illustrations and level of processing applied to the text. The strongest influence on perceptions of quality or credibility come from editing, and the presence of editing also influences whether traditional or clickbait headlines are associated with better memory for story details. News use, Internet use, news source and field of study also influence outcomes.
Whistleblowing, leaking, or both? A text-mining analysis of definitional discrepancies in major metro newspapers • Stephenson Waters • Using a framing-centered text-mining analysis, the purpose of this study was to examine the content of 2,100 news stories from major metro daily newspapers to uncover if and how the connotations surrounding whistleblowing and leaking acts may vary depending on a journalist’s word choice. Considering the risks whistleblowers take when disclosing information to the news media, the question of how they are defined by journalists is consequential. Crucial to the success of a whistleblower’s intention of actionable change or remedy of misdeeds is the public dissemination of their claims and evidence, so media coverage matters. Initial results found journalists overall tend to frame whistleblowers and leakers in objective language in the majority of their coverage of these subjects. More subjective terminology was infrequent, considering the vast number of stories in the overall data set; however, the occurrences of subjective language is still instructive, as it showed preliminary results that leakers and leaking are framed negatively and with more skepticism than whistleblowers and whistleblowing. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Report for America, report about communities: local news capacity and community trust • Andrea Wenzel, Temple University; Sam Ford, Tow Center for Digital Journalism; Efrat Nechushtai, Columbia University • This study looks at Report for America’s efforts to strengthen the capacity of local news and increase trust from the perspective of a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, and a rural county in Eastern Kentucky. Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, it follows 28 residents through project-start and end focus groups. This is complemented by 15 interviews with journalists and RFA staff, and content analysis of local stories from the Chicago Sun-Times and Lexington Herald-Leader.
Look Around and Learn: Effects of 360-Degree Video in Online News • Bartosz Wojdynski, University of Georgia; Ivanka Pjesivac, The University of Georgia; Jihoon Kim; Matt Binford, University of Georgia; Keith Herndon, University of Georgia • In a between-subjects eye-tracking experiment, adult readers of a large metropolitan daily newspaper (N=48) viewed and evaluated one of two versions of the same online news feature: one with an embedded 360-degree video alongside text and images, and the other using exclusively text and static images. Findings show that the presence of 360-degree video increased attitudes toward the article, article credibility, and visual attention to article content, but did not significantly affect recall of the story
Keepers of the comments: How comment moderators handle audience contributions • David Wolfgang, Colorado State University; Hayley Blackburn, Colorado State University; Stephen McConnell, Colorado State University • “As news commenting has evolved as a participatory tool and journalists have developed traditional practices for moderation, there are increasing questions about how to promote quality spaces for news discourse. Using gatekeeping theory, this study analyzes in-depth interviews with 13 news comment moderators to understand how these individuals establish moderation routines and define their professional role. This provides new insight into the journalist-audience relationship and the development of new media practices for online news production.
Commenters as a threat to journalism? How comment moderators perceive the role of the audience • David Wolfgang, Colorado State University; Stephen McConnell, Colorado State University; Hayley Blackburn, Colorado State University • “Journalists and commenters have struggled to negotiate the appropriate use of news forums. But research about perceptions of commenters has typically focused on journalists and not the comment moderators who specifically manage content. This study uses in-depth interviews with 13 U.S. news comment moderators to understand through a field theory analysis how moderators perceive commenters as possible threats to the profession and, potentially, help to develop quality commenting into a form of journalistic cultural capital.
Student Papers
Democracy’s gatekeepers? How editorial boards constructed moral equivalence between 2016 presidential candidates • Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Through a mixed-method analysis of 75 major U.S. newspapers’ 2016 editorial endorsements, this study asks how editorial boards evaluated the two most controversial and unpopular major-party presidential candidates in U.S. history and the threats they posed to democratic norms and institutions. I find that while attempting to fill the seemingly vacated role of “democracy’s gatekeepers,” news organizations simultaneously undermined these efforts by actively constructing moral equivalence between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Darker cloud or silver lining? News framing of the opioid crisis and organ donation • Alexis Bajalia, University of Florida; Amanda Bradshaw • America’s opioid crisis is doing more than taking lives. It is contributing to a substantial increase in organ donation, which some conclude is saving lives. A qualitative framing analysis of 59 U.S. news articles explored how journalists frame the relationship between the opioid crisis and organ donation. Four major themes emerged: silver lining and hope out of tragedy; shortcut to saving lives, times, and organs; medical acceptance, innovation, and evolution; and rewriting the narrative and changing the stigma. Because news articles tended to frame the relationship between the opioid crisis and organ donation as having a positive effect on society, this study provided practical and theoretical implications about how such framing may impact consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, and/or beliefs about the opioid crisis and/or organ donation.
Similarities and Differences in Western Media Portrayals of the Greek Economic Crisis • Tryfon Boukouvidis, Louisiana State University • This study examines newspaper coverage of the Greek economic crisis in the summer of 2015 through a qualitative content analysis on the attribution of responsibility to the actors involved. Prior literature indicates that American newspapers present economic crises from an elite perspective, possibly distorting public opinion to reflect elite views. Newspapers have become more rigorous in interpreting the underlying mechanisms of a crisis instead of superficially covering episodic events, but most analysis comes from editorials.
Biased Optimism: Online Fake News and Their Influence on Third-Person Perception and Corrective Action • Hyungjin Gill; Moonhoon Choi • This study examines the potential presence of 3PE in fake news and investigates at what third-person perception (“3PP”) may do to people’s willingness to engage in different forms of corrective action. Additionally, based on the root-idea embedded in 3PE (i.e., anticipation of media influence on self vs. others), the study delves into whether such perceptual distinction exists in presumed corrective action intention as well. And finally, the research aims to identify various kinds of corrective actions that may exist in different forms of reactions in response to online mis/disinformation to further previous communication research findings on undesirable media and attitudes toward censorship. Results shows presence of third-person effect (presuming greater effect of potentially harmful media content on others than self) in fake news exposure. Respondents also saw others as having more willingness to engage in corrective behaviors to counter fake news than themselves, serving as potential explanation for the spread of mis/disinformation during elections. Implications of corrective action items and the association between third-person perception and corrective action intention are discussed.
Framing Immigration: Criminal Frames of Latinx Immigrants and Social Distancing • Elizabeth Hurst, University of Oklahoma; Juliana L. Barbati • This experiment sought to examine how manipulation of high-order social identities can impact the perception of different news frames at four different levels (i.e., the communicator, the receiver, the text, and the culture. The results indicate that political party identification had the most significant impact on social distance towards Latinx immigrants and national identity salience. Implications for single-exposure framing experiments, the level of culture within framing research, and social identity research are discussed at length.
Interpretation, participation and negotiation in China’s online news: A study of The Paper • RAN JU • This article selects The Paper (Pengpai), a Chinese online news media which incorporates the functionality of the party press into market-oriented journalism, to examine how online news embraces an interpretive journalism paradigm to collaborate with the party-state, to encourage the community involved in, and to find a place in the Chinese digital market. In addition to in-depth interviews with reporters and editors in The Paper, this study analyzes 2239 news articles posted on The Paper website and the comments underneath these articles over the period from 2015 to 2016. It is argued that the connection and disconnection between the journalistic role conception and performance are shaped by the negotiation between multiple groups and institutions that are constituted by interpretive communities. Journalistic interpretation in the online platform, on the one side, enlarges the boundaries of journalists’ collective authority, and on the other side, equips engaged readers with discursive resources in public debates.
Tweets, Statements, and Quotes: News Source Selection, Gatekeeping, and Bias coverage of Indian #Metoo movement • Shreenita Ghosh, University of Wisconsin Madison; Kruthika Kamath, University of Wisconsin–Madison • This study explores the source categorization, source prominence, gender representation, journalist gender, and the coverage of #metoo movements in India. A content analysis of nine major English-language daily newspapers coverage of the movement shows that the digital age has only made a marginal dent in norms of inclusion and credibility of ordinary and minority citizens as sources. Further, medium selection and journalistic gatekeeping are considerably different in the two phases of the Indian #metoo movement.
Battle of the Frames: Perspective Collision and Hyper-Mediation at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. • Chelsea Bonser; DI LAN; Stephen McConnell, Colorado State University • A collision of perspectives at the Lincoln Memorial revealed how one moment in today’s digital news environment can rapidly produce news frames that define and redefine “reality” along ideological lines. Through a content analysis of media outlets that vary on the political spectrum, the authors found significant associations regarding how each outlet distinctly portrayed and framed the main actors of the event, as well as how new frames rapidly formed as new information became known.
Addressing News Media Image in an Age of Skepticism • Soo Young Shin, MSU • This study explored news media image as perceived by the public by employing a concept used in marketing literature—image. Journalism stakeholders and scholars suggest the public’s perceptions of news media is not favorable, which consequently decreases readerships and makes the public lean towards alternative news (i.e., fake news). Considering this growing negative sentiment toward news media, it is crucial to understand the public’s perceptions of news media to address the public’s negative perception(s) and hopefully change them. Particularly, the news media industry has not yet possessed broad concepts, not to mention measures, to capture the public’s overall perceptions in terms of news organizations. The perceptions of 44 participants (over the course of nine sessions) living in the Midwestern U.S. were investigated using focus group methods. The results revealed eight dimensions of news media image: news quality, news usefulness, social responsibility, personality, usability, transparency, perspective-taking, and news selection bias. Participants believed that news media organizations are mostly biased in their selection of news stories, as news organizations are under pressure to make profit. Despite holding this view, certain ideals of news media, such as the potential role of the media as community watch-dogs and “protectors” of democracy, are highly valued. Participants particularly valued transparency, rather than objectivity, of news organizations and indicated that news is generally useful in acquiring information directly relevant to their lives.
The Emergence of Social Justice Journalism • Allison Steinke, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • Social justice journalism is an emerging style of newswork in for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms in the United States. This qualitative study provides in-depth analysis of interviews with journalists who cover social justice topics at mainstream legacy media and nonprofit newsrooms across the U.S. Some reporters have formal social justice beats while others are general assignment reporters, investigative reporters or columnists who occasionally cover social justice topics or beats including criminal justice, government corruption, marginalized populations, immigration, and homelessness. Through the conceptual lens of the sociology of newswork and imagined audiences, this study explores social justice journalists’ beats, identities, and constructions of their audiences. This study argues that journalists who cover social justice often identify as advocates within the public sphere while others oppose advocacy in their work and prefer to pursue traditional journalistic values of fairness, accuracy and objectivity.
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