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.

< 2019 Abstracts

Newspaper and Online News 2018 Abstracts

Open Competition
Examining who political journalists @mention on Twitter • Brooke Auxier, University of Maryland, College Park; Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland, College Park • Many journalists have adopted social media platforms as a means for gathering breaking news and promoting their work. Though tools like Twitter allow journalists to interact directly with their audiences and average users, some critics suggest that journalists often write for each other and interact largely with others in the industry. An analysis of 5,000 tweets found that political journalists mostly @mention other journalists, news organizations and politicians.

The Journalism and Mass Communication Capstone Course: Bringing It All Together? • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University; Robin Blom, Ball State University; Lucinda Davenport • Although most higher education programs include a capstone course to culminate the student experience, program directors disagree on what the experience should look like. Updating previous research, this study examined the main goals, teaching methods, and subject areas covered in journalism and mass communication capstone courses. It also compared capstone course content and format to what professionals say is important to know. Based on a survey of department chairs and directors, the results show that capstone courses have become increasingly focused on individual coaching, the production of individual student projects, and the examination of issues related to careers and media in society.

Data journalism and black-boxed data sets • Wilson Lowrey, University of Alabama; Ryan Broussard, University of Alabama; Lindsey Sherrill, University of Alabama • Interviews with data journalists reveal there are differences in practices for data-driven journalism across different types of news outlets and levels of expertise in data journalists. Findings include an unlikeliness to question data categories from government agencies and a difference in how journalists at national and digital-only organizations generally systems in place to check data compared to journalists at smaller publications. Authors argue for a need to increase critical thinking in how data is used.

Knowledge begets knowledge:  Impacts of civic and political knowledge on knowledge gain from online news • D. Jasun Carr, Idaho State University; Mitchell Bard • “This paper uses a Twitter-based experiment to examine relationships between the content choices Post-Millennials make in a social media context, and how their civic and political knowledge influence factual recall. Results indicate that, while Post-Millennials were more likely than expected to select news over entertainment – leading to increased knowledge gain – their existing civic and political knowledge influences retention of information with increased base knowledge leading to higher factual recall.

Routine Adjustments: How Journalists Framed the Charleston Shootings • Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University; Betty La France; Sam Babin • National newspaper coverage of the 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. was analyzed via a two-dimensional measurement scheme for examining media frames. Results suggest that journalists incorporated attributes unique to this tragedy into their coverage when compared to studies of similar events. A wider variety of frames on time and space dimensions were consistently utilized, and there was increased attention to the societal/past frame combination.

To share or not to share? Credibility, emotion and false news on Twitter • Haoran Chu; Janet Yang; Jun Zhuang • An experimental survey based on a nationally-representative sample showed that source credibility features such as verification badge increased people’s perceived credibility of false news on Twitter, while high social approval reduced such belief. Credibility perception further mediated the effects of tweet features onto sharing intention. Additionally, anger as a high-arousal emotion led to stronger intention to share false tweets, while the low-arousal emotions like fear and sadness did not.

What to Think About: The Applicability of Agenda-Settings in a Social Media Context • Holly Cowart • “This study examined how agenda-setting works in a social media setting. Three areas were tested for their effect on issue salience. More than 360 participants viewed variations of a mock Facebook feed and answered questions about issue importance. Results showed that increased repetition of a news story did influence participants’ perception that the news story topic was important. Total time spent on Facebook, gender, and ethnicity had a significant influence on perceived story importance.

Don’t Quote Me: Effects of Named, Quoted and Partisan News Sources • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Kathleen Culver, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Douglas McLeod; Christopher Kremmer, University of News South Wales, Australia • “Many news organizations have developed policies on use of named and unnamed sources in stories, including when the latter should be directly quoted or paraphrased. In an experiment, we test how audience members respond to these policy dictates by measuring news credibility in a political story that manipulates whether the source is named, whether that source is directly quoted, and the political relationship between the person accused and the accuser. We find that while each of these manipulations has little or no effect, the combine to trigger a discernible change in credibility in the eyes of the audience.

Does a more diverse newspaper staff reflect its community? Analyzing The Dallas Morning News’ content • Tracy Everbach, UNT; Jake Batsell, Southern Methodist University; Sara Champlin, The University of North Texas; Gwendelyn Nisbett, University of North Texas • This analysis of print and digital content in The Dallas Morning News examines whether a regional newspaper’s coverage reflects the diversity of its community on multiple platforms. Using a constructed week from Fall 2017, this study employs mixed methods to research bylines, visual credits, text sources, and visual subjects in the Morning News’ print editions and website. Results show that the content does not match the diversity of the surrounding community, which is 40% Latinx.

Understanding the Conflict Between Journalism Professionalism and Emotional Trauma • Kenna Griffin, Oklahoma City University • This study measures how journalists’ professionalism may play a role in their willingness to admit suffering emotional trauma or seeking help for it, and how professionalism may affect journalists’ views of work-related trauma, in general. The 829 respondents reported a strong sense of professionalism, but agreed that it is difficult to remain objective when covering traumatic events. The respondents also disagreed that journalists have a special resiliency that allows them to do their jobs without suffering emotional trauma. Despite this, the journalists still identified emotional trauma as a problem for others in the industry, but thought it was unlikely to happen to them.

Fake news is not controlled in a controlled environment: An analysis of China’s online news • Lei Guo, Boston University • The widespread dissemination of fake news has become a serious concern in many western democracies. This study adds to the literature by demonstrating that fake news is not controlled even in a controlled media environment like China. Based on a comprehensive intermedia agenda-setting analysis, the research suggests that official news websites in China also contributed to the perpetuation of fake news by advancing fake news themselves and by inducing other media outlets to do so.

The Local-Mobile Paradox:  Missed Innovation Opportunities and The Future of Local News • Meg Heckman, Northeastern University; John Wihbey, Northeastern University • “We employ a mixed methods approach to examine the state of mobile web publishing among U.S. local newspapers. Analysis of the mobile version of news websites (N=100) across the 50 states yields an uneven picture, with innovation lagging in key areas. A survey with local owner-operators (N=77) in a large U.S. state suggests that devoting attention to mobile audiences may be associated with revenue opportunities, and the ability to innovate is not necessarily associated with firm size. We explore implications for the viability of local news.

All the News That Tweets: Newspapers’ Use of Twitter Posts as News Sources from 2009 to 2016 • Kyle Heim, Shippensburg University • This study analyzed a sample of New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today stories from 2009 to 2016 in which Twitter posts were cited as news sources (N = 440). Although the use of tweets as sources has increased, the tweets generally were not featured prominently within the stories. Tweets were used most often in international stories, and journalists relied mostly on the tweets of official sources such as politicians rather than ordinary citizens.

Strangers to the Game? Interlopers, intralopers, and shifting news production • Avery Holton, University of Utah; Valerie Belair-Gagnon, University of Minnesota • The contours of journalistic practice have evolved substantially since the emergence of the world wide web to include those who were once strangers to the profession. Bloggers, hobbyists, amateur journalists, programmers, mobile app designers, web analytic professionals, non-governmental organizations, start-ups, and many others have become part of the organizational field of journalism, collectively influencing news production. These strangers, whether welcomed by journalists or shunned as interlopers, represent what the sociologist Georg Simmel (1950) described as potential wanderers, or those individuals who might influence journalism briefly before moving on, as well as those who might have a more lasting footing. This conceptual essay argues that by beginning to delineate differences among these strangers—those who have not belonged to traditional journalism practice but have imported their qualities and work into it—a more holistic understanding of the impact of outsiders on news production, and journalism broadly, can be advanced. Following Eldridge’s (2018) call to consider the organizational field of journalism as a fluid one, we offer typologies of these strangers as explicit and implicit interlopers as well as intralopers, offering possible definitions and examples for each. In working to understand these strangers as innovators, disruptors, and challengers of news production, we begin to unpack how they are contributing to increasingly un-institutionalized meaning of news while also suggesting a research agenda that begins to give definition to the various strangers who may be influencing news production more specifically, and the organizational field of journalism more broadly.

Fake News Cues: Examining content, source, and typology cues in identifying mis- and disinformation • Avery Holton, University of Utah; Amber Hinsley, Saint Louis University • Using a survey of U.S. adults, this research examines the content, source, and other credibility cues people rely on when assessing fake news. This study also considers people’s perceptions about various emerging fake news typologies. Participants who had lower confidence in their ability to identify fake news were less reliant on multiple credibility sources as well as cues like headlines and visuals to help them determine mis- and disinformation. These signal a need for increased, continuous digital literacy education.

Sentiment Contagion in the 2016 U.S Presidential Election Media Tweet Networks • Claire Youngnyo Joa, Louisiana State University Shreveport; Gi Woong Yun, University of Nevada, Reno • Sentiment contagion across the media tweet, including traditional and non-traditional news media, network of 2016 U.S. presidential election was identified and analyzed using a series of time-series analysis. Online non-partisan media reported the highest use of positive sentiment words, while political commentators reported the highest level of negative sentiment word use. Online partisan media Twitter accounts, including @drudgereport, were identified as intermedia agenda setters that led negative sentiment contagion in multiple media categories. No evident individual agenda setter was found in positive sentiment contagion.

“Not one of us”: Social Identity and American Metajournalistic Discourse Surrounding Glenn Greenwald • Courtney Johnson, Pew Research Center • Journalists increasingly face challenges to their professional autonomy. The internet allows anyone with a computer or mobile device to post content online, making it easy for individuals with little or no journalistic training and no formal news outlet affiliation to engage in reporting. Whether this content creation constitutes “journalism,” however, is often contested by those traditional journalists affiliated with mainstream media outlets (Carlson, 2012; Singer, 2007). Mainstream journalists now feel challenged by online actors who consider themselves journalists, or at least consider the work they do to be journalistic in nature. Given the recent challenges posed to journalism by the internet, and guided by past research on social identity theory and boundary work, this paper examines the relationship between evolving journalistic professional identity and mainstream journalists’ treatment of Glenn Greenwald. Using a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse, this study illustrates how definitions of journalism are changing in the digital age, and how journalists working for traditional news organizations draw boundaries around their profession and attempt to differentiate themselves from new forms of journalism enabled by the internet. Results indicate that journalists moved to protect their professional boundaries in ways predicted by social identity theory: Journalists enhanced their profession identity by subsuming the innovative aspects of Greenwald’s work under the rubric of traditional journalism, and used the other (less professionally desirable) aspects of Greenwald’s behavior to place him outside the boundaries of real journalism.

Mediating Empathy: The role of news consumption in mitigating attitudes about race and immigration • Kelly Kaufhold, Texas State University • Controversies over racism and xenophobia during and after the campaign of President Donald Trump contributed to big increases in media consumption – and racist incidents. This study examines whether and how much news media consumption mitigates perceptions of 12 measures of attitudes about race and immigration, using a national instrument of 64,600 cases. News media use – especially newspaper use – does soften attitudes about race and immigration, although it isn’t as predictive as party identification.

Protests, Media Coverage, and a Hierarchy of Social Struggle • Danielle Kilgo, Indiana University; Summer Harlow, University of Houston • News coverage is fundamental to a protest’s viability, but research suggests media negatively portray protests and protesters that challenge the status quo (a pattern known as the protest paradigm). This study questions that assumption, interrogating how topic, time, and region shape coverage. Results suggest Black Lives Matter and policing protest coverage follows more of a delegitimizing pattern than stories about women’s or immigrants’ rights protests. A model for a hierarchy of social struggle is proposed.

The meaning of numbers: Effect of social cues perceived as bandwagon heuristic in online news • Jiyoun Kim • “This quantitative study focuses on how peoples’ reactions to an online article are affected by social cues associated with the news article. This study found that online content with a high number of likes, shares, and comments show significant effects on the following: perceived bandwagon, willingness to consume news, perceived news worthiness, and people’s likelihood of news sharing. The findings indicate, however, that social cues have its effect when conditions are low-risk and low-involvement.

Reliance on Government Sources at American Newspapers in the Digital Era • Beth Knobel, Fordham University • This paper examines sources used in over 5,000 enterprise articles on the front pages of nine American newspapers before and after the advent of digital journalism to assess whether newspapers are becoming more reliant on government sources in the Internet era. This research suggests that journalists’ reliance on officials has increased in the digital era, but only slightly, as the ease of finding sources online has been eroded by budget cuts at American newspapers.

Re-examining news overload:  Effects of content characteristics and news topics on selective scanning and avoidance • Angela Lee; Avery Holton, University of Utah; Victoria Chen • The rapid proliferation of digital news platforms has exacerbated average consumers’ perception of overload and complicates the ways they selectively consume and avoid the news. Through an online panel survey, this study advances research on news overload by (1) proposing a more holistic measure of news overload, (2) examining the moderating effect of content characteristics and news topics on overload, and (3) investigating the ways in which these variables influence selective scanning and news avoidance. The results indicate that the antecedents and effects of news overload is more complex than previously thought and deserve more scholarly and industry attention.

Understanding the Role Performance of Native Advertising on News Websites • You Li, Eastern Michigan U • This study compares the role performance of native advertising between the legacy and the digital-only news websites in the United States. By analyzing the content characteristics, the study finds that native advertising primarily plays a service role. Those on the legacy news websites prioritized the civic role, while those on the digital-only news websites emphasized the infortainment role. The composition of native advertising message has yet to comply with the journalistic standard.

Perceptual Learning in Mass Communication Research: Immediate & Delayed Effects of Perceptual-Learning Methods on AP Style Knowledge • Justin Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar; Shageaa Naqvi, Northwestern University in Qatar; George Anghelcev, Northwestern University in Qatar • Perceptual-learning methods teach skills via numerous, rapid-fire questions that provide immediate visual feedback. This study tested the effects of a perceptual-learning module (PLM) on acquiring declarative and procedural knowledge of Associated Press editing style. A quasi-experiment compared a PLM condition of non-journalism majors to a control condition of journalism majors who learned AP style in a traditional way: by taking an introductory journalism class, being assigned the AP Stylebook as a textbook, and submitting AP-compliant assignments. A perceptual-learning module of 200 rapid, multiple-choice questions with immediate feedback significantly improved participants’ declarative and procedural knowledge of AP style, and was clearly more effective than the classroom method. Perceptual-learning participants, who spent just 1 hour 10 minutes completing the PLM, outperformed the classroom/control condition (a 14-week class) on AP editing ability. Importantly, these effects did not attenuate in a delayed posttest seven weeks after initial posttest. This is the first experiment testing effects of a PLM on linguistic editing ability.

Shithole and the President: News use of Trump’s profanity • Michael McCluskey, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga • “When President Trump used shithole to describe several countries in discussion of immigration, news organizations faced violating norms against profanity to use his precise language. Evaluation of 2,469 stories containing “shithole” in 70 large newspaper websites over a 15-day period found the meeting and response, public policy and politics, and evaluation of Trump were the most common themes. Analysis showed the influences of news values, journalistic norms and organizational practices on use of profanity.

Healing and recovery as a news value • Michael McCluskey, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga • “News values and journalistic values are used to explain which events or issues are mentioned in the news. One common news theme after traumas is healing and recovery, which is not explicitly mentioned as a value. Analysis evaluates the role of journalism after traumatic events to aid the healing and recovery of the affected parties, including communities. Evidence from previously published work and recent traumatic events is used to illustrate eight common themes.

‘Tell me something good’: Testing the longitudinal effects of constructive news using the Google Assistant • Karen McIntyre, Virginia Commonwealth University • In a mixed design quasi-experiment, participants received access to a Google Assistant feature in which they could prompt the assistant to summarize constructive news — stories that highlight societal progress. After two weeks, those who used the feature were more likely, between pretest and postttest, than those who did not to feel positive while consuming traditional news, suggesting constructive news could mitigate the effects of more typical, negative news.

Fact-checking and Facebook users’ engagement: Debunking fake news and verifying Trump’s claims • Paul Mena, University of Florida • “This study explores Facebook users’ engagement with fact-checking regarding categories of this journalistic activity and the authors of the claims being assessed. A content analysis of Facebook posts published by two major fact-checking organizations was conducted. The results show that the debunking of fake news by fact-checkers might produce higher levels of engagement. Additionally, this study found that fact-checking audiences on Facebook were significantly engaged with posts related to the verification of President Trump’s claims.

Fake News: A Concept Explication and Taxonomy of Online News • Maria D. Molina, Penn State University; S. Shyam Sundar • The growth of fake news online has created a need for computational models to automatically detect it. For such models to be successful, it is essential to clearly define fake news and differentiate it from other forms of news. We conducted a concept explication, yielding a taxonomy of online news that identifies specific features for use by machine learning algorithms to reliably classify fake news, real news, commentary, satire, and other related types of content.

Exploring a Branding Alignment Typology: Influences on individual, organizational, and institutional forms of journalistic branding • Logan Molyneux, Temple University; Seth Lewis, University of Oregon; Avery Holton, University of Utah • Contributing to the growing literature on how journalists engage in branding—promoting themselves, their organizations, and fellow journalists—this study proposes, tests, and confirms a branding alignment hypothesis. This typology, examined through a first-of-its-kind survey of journalists and branding (N = 642), sheds new light on how certain branding approaches match up with individual, organizational, and institutional forms of motivation and influence. Moreover, this approach shows how branding is manifest over and above social media dynamics alone.

Readers’ Perceptions of Newsworthiness and Bias as Factors in Commenting on Digital News Content • Greg Munno, Syracuse University • “This study tests a structural model of commenting behavior using survey data (N = 335). The model builds on suggestions of a connection between hostile-media effects and commenting. This study adds newsworthiness to the structural equation. The model tested had indicators of good fit, although hostile-media effects did not play a prominent role in the structural model.

Peace Journalism: A War/Peace Framing Visual Analysis of the Charlottesville Protests • Dara Phillips, Regent University; Stephen Perry, Regent University • Peace journalism has typically applied to international events, but this study examined the Charlottesville protest to determine if war/peace imagery is applicable to domestic conflict. The protest was selected for its imagery and sudden public awareness. Using Neumann and Fahmy’s visual coding, researchers conducted Chi-square analyses to examine what ways war/peace imagery was used in state and national newspapers. Further quantitative analysis showed no difference in peace journalism usage between state and national newspapers.

No Quick Fix: How Journalists Assess the Impact and Define the Boundaries of Solutions Journalism • Elia Powers, Towson University; Alex Curry, University of Texas-Austin • The Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) defines its mission as supporting and connecting journalists interested in “rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.” One problem facing journalists and researchers is the lack of a shared framework for discussing solutions journalism’s impact. This mixed-methods study addresses how SJN and its journalist members assess and discuss impact. Findings shed light on how proponents and practitioners of solutions journalism view its objectives, measure its effects, and define its boundaries.

Solidarity in the Newsroom? Media Concentration and Union Organizing: Case Study from the Sunshine State • Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University • This paper examines the struggles, actions, and challenges of the journalist organizers at two Florida legacy newspapers—the Lakeland Ledger and the Sarasota Herald Tribune—who unionized in 2016 with The NewsGuild-Communication Workers of America. In-depth interviews with journalists from both papers suggest that unionizing can help to counter the effects of media concentration, corporate practices, and the resulting changes in organizational structure and their impact on the working conditions of reporters.

Tweeting local sports: Best practices of a successful sports reporter • Matthew Reavy, University of Scranton; Kimberly Pavlick, University of Scranton • This paper uses a mixed methodology approach to analyze the Twitter habits of a local sports reporter from the perspective of Uses and Gratifications theory. An in-depth interview with the subject, together with a content analysis of more than 14,000 tweets over a two-year period, are used to compare the reporter’s Twitter habits with ideals defined by journalists in previous research. Suggestions are made for “best practices” in local sports journalism.

Conceptualizing fake news from the perspective of its producers • Craig Robertson, Michigan State University; Rachel Mourao, Michigan State University • “Interest in fake news peaked after 2016, but studies have focused on the way scholars, journalists, audiences, and Trump define it. Guided by Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical model and journalists as interpretive communities (Zelizer, 1993, 2017) this paper explores the ways fake news producers present themselves on their “About us” and social media bios. We found that fake news is an alternative interpretive community guided by openly partisan discourses championing subjective truths and rejecting objectivity.

Measuring quality dialogue: Unproductive, uncivil discourse dominates news commenting forums • Arthur Santana, San Diego State University • Online commenting forums of news sites have been much maligned for the rampant incivility they often engender, and anecdotal accounts are that many news sites are abandoning them. Via content analysis of 4,800 comments from online commenting forums from around the country, this research quantitatively examines not just the civility but the overall quality of the comments. It also quantifies how many news sites host the forums. Key variables are anonymous commenters and non-anonymous commenters.

Geolocated News: How Place, Space and Context Matters for Mobile News Users • Amy Schmitz Weiss, San Diego State • This study examines mobile news consumers and non-mobile news consumers perceptions of geolocated news and their news consumption behavior. Based on a national online survey of U.S. adults (n=979) that was conducted in fall 2017, findings show that mobile news consumers are seeking out geolocated news. The context by which they seek out location-based information is dependent on where they live, work or play as well as where their family and friends live.

Journalism and Trauma: The Role of Education and Trauma Resources in Humanizing Newsrooms • Natalee Seely • Many journalists must report on trauma, but undergraduate journalism education and newsroom resources may not offer adequate trauma preparedness and support. A survey (N=254) examined the relationships between trauma education and workplace resources, and journalists’ level of trauma awareness and their willingness to seek support in their newsroom. Education regarding crisis reporting positively predicted trauma awareness, indicating that journalism programs may produce more prepared journalists if they include curriculum about crisis reporting. Participation in workplace resources also significantly predicted willingness to seek emotional support in the newsroom. Results from surveys also showed that crisis reporting education and trauma-related resources are lacking in journalism programs and newsrooms. Nearly half of journalists surveyed reported that their current newsroom offered no trauma-related resources, such as debriefings, counseling or trauma training. Additionally, more than half (53%) reported never having received any type of education related to crisis reporting or covering trauma.

Reporting on Tragedy and Violence: Journalists’ Perspectives • Natalee Seely • Journalists witness and experience traumatic events as part of their jobs. A lack of education and newsroom resources about trauma, along with a newsroom culture that often stigmatizes vulnerability and promotes a “suffering in silence” attitude, can take its toll on reporters. This study offers a qualitative perspective to reports that newsrooms are facing a “mental health epidemic” (Huffington Post, May 26, 2015). In-depth interviews with journalists from around the country identify journalists’ experiences with trauma, their coping mechanisms, and their perspectives on how their education and newsroom environments have (or have not) prepared them for covering violence, tragedy and conflict.

Context Matters: Journalists’ Ideals, Narration, and Practices in the United States and Malaysia • Moniza Waheed; Lea Hellmueller • A content analysis of newspapers from the United States and Malaysia along with a survey among journalists found that the watchdog role conception, narration, and performance was more pronounced in the United States compared to Malaysia while the loyal facilitator model, akin to development journalism was more pronounced in the latter. The role conceptions of these models were linked to the narration of journalists but were not necessarily reflected in the news reports journalists produced.

Biting The Hand: Accountability Journalism in the Trade Press • Rob Wells, Univ of Arkansas • “This article examines accountability journalism in the trade press, the specialty business publications, a topic not covered in prior research. Qualitative research methods involving interviews with top trade journalists reveal their in-depth reporting led to conflicts with advertisers, such as boycotts. Trade journalists describe a complex relationship with their industries, in line with the political economy theory, yet they adhered to journalistic norms such as autonomy, which readers valued.

Overloaded: The Impact of Visual Density on Advertising Recognition within Sponsored News Articles • Ryan Kor; Bartosz Wojdynski, University of Georiga • Drawing from load theory, this study hopes to investigate the possible implications of a native ad’s visual density and characteristics of the disclosure label on advertising recognition. The current study uses a 3 x 2, between subjects lab experiment which utilizes eye-tracking software to measure participants’ attention to disclosure label positions based on visual density.

Journalism’s Relationship to Democracy: Roles, Attitudes, and Practices • David Wolfgang, Colorado State University; Tim Vos, University of Missouri; Kimberly Kelling • “Journalism is often discussed in terms of its relationship to democracy. But one’s conception of democracy can influence how one understands journalistic concepts. This study surveyed 204 US political reporters to determine their views on democracy and how their views relate to professional roles, trust, and sourcing. The findings show journalists support traditional norms but differ in their support in interesting ways based on their conception of democracy.

“All the President’s tweets”: A Large-scale Study of Uses of Social Media Content in Online News • Mohammad Yousuf; Naeemul Hassan, The University of Mississippi; Md Main Uddin Rony, The University of Mississippi • This longitudinal study examines uses of social media content in online news from 2013 to 2017. Computational methods were used to analyze 59,356 articles from 68 mainstream news websites and 85 highly controversial online-only news portals. Results show uses of social media content in news almost doubled in five years. Both mainstream and controversial sites prefer Twitter to Facebook as a source of information. Social statuses of cited sources vary across mainstream and controversial websites.

Hostile Media Perception and Intention to Participate in Public Discussion of Mental Health Issues: An Examination of the Role of Involvement • Xueying Zhang; Kim Baker; Kim Bissell; Sarah Pember; Yiyi Yang • “The current study tested the “corrective action hypothesis” by analyzing intentions to discuss mental health issues publicly after exposing to news coverage of mass shootings using a “dangerous people” frame. An online survey of 288 respondents suggested that affective involvement independently predict as well as mediate self-interest involvement in predicting HMP, which then predicted individuals’ intentions to take part in public discussion about mental health.

Student Papers
Breaking Babel: Understanding the Dark Side of Digital News • David Berman, University of Pennsylvania • Using attention economics as a theoretical framework, this paper pursues a comparative historical analysis of William Randolph Hearst’s yellow newspaper The New York Journal and the digital news website BuzzFeed. In so doing, this paper arrives at a structural understanding of the conditions that lead to the production and distribution of misinformation.

Blame the ABC: news framing and the future of public service broadcasting in Australia • Lauren Bridges, University of Pennsylvania • This paper draws on textual analysis of 157 newspaper articles to contend that commercial news framing of recent media reform in Australia work to normalize deregulation as the only way to “save the media” from digital disruption, while also implicating public service broadcasters, as “competing unfairly” in commercial media markets. By conflating the ABC charter with the need for media reform, commercial newspapers aim to delegitimize digital services provided by public broadcasters thereby limiting their future growth.

Message or Medium? Effect of Virtual Reality on News Stories • Noah Buntain; Shengjie Yao, S.I. Newhouse School Of Public Communications, Syracuse University; Dongqing Xu • This quantitative study tested whether viewer reactions to a video story were different when presented in virtual reality. Based on LC4MP, we predicted that the VR medium would elicit higher levels of presence, emotion, and empathy than standard video. Subjects (N=40) were students, staff, and faculty from a large private university in the United States. Results indicated that VR presentations are not significantly different on these factors than standard video.

Learning news credibility cues in politicized news • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • “Audiences, who cannot investigate the credibility of most news stories for themselves, rely on non-content heuristic cues to form credibility judgments. For most mediums, these heuristics were stable over time. Emerging formats of journalism, however, require audiences to learn to interpret what new heuristics credibility cues mean about the credibility of the story. In an experiment, participants (N=254) were given instructions about how to interpret the credibility cues in three formats as they read a politicized news story, which were compared to a control condition that did not have any instructions. The results show the effects of partisanship and the format of the instructions on both the ability to learn news heuristics and the perceived credibility of the story.

The Politicizing of ESPN: A Content Analysis of its Perceived Partisanship • Adrianne Grubic, — please select a prefix — • Since the 2016 presidential election, politics has not only taken the forefront in news, but in sports as well. ESPN’s protest coverage became a source of debate as various media outlets accused the network of being partisan with a liberal bias. Through a content analysis, this study found that espn.com readers were more likely to be uncivil towards other commenters and were less concerned with a perceived bias.

Control and resistance: The influences of political, economic, and technological factors on Chinese investigative reporting • Lei Guo • “This study utilizes interviews with 12 current or former investigative journalists in China to find out how important systematic players influence on investigative news. By adopting hierarchy of influences model, this study finds that Chinese investigative news is subject to control by both central and local propaganda departments and financial and public relations institutions; while new technology can facilitate journalists’ strategies to finish their reporting.

A Community that has Lost its Way: Framing the Sherman Park Unrest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Rachel Italiano, Marquette University • Officer-involved shootings of African Americans have received extensive media coverage recent years. This analysis examines how the local press of a Midwest city framed Syville Smith’s shooting death by a Milwaukee police officer and the subsequent unrest that occurred. Fifty-nine articles from the Milwaukee Community Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were analyzed. Overall, Sherman Park was framed as a community that has lost its way because of several factors. Implications are discussed.

Fake News and Its Sourcing Patterns • Soo Young Shin, Michigan State University • This study examined the differences in sourcing patterns between fake news and mainstream news.  A content analysis of stories from fake news sites and top circulation mainstream news media during the 2016 presidential election was conducted to compare each of their source selections. The results revealed that fake news mostly relied on other media outlets for their sources, which played a role in reinforcing bias and existing beliefs of fake news consumers. Constructing fake news’ identity by verifying opinions with other media was suggested as one reason for the heavy reliance on other media. Non-official sources were also valued by fake news to arouse public interest.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Communication Theory and Methodology 2018 Abstracts

Open Call Competition
The messenger is part of the message: The role of expectancy violations in media theory • Robin Blom, Ball State University • Many studies in mass communication have focused on source credibility in persuasion, but to the point that some scholars have overlooked other important factors, such as the actual message. In its place, media phenomena could be better understood by integrating expectancy violations in theoretical models explaining how media content affect audience members, in particular by taking into account an interaction between source trust and content expectancy. This may better explain why people sometimes believe distrusted sources more than trusted ones, and vice versa.

Overriding the Threat Dynamic: Facebook Sociability for Trust and Perceptions of Difference • Brandon Bouchillon, Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne • The more racial or ethnic diversity a person lives around, the less likely they are to espouse feelings of trust for the average person, as differences have instead become reasons to pull back, prompting a mass erosion of social capital in America. The present study looks to social networking sites as a means of still hosting diverse contact, even in spite of the hunker down, for reinforcing trust and perceptions of difference locally. Results of a two-wave national web survey (N = 387) indicate that using Facebook to interact with new people at Time 1 contributes to generalized trust at Time 2, while neighborhood-level racial and ethnic diversity still undermines trust over the same period. Yet, diversity has less of a negative impact on trust for more sociable Facebook users, as interacting with new people on the site moderates the negative association between racial/ethnic differences and trust. This suggests that Facebook has a utility for not only facilitating diverse contact, but reinforcing trust, toward changing the way users perceive of diversity everywhere.

Mental schema as explanations for third-person perceptions, censorship and media literacy programs addressing “revenge porn” • Michael Boyle, West Chester University; Michael Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • Although mental schema are offered as an explanation for third-person perceptions, prior research on this topic has tended to focus on perceived exposure. This study extends the schema explanation by measuring self-reported exemplar availability, demonstrating this factor is a critical predictor of perceived influence on self and others across two national studies. Additionally, analysis shows that these mental examples directly and indirectly influence support for restrictions on revenge porn and support for media literacy programs to help train individuals to be critical media consumers related to this issue. Experimentally presented exemplars did not amplify the availability of such examples or alter overall perceptions, suggesting these models are deeply held and may stem from broader concepts of powerful media.

Building and bridging political divides. Reconceptualizing political disagreement and its consequences for political tolerance. • David Coppini, University of Denver • This study uses a sample of the American adult population (N=693) to examine the relationships between different forms of political disagreement and political tolerance. First, this study re-conceptualizes exposure to political disagreement along the lines of political heterogeneity and political extremity. Second, this study examines how the intersection of political heterogeneity and political extremity shapes political tolerance. Third, this study examines the affective mechanisms that explain the relationship between political disagreement and political tolerance.

Mediatized rituals: De-reify the media in the age of deep mediatization • Xi Cui, College of Charleston • We propose the concept of mediatized rituals to better address the ritualistic orientation toward an increasingly mediatized social reality which is constructed through algorithmic collection, processing and (re)presentation of data by communication technologies. We argue that two characteristics of human communications in mediatized societies can objectivate a socially constructed reality as something natural and authentic, giving rise to people’s ritualistic orientation toward this reality. Bitcoin is analyzed to illustrate the utility of the concept.

Communication Mediation Model Across Cultures: Multilevel Mediation Model Effects of News and Discussion on Participation • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Brigitte Huber; James H. Liu, Massey University • Since introduced by Prof. McLeod and the Wisconsin School at the turn of the century, a large body of research on the Communication Mediation Model account has showed positive mediated effects of news use and discussion on political participatory behaviors. Most of these studies, however, rely on individual-level survey-data, collected in the USA. This paper seeks to palliate these shortcomings by testing the CMM on a multilevel mediation model with data collected across twenty countries.

The Evolution of Regime Legitimacy Imaginaries on the Chinese Internet • Yingru Ji, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Angela, Xiao Wu • This study examines popular perceptions about the ruling state on the Chinese Internet. To observe the impact of the state’s project of “online public opinion guidance,” we chose two historical moments from 2011 and 2016, and systematically captured and analyzed massive amounts of speech traces on Weibo that contain the term tizhi, a discursively flexible, yet distinctively Chinese concept onto which sentiments related to the state are projected. Combining semantic network clustering and critical discourse analysis, this study revealed, historically and macroscopically, the relative dominance of differing ways of evaluating the state’s legitimacy. Specifically, we found that the previously dominant legitimacy-challenging framework comprised of (Western) democratic references imploded and was absorbed by a nationalist discourse that enhances state legitimacy, and that the legitimacy-criticizing framework drawing from the state’s own “reform framework” has undergone depoliticization into administration-focused compartments. Our study has conceptual and methodological implications for researching Chinese web-based contentious politics.

The “Affective News” Extended Model (ANEM): A Multi-Topic Study of Narrative Persuasion from Political Messages • Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick; Melissa Robinson; Rebecca Frazer; Emily Schutz • Narrative persuasion has garnered much attention but yielded inconsistent results. The present work focuses on narrative persuasion regarding political attitudes and derives hypotheses from the “Affective News” Extended Model (ANEM). A 2 x 2 online repeated-measures experiment (N = 225) presented four texts on controversial political issues, which were either presented as news or fiction and either in a narrative vs. inverted-pyramid version. A narrative text structure produced greater attitude change in line with text stance than inverted-pyramid texts, which was still detectable with a one-day delay measure. Narrative texts also instigated greater suspense, which mediated the persuasive impact. These impacts occurred regardless of whether texts were presented as news or fiction.

Expression and the Political Self: How Political Expression on Social Media can Strengthen Political Self-concepts • Daniel Lane, University of Michigan; Slgi Lee; Fan Liang; Dam Hee Kim, University of Michigan; Liwei Shen, University of Michigan; Brian Weeks, University of Michigan; Nojin Kwak, University of Michigan • Communication theorist have argued that expression can shape our self-concepts. While researchers have often used this theoretical perspective to explain political communication processes on social media, little work has explicitly tested the mechanisms underlying political expression effects. This study addresses this theoretical gap, by testing a model in which political expression on social media increases the importance of users’ political self-presentation concerns, which in turn is associated with strengthened dimensions of political self-concept.

Cause and Effect: Development and State of the Art of Experimental Communication Research, 1980-2015 • Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna; Franziska Marquart, University of Amsterdam; Brigitte Naderer; Desiree Schmuck; Florian Arendt, University of Munich (LMU) • This paper examines the development and state of the art of experimental communication research by focusing on two aspects: External validity and theoretical scope. We provide content analytical data of 36 years of experimental studies published in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings point to persistent shortcomings, especially with respect to samples, stimuli, exposure settings, and theory-driven design decisions. Implications for experimentalists, editors, and reviewers are discussed.

It’s not “Fake” it’s “Alternative”: Experimentally Parsing the Effects of Misinformation • Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Susan Rathbun-Grubb; Mark Tatge • A between-subjects (N=570) experimental study examined how fake news might influence public perceptions and decisions to share false information related to the recently reignited autism–vaccine controversy. Findings indicated that – relative to participants in a factual news condition – those exposed to a fake news story (purporting that vaccines cause autism) reported stronger beliefs in the existence of an autism-vaccine link. Counterfactual beliefs, in turn, were positively associated with greater levels of communicative engagement with the issue.

The Political World Within: Conceptualizing Political Transportation • Bryan McLaughlin, Texas Tech University; John Velez, Texas Tech University; Joshua Dunn, Texas Tech University • This paper conceptualizes political transportation. Specifically, we clarify the process through which citizens represent diverse political narratives in the mind and then mentally simulate these political story worlds “as if” they were directly experiencing them. Additionally, we introduce the concept of self-generated political transportation. Finally, we discuss how political transportation provides a novel understanding of how and why political communication messages affect political attitudes, emotions, beliefs and behaviors, providing suggestions for future research.

A Typology of Information Distribution Organizations • Jasmine McNealy, University of Florida • This study investigates the ways in which IDOs create, use, distribute, and store information to create a typology. Typologies group things by familiar characteristics, thereby constructing descriptive definitions of what should fit into a particular category. In so doing, this study advances information processing theory (IPT), which theorizes a continuous pattern of development for human brains, but which uses the model of a computer to describe how humans process sensory data. Further, IPT is used in the modern study of artificial intelligence and explores the needs of information users including specific processes or practices.

The Effects of Modality, English Language Proficiency, and Length of Stay on Immigrants’ Learning from American News About Politics • Yulia Medvedeva, Zayed University; Glenn Leshner, University of Oklahoma • This online experiment empirically tested the findings of a survey conducted by Steven Chaffee and colleagues in which immigrants with lower language proficiency and shorter tenure in the U.S. demonstrated higher political knowledge scores when they reported relying on television news instead of print news. Data demonstrated that immigrants who perceived they were lacking in language skills correctly recognized 1.13 more answers to questions about stories from television news in comparison to print news.

Electroencephalography in Communication Research: Some Fundamentals, Opportunities, and Challenges • Alyssa Morey, University at Albany • EEG holds vast potential for pursuing a range of communication inquires and advancing understanding of a variety of communication processes. Primary objectives of this manuscript include facilitating basic literacy of EEG methods and research among communication scholars, and inspiring enthusiasm for EEG-communication research. Integration of EEG methods into communication research further advances the agenda of expanded horizons and innovated boundaries that has and will continue to bestow vibrancy, prominence, and relevance upon the discipline.

Thumbs Up! Impacts of Interactive News Voting Affordances on Selective Exposure, Voting and Persuasion • George Pearson, The Ohio State University; Daniel Sude, The Ohio State University; Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick • News is now commonly consumed online, often displayed with popularity cues (i.e., likes, votes). An experiment manipulated users’ ability to “vote” on news and observed pro- vs counter-attitudinal selective exposure, along with attitudinal impacts. Participants showed a preference for pro-attitudinal material, but consumed less pro-attitudinal material when voting. Actual reading of and down-voting a counter-attitudinal article were not related, implying people voted without reading. When participants had the ability to vote, their attitudes were weakened.

The Trump Bump: The Influence of Elite Anti-Media Rhetoric and Political Activity on Emotions, Perceptions of News Media Importance, and Public Support for the Press • Jason Peifer • Examining how political figures in the mold of President Trump may affect various facets of goodwill for the press, a two-wave online experiment exposed participants (N=330) to anti-media rhetoric or news coverage of policy-related actions. Results highlight how when one perceives the President to represent a force of harm, the emotion of anger and values about the normative roles of the press can mediate the influence of such representations on support for the press.

The secret parents and health campaigners want to know: How social appeals influence the information processing of healthy foods • Lelia Samson, Radboud University; Moniek Buijzen, Radboud University • Aiming to prevent obesity by promoting healthy eating, this research investigated how social appeals can increase attention, positive emotions, and memory for nutritious foods. Framed through the information-processing framework and the social modeling of eating, two mixed-factorial experiments examined how adolescents process pronutritional images varying in social appeals. This approach is promising as adolescents are especially susceptible to social factors due to their developmental stage. Study 1 (N = 58; 12-18 years old; 54% female) investigated how social cues activated the appetitive motivational system, attracting attention, affect, and arousal. Study 2 (N = 165; 12-18 years old; 53% female) examined whether social appeals further directed attention and mental resources towards processing the healthy foods. As hypothesized, adolescents’ attention, positive emotions, memory, and visual focus to healthy foods were increased through social appeals. Recommendations for health communication practice and research are formulated.

Media Use and Depression in the General Population: Evidence for a Non-Linear Relationship • Sebastian Scherr, University of Leuven • Depression is the most common metal disorder linked to media use. Theoretically, the relationship between depression and media use has been conceptualized as a linear function. However, depressive symptoms vary from dysphoric moods to severely depressed states with major social impairment, thus providing a strong alternative rationale for a non-linear relationship. We report on findings from a representative telephone survey of the general German population (N = 2002) including both the respondents’ motivation behind spending time using traditional media and a measure to screen for depression in the general population. Our curve-fitting methodology revealed that the associations between depression and media use are described by a cubic growth function for newspapers, the radio, magazines, and books; associations with television use were positive, but more complex. The relationship between depression and media use should be modeled as a polynomial function for more accurate estimations in the future.

Equal Access to Online Information? Google’s Suicide-Prevention Disparities May Amplify a Global Digital Divide • Sebastian Scherr, University of Leuven; Mario Haim, University of Munich (LMU); Florian Arendt, University of Munich (LMU) • Worldwide, people profit from equally accessible online health information via search engines. Therefore, equal access to health information is a global imperative. We studied one specific scenario, in which Google functions as a gatekeeper when people seek suicide-related information using both helpful and harmful suicide-related search terms. To help prevent suicides, Google implemented a “suicide-prevention result” (SPR) at the very top of such search results. While this effort deserves credit, the present investigation compiled evidence that the SPR is not equally displayed to all users. Using a virtual agent-based testing methodology, a set of three studies in 11 countries found that the presentation of the SPR varies depending on where people search for suicide-related information. Language is a key factor explaining these differences. Google’s algorithms thereby contribute to a global digital divide in online health-information access with possibly lethal consequences. Higher and globally balanced display frequencies are desirable.

Terror, Terror Everywhere? How Terrorism News Shape Anti-Muslim Policy Support: Perceived Threat and Risk Controllability • Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna; Desiree Schmuck; Christian von Sikorski • A quota-based experiment (N = 501) examines the effects of terrorism news on emotions and policy support depending on threat components (i.e., the number of offenders) and risk components (i.e., diffuse vs. non-diffuse risk). News articles featuring a diffuse risk elicit fear irrespective of the number of offenders, whereas a portrayed non-diffuse risk evokes fear as well as anger, only when the number of offenders is high. Anger and fear subsequently increase anti-Muslim policy support.

The Effects of Hostile Media Perception and Third Person Perception on Political Participation in the Partisan Media Context • Ki Deuk Hyun; mihye seo • Scholars suggest that hostile media perception (HMP) and third-person perception (TPP) can motivate people to take political action to counteract the unwarranted influence of slanted media. Little research has been undertaken, however, regarding how HMP and TPP relate to political participation in partisan media settings in which news media hold specific partisan or ideological inclinations. This study explored HMP and TPP of partisan media and their associations with political participation in South Korea, which has a strongly partisan media system. Findings indicate that partisans tend to have strong HMP and TPP of antagonistic partisan media. Interestingly, progressives’ HMP and TPP of hostile conservative media were stronger than conservatives’ HMP and TPP of progressive media. Accordingly, HMP and TPP of conservative media were more strongly associated with political participation than HMP and TPP of progressive media. The political and media contexts of a specific country that might shape the relationships among HMP, TPP, and political participation are discussed.

Questionable Morals: A Systematic Analysis of Reliability in Research Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire • Daniel Tamul, Virginia Tech; James Ivory, Virginia Tech; Jessica Hotter, Virginia Tech; Madison Lanier, Virginia Tech; Jordan Wolf, Virginia Tech • While Moral Foundations Theory has drawn significant interest from the popular press and academics alike, the moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ) is subject to questions about reliability in both its scale building and validation phases. We examine the scale’s development and offer a systematic content analysis of 539 scholarly works using the MFQ in to assess its internal consistency. Mean reliability scores for four of the five subscales were below acceptable reliability thresholds.

What’s More Scandalous? How the Interplay of Textual and Visual Frames Affects Candidate Attitudes and Voting Intentions in Political Scandals • Christian von Sikorski; Johannes Knoll • Previous framing effects research largely examined textual and visual influences separately thus neglecting potential interaction effects between the two communication channels. A 2×2 experiment examined the effects textual, respectively, visual isolation of a scandalized politician. Results revealed that textual isolation cues had no effect. In contrast, visual isolation resulted in more negative candidate attitudes. Yet, this effect was only detected in absence of the textual isolation frame. Negative attitudes, in turn, decreased individuals’ voting intentions.

Journalism History, Web Archives, and New Methods for Understanding the Evolution of Digital Journalism • Matthew Weber, Rutgers University; Phil Napoli, Duke University • Archived webpages are a critical source of data for understanding change in the news media industry. This article outlines a methodological approach to utilizing Web archives as a means of examining change in the news media industry. In order to highlight the power and potential of Web archives for journalism research, a case study examining local news in the United States is used to illustrate the methodological challenges and promise of working with these data.

Who has Set Whose Agenda on Social Media? A Dynamic Social Network Analysis of Tweets on Paris Attack • Fan Yang, University at Albany, SUNY • This study investigates the agenda-setting theory in the context of social media through dynamic social network analyses of 102,145 Tweets in a week after Paris attack on Twitter. Results indicate that professional mass media organizations still hold a greater agenda-setting ability than individual opinion leaders. While the overall media agenda significantly correlates with the individual-opinion-leader, time-series analysis reveals the inter-agenda-setting effects between the two are immediate and decrease as time elapses.

Testing the Criterion Validity of 10 Measures of Media Favorability for Corporate Financial Performance: A Case Study of the Media Coverage of Food Companies • XIAOQUN ZHANG, University of North Texas • This study identifies 10 measures of media favorability in the literature and compares the conceptual differences among them. Using the data of nine food companies, it tests the criterion validity of these measures for corporate financial performance. The results suggest one measure — Fombrun-Shanley index — has the highest criterion validity among 10 measures of media favorability, and is the best measure to predict corporate financial performance.

Student Paper Competition
Credibility labels and perception of partisan news brands • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • “Concern about partisan audiences blindly following partisan news brands while simultaneously being unable to distinguish the credible news from hoax news dominates media criticism and theoretical inquiries. Some have proposed a credibility label as a solution. This experiment manipulates the partisan cues of the news brand and of the news content. Then, it introduces a credibility label and measures the changes in perception, monitoring for a backfire effect. Using news credibility theory and literatures on selective exposure and Partisan Media Opinion hypothesis, it investigates the effects credibility labels have on partisan audiences, partisan news brands, and partisan news stories. It finds credibility labels may be an effective media literacy tool, though a relatively diminished effect is found on strong partisans.

An enterprise for magic, dragons, and Impalas: Evaluating and Comparing Multiple Fandoms Through A Semiotic Approach • Sara Erlichman, Penn State • By perceiving fans as critical consumers who are textual poaching, Rabinowitz’s (1985) interpretation strategies creates an all-inclusive fandom comparative analysis, by focusing on narrative properties. Through a content analysis, this study conducted a preliminary analysis evaluating the use of semiotics to understand fans discourse online in the fandom forums of Star Trek, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Supernatural. This quantitative study successfully demonstrates the value in cross-comparison of outside genre fandom community’s discourse.

Understanding the Effects of Perspective-taking on Stereotyping and Negative Evaluations: A P-curve Analysis • Qian Huang; Wei Peng, University of Miami; Jazmyne Simmons • Perspective taking has shown mix results and stirred controversy in its effects on stereotype suppression. The inconsistent results raise concerns about the robustness of true perspective-taking phenomenon. The present study used the p-curve analysis to examine the possibility of p-hacking and publication bias among published studies in perspective taking. The result showed evidential value regarding potential p-hacking problems. The implications for both perspective-taking and p-curve analysis were discussed.

News and Informational Media Usage, and Vaccination Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Perceived Vaccine Efficacy and Perceived Vaccine Safety • Juwon Hwang, UW-Madison • Given the importance of vaccination to reduce the health consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases, media have covered benefits and necessity of vaccination through news and informational program. This study investigates the associations between both news and informational usage of media (TV, radio, magazines, and the Internet) and vaccination behaviors (Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia) focusing on the mediating role of perceived vaccine efficacy and perceived vaccine safety. Analyzing a representative U.S. sample, a total of 19,420 adults who over age 18 were included. Results showed that both news and informational media usage contributed to the higher perceived vaccine efficacy, and in turn, the more uptakes for Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia vaccination. Similarly, the more use of TV news and NPR led to the higher perceived vaccine safety, and in turn, the more vaccination uptake of Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia. In contrast, informational media usage contributed to the less perceived vaccine safety, and in turn, the fewer vaccination uptakes of Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia.

Does Natural Mean Healthy? How Natural Label Contributes to Nutritional Self-Betrayal Among Health-Conscious Consumers • Donghee Lee, University of Florida • Thanks to the recent surge of interest in health and well-being, American consumers are more health-conscious now than ever. Despite this awareness, however, even self-described health-conscious consumers still eat unhealthy food for pleasure. This study provides a conceptual model describing the process through which health-conscious individuals may justify unhealthy food consumption. Using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, this paper argues that individuals rely on the loophole effect, which refers to the psychological process of engaging in active self-deceit. Individuals can use this effect to capitalize on the healthfulness commonly associated with the word “natural” that often appears on the labels of unhealthy food, convincing themselves that the food is actually good for them. Once health-conscious individuals recognize a natural label on the unquestionably unhealthy food package, they experience guilt from the conflict between their health and hedonic goals. This paper provides a counterargument to widely-accepted information deficit models in this field by arguing that the unhealthy food choices of consumers are founded neither on the lack of information nor their vulnerability to food manufacturers’ deceitful advertising. Rather, consumers are an active agent making self-serving choices, using a “natural” label as an excuse to attribute blame for their health and hedonic goal conflict. This paper attempts to advance Cognitive Dissonance Theory by presenting possible factors influencing one’s food-related dissonance process.

How Issue Attribution and Power Exemplification Redirect Transgender Intergroup Stereotype Content: An Integrated Threat Approach • Minjie Li • Through an experiment, the present study explores how issue attribution and power exemplification in news coverage influence the general audience’s intergroup cognition. More specifically, this experiment investigates how issue attribution (Societal Attribution vs. Individual Attribution) interacts with power exemplification (High-Power Transgender Exemplar vs. Low-Power Transgender Exemplar) in the media narrative to redirect people’s stereotype content of transgender people and the consequent emotional, behavioral, and attitudinal outcomes. Furthermore, I explore the role of perceived threats in the cognitive processing of stereotype content. The experiment findings demonstrated that issue attribution and power exemplification in the news coverage did not significantly influence people’s stereotype content of and attitudes towards transgender people. However, realistic threats were negatively associated with perceived warmth, while symbolic threats were negatively associated with perceived competence.

Emotional Flow and Order Effects: Anger, Compassion and Moderating Effects of Perceived Interest • Hang Lu, Cornell University • Emotional appeals can elicit emotions that evolve over time. As an exploratory step to empirically test emotional flow of multiple discrete emotions, the current study investigates whether the order of information inducing anger vs. compassion influences persuasion, the conditions under which the order is more impactful, and the underlying mechanisms. The results of a one-factor between-subjects experiment show that among those highly interested in a message topic, there is a primacy effect of anger-inducing message on punitive policy support. Further analyses suggest that the anger elicited by the first message and the emotional intensity aroused by the last message explain this primacy effect. The current study contributes to the literature by integrating classic research on order effects with the emerging emotional flow perspective, exploring an understudied emotional experience, empathic anger, and providing new insights on the role of emotional intensity in influencing persuasion.

Stepping into the Story Worlds: Modeling the Effects of Narratives in Immersive Mediated Environments • Zexin Ma • This paper presents an extended theoretical framework to model the psychological mechanisms and persuasive effects of narratives in immersive mediated environments (IMEs). IMEs allow individuals to perceive themselves to be completely enveloped with the aid of immersive technologies. Drawing upon previous research on narrative persuasion and immersive media, the model of narrative effects in IMEs (MNEIMEs) predicts that narratives presented in immersive (vs. non-immersive) mediated environments will promote more story-consistent attitudes and behavioral intentions/willingness. In addition, MNEIMEs proposes that viewers in IMEs will experience a higher level of spatial presence, social presence, transportation, and identification than those in non-IMEs. Spatial and social presence are hypothesized to mediate the effect of media format (i.e., IMEs vs. non-IMEs) on transportation and identification, respectively. Furthermore, media format will have an indirect effect on counterarguing through spatial presence, social presence, transportation, and/or identification. These psychological mechanisms (i.e., spatial presence, social presence, transportation, identification, and counterarguing) are also predicted to mediate the effects of media format on persuasive outcomes. Theoretical contributions and directions for future research are discussed.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Communicating Science, Health, Environment, and Risk 2018 Abstracts

Encouraging Safe Wildlife Viewing in National Parks: Effects of a Risk Communication Campaign on Visitors’ Behavior • Katie Abrams, Colorado State University • Seeing wildlife in their natural habitat with little to no boundaries or protections can have some undesired consequences, especially as people get up close to animals. In four national parks, we tested the effects of a risk communication campaign designed using several elements from previous research and relevant theories on how close national parks’ visitors got to wildlife. Results showed, once the campaign was in place, fewer visitors were observed within unsafe distances to wildlife in three of the four parks.

Mapping perceived barriers to science communication: Inter-issue and inter-group comparisons • Lee Ahern, Penn State; Sushma Kumble, Towson; Jeff Conlin; Jinping Wang, Penn State University • The science of science communication has established that barriers to science communication are different for different science issues, for different audiences, and in different contexts. The research presented here takes a novel approach to measure and visualize the public’s—and scientists’—perceived barriers to effective science communication for specific issues. Results provide face validly for the approach, with known audience difference and issue differences mapping out significantly differently across perceived barriers to effective science communication.

Barriers in Communicating Science for Policy in Congress • Karen Akerlof, American Association for the Advancement of Science, George Mason University; Maria Carmen Lemos, University of Michigan; Emily T. Cloyd, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Erin Heath, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Selena Nelson, George Mason University; Julia Hathaway, George Mason University; Kristin Timm, George Mason University • How does Congress use science? And what are the barriers that staffers experience in finding, interpreting, and using scientific information in energy, environment, and science portfolios? This qualitative study of 16 interviews with Republican and Democratic staffers from the House and Senate applies a science usability model to the hyper-polarized legislative context, finding similarities, and some potential differences, between “strategic” use of science to support or defend policy positions and “substantive” use in policy decisions.

A Content Analysis of e-Cigarette Brand Messages on Social Media • Jordan Alpert, University of Florida; Huan Chen; Alyssa Jaisle, University of Florida • Although rates of cigarette smoking in the U.S. are declining, E-cigarettes (e-cigs) are rapidly expanding. While there is no definitive conclusion yet on the dangers of e-cigs, data indicates that e-cigs can be addictive and dangerous since they contain nicotine. The FDA permits e-cig brands to market their products, but imposed restrictions on messages that promote flavors and claims that e-cigs are healthier than cigarettes. However, these rules can be circumvented within social media platforms like Twitter. The objective of this study was to perform a content analysis of tweets posted by the top selling e-cig brands on Twitter to identify and categorize the most frequently utilized communication strategies. Using the hierarchy of effects framework, over 500 tweets were analyzed, which resulted in behavioral messaging as the most often used messaging strategy, followed by affective and cognitive. Findings indicate that brands are creating messages in Twitter to engage with followers, offer discounts, and advertise flavors. However, tweets about the positive health effects of using e-cigs were minimal. Implications of unregulated messages within social media include attracting young adults to become part of the e-cig community, which can lead to trial and frequent usage.

Exploring differences in crisis literacy and efficacy on behavioral responses during infectious disease outbreaks • Lucinda Austin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Brooke Liu, University of Maryland; Seoyeon Kim; Yan Jin • This study examined the effects of efficacy and literacy on individuals’ information seeking and protective action taking during infectious disease outbreaks through a nationally representative survey of 1,164 U.S. adults. New measures of crisis efficacy and disaster literacy were tested. Results revealed that crisis efficacy, organizational efficacy, and disaster literacy drove information seeking and protective action taking, while health literacy did not. Interestingly, disaster literacy negatively predicted both information seeking and protective actions.

Shall we? Let’s Move! • Aqsa Bashir, University of Florida • Beyond her status as the wife of the first African American U.S. president, former First Lady Michelle Obama is famous for her commitment to health and fitness. In 2010, she launched the Let’s Move! Campaign, aimed at combating childhood obesity in order to achieve a healthier future for America. Little research has examined the media coverage this campaign received. Hence this paper describes a framing analysis of media coverage by two popular news sources, one conservative—FOX News, and one liberal—CNN. The analysis revealed three distinct frames: healthy future for American children, policy change, and exercise is trendy. Furthermore, the campaign received more positive coverage from the liberal news source as compared to more neutral coverage by the conservative news source.

Strategic Communication as Planned Behavior: What Shapes Scientists’ Willingness to Choose Specific Tactics • John Besley, Michigan State University; Kathryn O’Hara, Carleton University; Anthony Dudo, University of Texas, Austin • Truly strategic science communicators make careful choices about the goals and communication objectives they seek to achieve. They then select the tactics that have the most likelihood of allowing them to achieve their communication objectives ethically and efficiently. However, little previous research has sought to develop and test theory aimed at understanding these choices. The current study therefore aims to contribute to the development of a theory of strategic science communication as planned behavior based on the Integrated Behavioral Model. It does so in the context of exploring Canadian scientists’ reported willingness to choose six different tactics as a function of attitudes, normative beliefs and efficacy beliefs. The results suggest that beliefs about both response-efficacy and self-efficacy, and perceptions of ethicality and norms, are important predictors of willingness when considering a tactic. Differences between scientists in terms of demographics and related variables provide only limited benefit in predicting such willingness.

Bringing People Closer: The Pro-Social Effects of Immersive Media on Users’ Attitudes and Behavior • Priska Breves, University of Wuerzburg • This experimental study (N = 85) examined how varying the degree of immersiveness of a short documentary about a remote health issue influenced users’ reported spatial presence, feelings of empathy, perceived issue importance, and behavior. Participants watched the documentary using either a high-quality VR headset (HTC Vive), a low-quality cardboard VR headset or a regular computer screen. Technology’s immersiveness affected the dependent variables as predicted, increasing spatial presence and resultant attitudes and behavior.

Vulnerable live patients, powerful dead patients: a textual analysis of doctor-patient relationships in popular Chinese medical dramas • Li Chen, WTAMU • Using Framing Theory as a theoretical framework, this study examined depictions of patients and doctor-patient communication in Chinese medical dramas. Two major findings were revealed by the textual analysis. First, medical dramas extended the definition of “patient” to include family members, an outcome of the impact of Confucian ethics. Second, doctor-patient communication was found to be two-fold: conversations during interventions were typically paternalistic, while conversations about non-medical issues exhibited consumeristic features. Doctors’ unshakable dominance during interventions resulted from patients’ lack of awareness of their rights as independent individuals, while doctors’ vulnerable position in medical disputes resulted from systemic deficits in the current legal system. Both trends challenged the typical doctor-patient relationships described by previous literature. The study showed that media dramas defined and presented inherent problems in doctor-patient communication, identified and pointed out (either directly or indirectly) the causes of most of these problems, and made moral judgements about these issues using vivid individual stories, but they did not attempt to offer solutions to the problems. Theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.

The Effects of Format and Language on Information Retention of Climate Change News Narratives in Digital Presentations • Christina Childs DeWalt, Florida Atlantic University • Reporting on climate change has been a special challenge for journalists, but new approaches to storytelling may help curb some of the inherent confounds found in environmental discourse. Through experimental analysis, this study examines how anthropomorphic language (assigning human characteristics to non-human agents) and non-linear digital news story formatting can impact online media consumers retention of information presented in climate change news narratives.

Campus sustainability: An integrated model of college students’ recycling behavior on campus • Moonhee Cho, University of Tennessee • Proposing an integrated model based on multiple theoretical approaches, the study examined factors influencing college students’ campus recycling intention and actual recycling behavior. An online survey results with a total of 475 responses found that self-determined motivation, attitude toward recycling, perceived behavioral control, and negative anticipated emotion had direct effects on campus recycling intention while recycling intention, self-determined motivation, and household recycling influenced actual campus recycling. Both theoretical and practical implications are also provided.

Social Media and Concerns about Global Climate Change: News Use and Political Ideology in 20 Countries • Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Brigitte Huber; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna; James H. Liu, Massey University • This study tests the relationships between political ideology and social media for news in forming public concerns about global climate change in 20 countries. Little is known about how dependency on social media shapes attitudes toward climate change, especially in non-Western contexts. Theories of risk perception are examined using multi-level comparative analysis with survey data (N=21,218). This study contributes to conversations about the ability of media technologies to create informed public opinion on science issues.

Health Behavior Intention: A Concept Explication • Ciera Dockter, University of Missouri • Health behavior intention is considered one of the most effective ways to measure and predict an individual’s behavior, but research in health communication and related fields indicate the concept needs revision. Differing concepts are used interchangeably, and operationalization and measurement of health behavior intention do not take into account the many factors that can influence health behavior intention. This explication addresses these issues by providing a new conceptual definition and operationalization of the concept.

Examining the Effect of Climate Change Images on People’s Estimation of Egocentric Psychological Distance • Ran Duan, Michigan State University; BRUNO TAKAHASHI, Michigan State University; Adam Zwickle • Climate change has been widely perceived as a psychologically distant risk, that is, its uncertain impacts will affect other people, will happen in other places or sometime in the future. In this study, relying on construal level theory, we examined how the level of abstraction and concreteness of climate change imagery affects viewers’ perceived psychological distance of climate change, including spatial, temporal, social, and hypothetical (level of uncertainty) distances. Participants (n=402) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions, one that had abstract images and one with concrete images. Results showed that the abstract and concrete images successfully activated people’s abstract and concrete mindsets respectively, and people who viewed abstract images were more likely than those who viewed concrete images to perceive climate change as a spatially and temporally distant issue.

Understanding the role of gatekeeping in New England journalists’ priorities for reporting on aquaculture • Kevin Duffy; Laura Rickard, University of Maine; Paul Grosswiler, University of Maine • Print news media tend to equate aquaculture with risk – a surprising finding given journalists’ general aversion to risk reporting. By framing aquaculture as “risky”, news producers build an agenda, potentially influencing public opinion. To understand risk culture surrounding aquaculture, research must examine not only newspaper content, but also perceptions of public mediators disseminating such messages. Using Q-method, we examine New England journalists’ (N = 15) perceptions of aquaculture’s news value, suggesting theoretical implications for gatekeeping.

Seatbelts Don’t Save Lives: Discovering and Targeting the Attitudes and Behaviors of Young Arab Male Drivers • Susan Dun, Northwestern University in Qatar; Amal Ali • Our two-part, mixed methods study, first investigated the driving beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of young Arab men then created and evaluated a message targeting their seatbelt beliefs and attitudes. There was change in the desired direction. The results provide information necessary for communication campaigns to specifically tailor persuasive messages for this high-risk yet understudied group of young Arab men in a bid to save lives and decrease the injuries that result from traffic accidents.

Reaching an At-Risk Population: Visual Health Communication Campaigns for Migrant Workers • Susan Dun, Northwestern University in Qatar; Amal Ali; Bothayna Al-Mohammadi, Northwestern University; Sana Hussain; Muhammad Muneeb Ur Rehman; Muhammad Humam, Northwestern University in Qatar • The needs of a rapidly globalizing world have created a demand for construction and maintenance labor, much of which has been done by migrant workers from developing countries resulting in approximately 258 million migrant workers operating around the globe. Such laborers are often a vulnerable population because of low literacy levels and unsafe work conditions. Developing effective health message campaigns to assist migrant workers to understand how to navigate health systems and receive care is necessary to improve their quality of life. The purpose of our project is to test the effectiveness of primarily visual communication messages targeted at educating and motivating migrant workers to utilize available health resources. Following standard health communication campaign procedures, our project has three stages: Phase 1 formative research where we interviewed migrant workers to assess their health conditions, health facility utilization and preference of channel and media, results which we report here. In phase 2 we are currently developing visual communication messages targeting the issues we discovered in the formative research, a process we anticipate completing by mid-April. In phase 3 we will conduct the evaluation research, testing message comprehension and persuasiveness in May 2018. We are partnering with a labor supply company who will use the revised messages to communicate with their employees, resulting in, hopefully, an actual increase in the quality of life of the workers. As expected, we discovered a lack of understanding of and difficulties in navigating the health care system; problems which our visual communication messages should help alleviate.

Latitudes, Attitudes, And Climate Change Agency • Troy Elias, University of Oregon; Mark Blaine, University of Oregon; Deborah Morrison, University of Oregon; Brandon Harris, University of Oregon • This research uses international survey data from 1,211 Brazilians, Costa Ricans, Nigerians, and Americans to examine which media, psychological, and cognitive variables influence the tendencies of Brazilian, Costa Rican, Nigerian, and American consumers to participate in pro-environmental and green purchasing behaviors. Results of the study indicate that America lags behind Costa Rica, Brazil, and Nigeria in pro-environmental attitudes, pro-environmental identity, attitudes toward green purchasing, and pro-environmental behaviors.

Engagement in Cancer Screening: Theoretical Exploration Using A Meta-Analytical Structural Equation Modeling Approach • Guangchao Feng, Shenzhen University; Zhiliang Lin, Jinan University; Wanhua Ou, Shenzhen University; Xianglin Su, Shenzhen University • The present study aims to explore the theoretical underpinning of low participation in screening programs through a model-based meta-analysis. It was found that the health belief model is the most adopted theoretical framework. Moreover, the intended uptake of screening was only positively predicted by cues to action, health literacy, and perceived susceptibility, and behavior was negatively predicted by intention.

Examining the Impact of Motivational Salience and Involvement on Visual Attention to Scientific Information • Laura Fischer, University of Kentucky; Courtney Meyers, Texas Tech University; Glenn Cummins, Texas Tech University; Courtney Gibson, Texas Tech University; Mathew Baker, Texas Tech University • Literature suggests scientists struggle to make information salient to consumers, and the value-oriented frame may be a way to connect with consumers through increased motivational salience. To evaluate the effects of competing message frames on visual attention, an eye-tracking experiment was conducted to understand participants’ attention to messages about two agricultural science issues. The results indicated the reader devoted more time to reading advertisements that were framed to be more motivationally salient.

In the Crosshairs: The Perils of Environmental Journalism • Eric Freedman, Michigan State University • Journalists covering environmental issues around the globe are at heightened risk of murder, arrest assault, threats, self-exile, lawsuits, and harassment because environmental controversies often involve influential business and economic interests, political power battles, criminal activities, and corruption, plus politically, culturally, and economically sensitive issues concerning indigenous rights to land and natural resources. This study uses in-depth interviews to explore such situations, including the psychological effects on these journalists’ sense of mission and professional practices.

Risk perception, efficacy belief, and safety climate: Use of risk perception attitude framework to examine information seeking for workplace health and safety among flight attendants • Timothy Fung • Using the risk perception attitude framework (RPA), this survey study examined the joint influence of risk perception, efficacy belief, and safety climate on flight attendants’ intent to seek workplace health and safety information. Findings showed that significant differences in information availability and negative attitude toward service protocols and work-related guidelines were observed among the four RPA groups. Safety climate moderated the effect of efficacy belief on the relationship between risk perception and information seeking intent.

The role of counterfactual thinking in narrative persuasion: Its impact on patients’ adherence to treatment regimen • Timothy Fung • The purpose of this study is to explicate the underlying process of how narratives, accompanied with counterfactual thinking, exert cognitive and affective influence on audiences. One hundred thirty-six patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis participated in a 2 (Goal failure) by 2 (Counterfactual thinking) between-subject factorial experiment. The analyses showed that promotion-/prevention-framed failure and additive/subtractive counterfactuals jointly influenced the patients’ anticipated regret and mental simulation, which, in turn, influenced their attitudes and intentions toward treatment adherence.

Journalists, Policy, and the Role of Evidence in the News • Nicole Gesualdo, Rutgers University; Matthew Weber, Rutgers University • Evaluating the presence of research evidence in the news can reveal how journalistic practices affect the ways in which audiences assess information, such as the credibility of policy proposals. This study uses content analysis to analyze the type and quantity of evidence in articles about regulations on food marketing to children, and the language choices made in the articles. Results indicate consistency in language use across time and news organizations, suggesting established norms and routines.

Tweeting in the Midst of Disaster: A Comparative Case Study of Journalists’ Practices Following Four Crises • Amber Hinsley, Saint Louis University; Hyunmin Lee, Drexel University • This comparative case study examines how local journalists used Twitter as a crisis communication tool during four emergency situations in the U.S. The public’s retweeting and liking patterns also identified messages that resonated with them. A content analysis found that while local journalists used objective reporting most frequently across all crises, there were variances in Twitter practices of journalists covering the two man-made crises. The two natural disasters showed more similarities. These findings can help develop best-practices strategies for journalists and benefit emergency management personnel as well.

Time to Work Out! Examining the Behavior Change Techniques and Relevant Theoretical Mechanisms that Predict the Popularity of Fitness Mobile Apps with Chinese-Language User Interfaces • Guanxiong Huang, City University of Hong Kong; Enze Zhou • Eyeing the huge potential mHealth market in China, developers both inside and outside of China have created an increasing number of fitness mobile applications with Chinese-language user interfaces. The present study analyzes the content of those fitness mobile apps (N = 177), with a particular focus on their behavior change techniques and relevant theoretical mechanisms. It finds that three theoretical mechanisms, modeling/observational learning, self-regulation, and social comparison/social support, are prevalent among fitness mobile apps with Chinese-language user interfaces. Moreover, based on the configurations of the behavior change techniques, three distinct clusters are identified: “instructional apps” (N = 75), “self-regulation apps” (N = 58), and “triathlon apps” (N = 44). Among them, “triathlon apps” equipped with technical features reflecting all three theoretical mechanisms are found to be the most popular among users. This suggests the usefulness of health behavior change theories in promoting physical activity via mobile apps in that the inclusion of more theoretical content in the app design enhances the app’s effectiveness. More theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

“To Fly Under Borrowed Colours”: Mediated Communication and Scientific Ethos • Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp, Lynchburg College; Darwin Jorgensen, Roanoke College • Credit for insulin’s discovery played out through mediated communication to separate audiences: to scientific audiences through science journals and anniversary reminiscences and to the public through journalistic accounts. Claims by the four principal researchers clustered around punctuation of the sequence of events, bolstered by three aspects of discovery: primacy of scientific ideas, importance of place, and uses of power. These elements provide prescriptive advice for modern scientists conducting mediated outreach to a skeptical public.

Folk theorizing the quality and credibility of health apps • Shaheen Kanthawala, Michigan State University; Eunsin Joo; Anastasia Kononova; Wei Peng; Shelia Cotten, Michigan State University • Increasing popularity of health apps raises questions regarding how individuals assess their credibility and quality. Through semi-structured interviews and open coding thematic analysis, we found users determined credibility of health apps through cues based on app features, ‘borrowed’ credibility decisions, and equated quality to personal preferences. Non-quality or credibility cues leading to download were also noted. Findings are discussed as folk theories of quality and credibility of health apps using dual-processing models and media literacy.

Smart Device Proficiency and Use, Loneliness, and Ego Integrity: An examination of older adult smartphone users in South Korea • Kisun Kim, Bowling Green State University; Sung-Yeon Park, University of Nevada, Reno; Hyung-Cheol Kang, Sookmyung Women’s University • The relationship between smartphones and older adults’ ego integrity in South Korea was examined. Older adults who used a smartphone were recruited to investigate their smartphone proficiency/use, loneliness, and ego integrity. Smartphone use was directly related to higher ego integrity, but smartphone proficiency was not. Loneliness was negatively related to ego integrity. Path analysis revealed that the relationships between smartphone proficiency and ego integrity and smartphone use and ego integrity was each mediated by loneliness.

Environmental Framing on Twitter: Impact of Trump’s Paris Agreement Withdrawal Announcement on Climate Change and Ocean Acidification Dialogue • Sojung Kim, George Mason University; Sandra Cooke • Despite the popularity of social media, its role in communicating emerging environmental issues has not received much attention. One example is ocean acidification (OA), the process by which carbon dioxide dissolves into and acidifies the world’s oceans. Although scientists consider OA to be as dangerous a problem as climate change (CC), public awareness of OA is low. This study investigated how public discussions about CC and OA occurred on Twitter, with what content frames and by whom. Tweeting patterns before and after President Trump’s announcement of the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement were compared. The results showed that for CC tweets, Political/ Ideological Struggle/Activism and Disaster frames were the most prevalent, whereas a fair amount of Promotional or Piggybacking frames were found among OA tweets. Trump’s withdrawal decision sparked substantial debate on CC and facilitated open expressions of extreme and polarized opinions on Twitter.

Hope in the Depths of Despair: Theorizing about Hope in the Fear Appeal Context • Hanyoung Kim; Yen-I Lee, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia; Jeong-Yeob Han, University of Georgia Department of Advertising & Public Relations • Although various theories have postulated that fear as the central emotional construct in their suppositions, fear stems from only the half portion (i.e., threat component) of fear appeal messages. In addition, empirical evidence for the role fear in predicting persuasion outcomes is scarce. Addressing this issue, the current study sought to operationalize a qualitatively different emotion, hope, in the fear appeal context by taking the cognitive appraisal theory and functional theories of emotion as theoretical bases. Results from an experimental study (N = 223) revealed that perceived efficacy and perceived threat, which stem from efficacy and threat components, respectively, positively predicted hope in a multiplicative manner. That is to say, perceived threat positive moderated the impact of perceived efficacy on hope. In addition, hope positively affected the persuasion outcome (i.e., intention to obtain HPV vaccination). Theoretical and empirical implications for health communication are discussed.

Unveiling Psychological Mechanisms of Climate Change and Health Message Processing: A Mediation Approach • Sojung Kim, George Mason University; Di Pei; John Kotcher, George Mason University; Edward Maibach • The present study employed a longitudinal survey experiment with American adults to investigate whether cognitive and emotional responses to messages about climate change-related health risks would mediate the relationships between participants’ individual differences and their injunctive beliefs and behavioral intention of supporting climate change policies. Liberals or people with poorer health were more persuaded by the messages, and in turn reported stronger injunctive beliefs and policy support, compared to conservatives or people with better health.

The Politics of Environmentalism and Resistance to Media Advocacy of Pro-Environmental Civic Engagement in South Korea • Hyunjung Kim • The purpose of the current study is to establish a basis for and propose a strategy to increase individuals’ participation in the environmental movements by reducing resistance to mediated communication advocating environmentalism in South Korea. Drawing on the theory of psychological reactance, we explored a possible explanation for the decrease in individuals’ participation in environmental movements despite media advocacy and increased public awareness of the need for an environmental movement. A web-based experiment was conducted with a 2 by 2 factorial design with media and political orientation as between-subjects factors. The results demonstrate that pro-environmental civic engagement intention after exposure to an online newspaper editorial advocating the environmental movement is greater for the progressives in the progressive media group than for those in the conservative media group. The effect of media congeniality was explained by perceived media credibility and psychological reactance to the message. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The Role of Risk, Efficacy, and Worry in College Students’ Health Insurance Information Seeking: Applying the Risk Perception Attitude (RPA) Framework • Hyeseung Koh, University of Texas Austin; Sara Champlin, The University of North Texas; Amanda Mabry-Flynn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • The purpose of this study is to identify what might motivate college students to engage in health insurance information seeking and to more effectively target health insurance communication by segmenting the audience based on differences in motivations. The risk perception attitude (RPA) framework was used as a theoretical foundation to guide the study. The results indicated that risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs influenced college students’ health insurance information seeking, which is mediated by feeling of worry. There findings emphasize that both cognition and emotion play an integral and often tandem role in influencing health information seeking behaviors. Based on our findings what can health communication scholars, health practitioners, message designers, policy makers, and university health staff do to encourage students to seek information or to improve their physical and psychological health.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Positive and Negative Vaccine Attitude Predictors in Singapore and the United States • Wei Yi Kong; Christopher Cummings; David Berube • Vaccines are some of the most effective disease prevention tools but there are growing concerns over vaccine safety and efficacy. With vaccine attitudes underpinning vaccine uptake, this study investigated the factors predicting vaccine attitudes and how those factors differ across cultures. Results found traditional media to impact on negative vaccine attitudes, and suggest health belief, science and technology belief, and vaccine governance trust to be influential in changing attitudes in Singapore and the United States.

How Perceived Similarity Moderates Sympathy and Pride Appeal Organ Donation Messages • Sining Kong, University of Florida; Yu Hao Lee • This study aims to examine how perceived similarity affects the effect of different emotional appeal organ donation messages. Through two factorial-design experiments (2×2: similarity vs dissimilarity, and sympathy vs pride), we examined how perceived similarity moderates emotional appeals in organ donation messages. Study 1 is an online experiment examining perceived similarity and physical similarity. Study 2 is a lab experiment with incidental similarity and demographic similarity. The results revealed that only perceived similarity has an impact on people’s emotional and behavioral intention. Furthermore, regardless of the emotional appeal message, perceived similarity induced both more sympathy and pride, which indicates a mixed altruistic and egoistic motivation in organ donation intention. These findings offer important theoretical and applied implications for future research.

Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness in Online Health Information Seeking • Seow Ting Lee, University of Colorado Boulder • This study explicates the relationship between intrinsic human motivation needs and extrinsic information gratification needs to understand why people go online for health information. Applying Self Determination Theory, the study adopts a relational approach to examine online health information seeking behaviors within the framework of patient-physician relations, consistent with a significant body of work that has implicitly or explicitly juxtaposed online health information seeking and the face-to-face doctor’s office visit experience. Based on a survey of 993 online health information seekers in India, our findings suggest that the three basic human motivation constructs of Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness differentially predict online health information seeking behaviors. Support for Autonomy in the online environment emerged as the most salient predictor of online health information seeking behaviors, but support for Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness in the office visit experience could not explain why people engage in online for health information seeking.

Revisiting the Effects of Threat Appraisal and Self-efficacy on Protection Motivation from a Terror Management Theory Perspective • Jiyoung Lee, Syracuse University; Yungwook Kim, Ewha Womans University • Although a wealth of studies has tested fear appeals, little has noted why fear appeals sometimes fail to result in health-promoting behaviors. By applying terror management theory (TMT), this study retested how severity, susceptibility, and self-efficacy affect fear control and danger control responses in the context of fear appeals on terrorism. Four hundred participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: mortality salience (200) and control (200). Results from multi-group analyses show the significant relationships between susceptibility-danger control, severity-danger control, and susceptibility-danger control in all groups. Importantly, self-efficacy was a contributor for leading fear control responses especially to death-primed individuals whose susceptibility is high. Danger control responses were shown to participants who had both high levels of severity and self-efficacy but only confined to those who are not death-primed. By investigating health-related influencers and behavioral outcomes from a TMT perspective, this study can expand the current fear appeals literature.

Breaking the silence: Extending theory to address the underutilization of mental health services among Chinese immigrants in the United States • Jo-Yun Queenie Li, University of South Carolina • Using a nation wide survey of 445 Chinese immigrants in November 2017, this study investigates the effects of cognitive barriers (i.e., acculturation levels) and affective obstacles (i.e., mental illness stigma) on Chinese immigrants’ perceptual, attitudinal, and behavioral responses toward mental health services, by combing situational theory of problem solving and the theory of planned behavior. Findings provide empirical support for the combined model, showing that all the cognitive and affective factors can predict Chinese immigrants’ communicative action and behaviors regarding mental health services utilization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Now or future? Motivating Chinese women to get the HPV vaccines for their children • Sixiao Liu; Janet Yang; Haoran Chu • This study examines the impacts of gain vs. loss-framed messages and narrative messages on Chinese women’s intentions to get the HPV vaccines for their children. No main effect was found for message types, but loss-framed message slightly increased vaccination intention. Time orientation moderates the relationship between message framing and vaccination intention. Narrative message works better among present-minded individuals, whereas gain-framed message was more persuasive for future-minded individuals.

Framing Obesity: Effects of Obesity Labeling and Prevalence Statistics on Public Perceptions • Jiawei Liu; ByungGu Lee; Douglas McLeod; Hyesun Choung • This study investigates the effects of obesity labeling (disease vs. body type) and prevalence statistics (prevalence rates of obesity, extreme obesity, or overweight-obesity combined). Our findings suggest that adults’ obesity perceptions deviate from reality and that they use framed cues as reference points when making estimates/judgments; audience perceptions of the nature and prevalence of obesity were significantly affected. In addition, perceiving obesity as a disease and as more widespread can produce positive real-world outcomes.

Spotlight on Suicide: A Content Analysis of Online News Coverage of Celebrity Suicide Death, 2012-2017 • Susan LoRusso, University of Minnesota, Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication • Using the Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide, 311 media reports of 43 celebrity suicide deaths from 2012-2017 were analyzed. Good-reporting practices were largely absent in the census, and an average of three poor-reporting practices per media report were present. Additionally, a comparative analysis was conducted assessing adherence before and after the Associated Press included guidelines for reporting on suicide in the 2015 Stylebook. Differences in media outcomes between celebrities’ level of fame were also explored.

Processing Victim Portrayals: How Multiple Emotions and Victim Perceptions Influence Collective Action for Environmental Justice • Hang Lu, Cornell University • Social conflict situations, such as environmental injustice, racial discrimination and gun violence, have been drawing increasing public attention. To help resolve these conflicts, collective action from the general public is needed. Through two experiments, the current research examined one possible way to get the public involved with collective action, that is, via the portrayals of victims and the emotions and perceptions the portrayals convey. The first experiment (N=954) adopted a 2 (compassion: high vs. low) x 2 (moral outrage: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. The second experiment (N=990) utilized perspective taking instructions (empathic vs. objective) for manipulation. Together, the findings from the two experiments show that emotions, such as compassion, moral outrage, and distress, and cognitive factors, such as perceived victim’s suffering and identification with the victim, mediated the effects of victim portrayals on collective action intentions. These findings contribute to the literature by connecting victim portrayals with collective action, expanding the array of emotions in predicting collective action, and furthering the investigation of collective action in third-party contexts.

Green Dress Reactance: Examining the Identity Threat and Resistance to Persuasion • Yanni MA • Environment communicators often face challenges in campaigning for pro-environment strategies, in which messages cannot successfully promote sustainable behaviors such as recycling. Research has shown that resistance to persuasion by means of showing psychological reactance could be the reason the persuasive messages fail to work. However, what elicits the defensive mechanism to persuasion has not been fully studied. An experiment conducted to examine the underlying role of environmental identity in understanding identity threat after reading anti-/pro-recycling messages. Additionally, this article examines the role of perceived identity threat in relation with three major components of resistance (i.e, psychological reactance, counteraruging and negative emotion). Results find an anti-recycling message increases identity threat among high environment identifiers, which leads to high resistance. Moderated mediation analyses suggest that identity threat depends on people’s environment identity, and may also be an antecedent of reactance, counterarguing and negative emotion.

Perceived Barriers and Facilitators in Primary Care of Diagnosing Mental Illness in the Geriatric Population: A Systematic Review • Nia MASON, Louisiana State University; Stephanie Whitenack, Louisiana State University; Diane Francis, Louisiana State University • The aim of this systematic review is to determine the barriers and facilitators in primary care of diagnosing depression and anxiety in geriatric patients. The 15 studies offered five themes. Three were exclusive to barriers: education, stigma, and the negative attitudes of medical professionals. No themes were specific to facilitators. Two themes, communication and time, were considered barriers and facilitators. Findings show that doctors recognize barriers but suggest offering continued education to better understand effective ways of communicating with this population.

We drink so we are: Effects of perceived similarity with a drinker on observational learning • Mira Mayrhofer; Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna • Based on social cognitive theory, we conducted two experiments manipulating the presentation of a model’s alcohol-related behavior (rare drinker, experienced drinker, alcoholic) and the occurrence of alcohol consequences. Results suggest that model-observer similarity mediates effects of alcohol portrayals on expectancies, however, only for self-referencing participants. A direct path from consequence portrayal to expectancies and attitudes was also found. Participant’s alcohol-related behavior moderated effects, underlining the need of targeting mediated health-education efforts based on it.

Third-person Effects of Conflicting Information about Childhood Vaccinations.: Role of Health Locus of Control and Issue Importance in Predicting Individuals’ Support for Immunization Requirements • Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Jo-Yun Queenie Li, University of South Carolina; Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina • Researchers have well-documented individuals’ perceived gap in media influence between oneself and others, called third-person perceptions (TPPs). Building on this robust body of research, this study investigates how parents perceive impact of inconsistent conclusions about childhood vaccinations and its impact on support for immunization requirements. Individuals’ importance of childhood vaccinations was positively associated with TPPs and support for immunization requirements. Health locus of control was not associated with TPPs, but negatively associated with supporting required immunizations.

Creating Patient Self-Advocacy Workshops for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Individuals: Process Description, Pilot Results, and Suggestions to Establish Evidence-Based • Richard Mocarski, University of Nebraska at Kearney; William (Sim) Butler, University of Alabama; Nathan Woodruff, Trans Collaborations; Robyn King, University of Nebraska at Kearney; Debra Hope, University of Nebraska Lincoln; Natalie Holt, UNL; Larisa Spencer; Brittany Hanzlik; Joshua Eyer, University of Alabama • Individuals who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming (TGNC) can face many barriers to health care ranging from lack of appropriately trained providers to overt discrimination and refusal of care. Many of these challenges are exacerbated in rural areas where health care can be sparse for everyone. Although more providers who are educated to provide TGNC-affirmative services is the ideal solution, in the short term TGNC individuals would benefit from being better able to self-advocate for appropriate care. This paper describes the pilot testing of a narrative-based self-advocacy training workshop developed in a community based participatory research partnership. The workshop was well-received in a small pilot test with six members of the TGNC communities. Specific strategies included in the workshop and details on measuring outcomes are described in the paper. The workshop protocol fits well in the context of narrative medicine and represents an application of forensics to help reduce health disparities for TGNC people that also can serve as a model for other evidence-based workshops.

Exploring the Antecedents of Online Information Seeking and Sharing in a Public Health Crisis • Bitt Beach Moon, Indiana University; Chang Won Choi, Innocean Worldwide; Sung-Un Yang, Indiana University • The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of information seeking and sharing during a public health crisis. Focusing on the 2016 Zika-virus outbreak in South Korea, the study conducted the online survey of 788 Korean participants to test the research hypotheses. The results showed publics’ online seeking and sharing behavior were influenced by cognitive, affective, and media trust factors. Theoretical and strategic implications were further discussed in the conclusion.

Name frame and celebrity endorsement effects of autonomous vehicle technology communications: Mechanisms and moderators • Jessica Myrick, Penn State University; Lee Ahern, Penn State; Ruosi Shao, Penn State University; Jeff Conlin • Autonomous or driverless vehicles (or cars) represent an emerging technology that has the potential to radically transform the everyday lives of people around the world. Despite the world-changing predictions hovering around the technology, there has been little research into how this automotive technology is being communicated, or theorizing about the most effective ways to increase public acceptance of it. As such, the purpose of the present investigation is to empirically test the effects of using different name frames (i.e., autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, or driverless cars) and using celebrity endorsers on audience responses to promotional messages about autonomous vehicles. Furthermore, we want to examine how these promotional messages are interpreted in light of individual differences in audience members, such as a tendency to enjoy novel consumer products or to trust machines over humans. Finally, we seek to assess how attention to news coverage of autonomous vehicles may also influence audience responses to promotional messages about autonomous vehicles. A nationwide experiment (N=721) found strong evidence that attention to media, emotional responses (excitement, anxiety, curiosity), subjective knowledge, and some message factors impacted risk perceptions and behavioral intentions. Implications for theory and message design are discussed.

The Effects of Media-Induced Nostalgia After a Celebrity Death on Social Sharing and Prosocial Behavior • Jessica Myrick, Penn State University; Jessica Willoughby, Washington State University • When a well-known celebrity dies, mass media outlets cover the event and people talk about it. When the celebrity was also a famous media figure who lived a long life, chances are high that much of that media coverage and conversation relate to memories of the past. As such, this situation is ripe to evoke nostalgia, a mixed affective state that has previously not received much attention as a potential response to media about a celebrity’s death. Two studies, a survey immediately after Mary Tyler Moore’s death and a later experiment, investigated the role of nostalgia in shaping social sharing intentions as well as intentions to help the diabetes community through prosocial actions. The results revealed that nostalgia is an important drive of media effects in this context and it can be used in strategic messages to promote prosocial health-related actions after a celebrity death.

Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone: Emotional Support and Health Outcomes of Low-Income Adults • Kang Namkoong, University of Maryland; Samantha Stanley; Jiyoun Kim • This study examines the effects of perceived emotional support networks on health outcomes of low-income populations. Secondary data was collected from the Health Information National Trends Survey (Cycle 4). Results reveal that lacking an emotional support network has greater detrimental effects on the physical health and psychological well-being of low-income persons compared to comparable higher income persons. These findings suggest the need for health programs that that enhance access to emotional support for underserved populations.

The Effects of Social Norms and Role Model Messages on College Women’s Intentions to Refuse Unwanted Alcohol • Nicole O’Donnell, Virginia Commonwealth University • This study analyzes the effects of exposure to electronic health messages on the likelihood of sorority women to refuse unwanted alcohol. One place to reach sorority women with targeted health messages is on social networking sites, and there is a need for research that explores the best theory-based message strategies for these platforms. A total of 822 sorority women participated in a randomized controlled trial pretest-posttest experiment with four conditions. Individuals viewed role model messages, norm corrective messages, a combination of these approaches, or a control condition with no health information. Individuals in the three treatment conditions had higher post-exposure intentions to refuse alcohol compared to individuals in the control condition. In addition, individuals in the norm corrective and combined conditions had higher post-exposure normative perceptions than individuals in the role model and control conditions. No between-group differences were observed for post-exposure self-efficacy. Regarding media effects, individuals in the norm corrective condition rated the messages as having a greater information quality than individuals in other conditions and participants perceived that norm corrective messages would have the greatest influence on their peers. Implications for health behavior theory and media effects research are discussed.

Adopting an affirmative consent definition in sexual assault prevention programming on college campuses • Rebecca Ortiz, Syracuse University • Sexual violence is a major concern on college campuses. Colleges and universities are encouraged to take a more comprehensive and active prevention approach to addressing sexual violence on college campuses. As a result, some colleges and universities have adopted and educate their students using an “affirmative consent” standard, such that for a sexual encounter to be considered consensual, it must include explicit, voluntary, and conscious agreement to engage in sexual activity by all parties involved. Whether adoption of an affirmative consent standard by college students actually leads to a greater likelihood to engage in affirmative sexual consent communication is, however, still largely unknown. The current study thus sought to examine the extent to which accurate knowledge and understanding of affirmative sexual consent could explain the likelihood that college students would intend to engage in affirmative sexual consent communication, alongside other influential predictors, as proposed by the Integrated Behavioral Model. Results indicated that while college students who were more likely to define sexual consent based upon an affirmative consent stand were also more likely to intend to engage in affirmative sexual consent communication in the future, it was ultimately the ability to apply that knowledge to a variety of situations that predicted behavioral intentions. Colleges and universities must therefore not only inform their students about the definition of affirmative sexual consent, they must also provide them with situational knowledge about how to engage in affirmative sexual consent communication.

From Sensation to Stigma: Changing Standards for Suicide Coverage in Journalism Textbooks, 1894-2016 • Perry Parks, Michigan State University • This paper is a historical and interpretive analysis of journalism textbooks published from 1894 to 2016 to show how instruction on suicide coverage shifted dramatically with professional practice and social attitudes over the 20th century. Suicide was a popular genre of sensational human interest story featured in early journalism textbooks, but contemporary texts barely acknowledge suicide, portraying it as a generally private matter requiring characteristics of prominence, impact or unusualness to make news.

Shifting Perceptions of Global Warming in 2011 and 2017 • Shaelyn Patzer; Selena Nelson, George Mason University; Marc Trotochaud • Research has shown that, despite the difficulties of distinguishing the influence of climate change from natural fluctuations in the weather, some individuals believe that they have personal experienced the effects of global warming. Correspondingly, evidence has indicated that specific experiences recounted by individuals are often reflections of actual trends in regional and local weather. Many of the papers exploring personal experience have focused on establishing the credibility of this link, with less attention placed on examining how perceptions have changed over time. Through a series of four studies, this paper employs nationally representative, qualitative survey data from 2011 and 2017 to explore the ways that individuals believe they have been impacted by climate change. Our study found that, while there is considerable influence of recent weather events in the content of responses, there is evidence to believe that awareness of long-term climate trends has increased.

A Communication Inequalities Approach to Disparities in Physical Activities: The Case of the VERB Campaign • Macarena Pena-y-Lillo, Universidad Diego Portales; Chul-joo Lee, Seoul National University • This study focuses on the VERB campaign and explores disparities in physical activity between children of more and less advantaged groups. Using a three-wave longitudinal survey dataset, this study found that the effects of exposure to the VERB campaign on behaviors were mediated by perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intentions. However, only children from advantaged backgrounds were able to turn their intentions into physical activity practice.

The crucial role of friends in health communication • Klaus Schoenbach; Marium Saeed • In this study, we investigate the role of friends as an important factor for the health behavior of teenagers primarily in two ways: as a source of health information, but also as encouraging health-related actions. For this purpose, we use data from a large-scale and representative survey of 13-20 year-old nationals in Qatar, an Arab country with severe health problems among its adolescent population. Our results show that, first, Qatari teenagers think that their friends care about health issues very similar to their own. But friends are also an important source of health information; they are consulted often, their information is trusted, and they provide health information that encourages their peers to attempt to change their own health behavior. Finally, peer orientation – i.e., perceptions of how much their friends care about health issues – is more relevant in steering adolescents’ health information seeking than their own personal concerns about health.

Why aren’t we talking about weight? Information underrepresented women receive about weight management during pregnancy • Summer Shelton, University of Florida; Matthew R. Cretul, College of Journalism & Communications, University of Florida; Amanda Kastrinos; Debbie Treise, University of Florida; Amanda Bradshaw, University of Florida; Easton Wollney, University of Florida; Alexis Bajalia; Kendra Auguste • Excessive gestational weight gain is associated with a number of adverse health outcomes for mother and baby. This research assessed the patient-provider conversation about nutrition, exercise, and weight management from the perspective of the prenatal patient. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18, low-income, underrepresented women, living in the rural South. Findings revealed the majority of women’s providers had never discussed their gestational weight gain, even when particularly excessive. Recommendations for improving this conversation are provided.

Parachuting into a hurricane: Twitter interactions between government entities and the public during Hurricane Irma • Jeremy Shermak, University of Texas at Austin • Twitter has become a communications mainstay during natural disasters. During 2017’s Hurricane Irma, Twitter was ablaze with information from citizens, media, and government agencies racing to provide urgent – perhaps lifesaving – information. However, Twitter, even in a crisis situation, is not immune to incivility and detrimental activity that often afflicts social media. This study analyzed Twitter communications between government entities and citizens throughout the storm to examine ways these messages often became uncivil.

Facebook use, emotions, and pro-environmental behaviors: The mediating role of hope and worry • Tsung-Jen Shih, National Chenghi University; Wen-wei Chen, National Chenghi University • This study examined the impact of Facebook use and how hope and worry mediated the effects of Facebook use on people’s pro-environmental behavior. This study also investigated how the mediation effects of emotions may condition one feature of the social networking sites, the social norms. Drawing upon survey data from college students in Taiwan (N = 778), the results indicated that hope negatively mediated the effect of Facebook use. Additional analysis showed that, after taking risk perception into account, the negative effect of hope on pro-environmental behavior disappeared. Worry also served as a significant mediator and this mediation effect was moderated by social norms. Specifically, the indirect relationship became stronger when people’s perceived social norm on Facebook was lower. Implications of the findings will be discussed.

Perceived scientific agreement as a gateway belief leading to pro-environmental behaviors: The role of balanced reporting and conflicting comments on Facebook • Tsung-Jen Shih, National Chenghi University • In the issue of climate change, there exists a gap between scientific consensus and public perception of scientific agreement. Whereas the occurrence of climate change and its association with human activities are generally accepted within the scientific community, the general public is found to have a misunderstanding about the level of consensus. To the extent that perceived scientific consensus is linked to public attitudes, this study examined its origination and consequences in an experimental context. Drawing upon a two factorial, between-subject experimental design, this study found that participants exposed to one-sided stories, either supporting or opposing climate change, perceived more scientific certainty than those exposed to the balanced story. Furthermore, the effect of the texts on attitudinal certainty was moderated by the type of comments left by the users. Finally, perceived agreement and attitudinal certainty were found to mediate the effect of texts on pro-environmental behaviors. Implications of these findings will be discussed.

Attribution and attributional processes of organizations’ environmental messages • Sumin Shin, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; Eyun-Jung Ki, The University of Alabama • This experimental study, guided by attribution theory, investigated the impact of the substantiation and specificity of organizations’ environmental messages on perceived communication motivation and how this perception prompts audiences’ affective and cognitive responses. Findings showed that specific messages increased perceived intrinsic motivation, while vague messages increased perceived extrinsic motivation; in turn, the perceived intrinsic motive positively influenced audiences’ message attitude, organization attitude, message credibility, organization credibility, and organization’s green image, but the perceived extrinsic motive negatively influenced these aspects.

“You Can’t Drink Oil”: How the Water is Life Movement Employed Risk Communication Techniques to Garner Popular Support for Their Cause • Sarah Smith-Frigerio, University of Missouri • During the Mni Wiconi (Water is Life) movement, Facebook Live videos and curated Facebook videos became popular among groups within the larger assemblage of water protectors protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Videos used fear appeals, calls to action, and frames of mitigating loss to persuade popular opinion to support the cause. Case study analysis of the 25 most-viewed videos from four different Facebook pages found themes involving the battle between peaceful, prayerful water protectors and violent law enforcement officers. Additionally, the potential loss of life and violation of treaty rights were found in fear appeals. Calls to action included funding legal defense, petitioning political figures and governmental agencies, and most importantly, coming to Standing Rock to bear witness and to stand with water protectors. There was also narratives about women, children, and elders of many tribes, united together, on the front line to prevent the loss of our planet and lives.

Changing the Image of STEM: Challenging Adolescents’ STEM Stereotypes Using Diverse Media Role Models • Jocelyn Steinke, Western Michigan University; Brooks Applegate; Jay R. Penny; Sean Merlino • This study investigated the effects of viewing online videos featuring diverse STEM role models. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to assess the efficacy of the videos in challenging stereotypes and promoting identification. Findings indicated that adolescents favored female and Black/African American followed by White and Hispanic STEM role models. Additionally, adolescents reported a preference for STEM role models who challenged gender and racial/ethnic STEM stereotypes, pursued interesting hobbies, and worked in interesting STEM fields.

The Impact of Source Credibility and Risk Attitude on Individuals’ Risk Perception toward GM Foods: Comparing Young Millennials in the U.S. and China • Ruoyu Sun; Juan Meng, University of Georgia • This research investigates the effects of source credibility and risk attitude on young millennials’ risk and benefit perceptions and purchase intentions toward GM foods. Results from two samples (young millennials in the U.S. and China) confirmed individuals’ risk attitude significantly influences their purchase intentions toward GM foods. Results also revealed a significant interaction effect of source credibility and risk attitude on risk perception of GM foods among Chinese respondents. Practical and research implications are discussed.

A systematic review of research on news media coverage of the environment • BRUNO TAKAHASHI, Michigan State University; Anthony Van Witsen; Apoorva Joshi; Ran Duan, Michigan State University; Wenzhu Li • In this study, we examine the English language literature on news media coverage of environmental issues from 1975 to 2016 to describe the state of the field. The study uses the systematic review methodology to explore the geographic diversity of the studies, the environmental topics and media that have been analyzed, and the methodological and theoretical approaches that the studies followed. Particularly, these findings call attention to the disproportionality in the analysis of climate change, the focus from and on the U.S. and Europe, and the focus on newspapers over other forms of media. Given the expansion of environmental communication research in this decade itself, our study highlights the scope for scholars to examine, for example, issues such as sustainability or environmental justice, and assess media coverage from developing countries and growing economies where the news media present a largely different picture of environmental issues than they do in the developed world. We critically reflect on these trends to provide recommendations for future research.

Resisting Stigma and Evaluating Realism in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Psychiatric Drugs. • Tara Walker, University of Colorado Boulder • Classic labeling theory suggests that people diagnosed with mental illness internalize this label, but research has shown that individuals will sometimes actively resist stigma. This study analyzes responses to a survey about a DTC advertisement to look at how experience with mental illness influences perceptions of stigma and realism. The study concludes that perceiving stigma is a form of resistance, and people experienced with mental illness tend to see the ad as more stigmatizing and less realistic.

Does Truvada ‘Prevent’ HIV? Examining How News Can Alter FDA-Regulated Messages • Ryan Wallace, University of Texas, Austin • Examining how the HIV-1 Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) drug Truvada is represented in news media, this long-term study utilized mixed methods (content and textual analyses) to accurately identify how journalistic choices could impact the way in which this drug is portrayed—spreading misinformation about effectiveness and influencing audience’s perceptions. This study also identified how media routines, like finding sources and citing approved “indications for use,” may have serious public health implications by systematically altering FDA-regulated messages.

Applying the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model to Examine Public Engagement with Genetically Modified Foods in China • Nainan Wen • The Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM) has received consistent support in health and environmental contexts. However, it still remains a question whether it applies to other contexts, such as scientific controversies for which risks are perceived to have great impact on human beings’ collective wellbeing in the long run. Therefore, this study extended to test the PRISM in the context of genetically modified foods in China. Based on a stratified quota sample of 1,370 citizens collected in Jiangsu Province, this study found that the PRISM variables predicted GMO information seeking and subsequent behavior of engaging in GMO related activities through direct or indirect paths. However, information insufficiency had less significant impact compared with the other PRISM variables. Implications of these findings were discussed.

Counter Self-Objectification Induced Appearance Anxiety: Testing Persuasion Resistance Strategies on Objectifying Social Media Content • XIZHU XIAO • Despite the opportunities for health information seeking and health behavior modeling social media provides, it induces various negative effects such as self-objectification and body image concerns among young adults. Using a between-subject experiment, this study tests the effects of persuasion resistance strategies (persuasive intent warning vs. persuasive intent priming) on countering appearance anxiety caused by objectifying social media images. Results suggest that intent warning significantly reduces appearance anxiety compared to the control condition. However, intent priming worsens the adverse impacts of objectifying social media content. As opposed to previous research that argues intent priming is effortless, this study shows that intent priming is as demanding of cognition as intent warning in an objectifying social media environment. Implications and future directions are further discussed.

User Engagement in Public Discourse of Genetically Modified Organisms: The Role of Opinion Leaders on Social Media • Qian Xu, Elon University; Nan Yu, University of Central Florida; Yunya Song • This study examines how source attributes of opinion leaders and message frames adopted by them influence user engagement in the public discourse of genetically modified organism (GMO) on Chinese social media. Account type and account verification emerged as significant predictors for engagement in the GMO discourse. Users were more likely to engage in GMO opinion leaders’ posts when they adopted the fact, opportunity, pro-GMO, or international frames in their posts. The findings also revealed that different source attributes and message frames varied in their abilities to influence three dimensions of user engagement – numbers of reposts, comments, and likes, respectively.

How does Media Promote Pro-environmental Behaviors as Collective Action: An Examination of Illusion of Knowledge • Xiaodong Yang, Shandong University; Xiaoming Hao, Nanyang Technological University; Shirley Ho, Nanyang Technological University • This study revisits the mechanism underlying media effects in promoting pro-environmental behaviors via affecting individuals’ knowledge by including illusion of knowledge as an important factor that shapes attitude and behavioral change in addition to actual knowledge. Regarding illusion of knowledge, both illusion in self-evaluation of knowledge and illusion in perceived knowledge differential between self and others are taken into accounts. The results showed that individuals’ attention to media messages about climate change affected both actual knowledge and illusion of knowledge, which promoted their positive attitude toward pro-environmental behaviors, and in turn motivate pro-environmental behavioral intention. In particular, the more positive illusion people had in self-evaluation of knowledge and in perceived knowledge differential between self and others, the more positive attitude they would develop. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Engagement in Science: Exploring the View and Engagement Practice of Scientists from Different Organizations • Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University; John Besley, Michigan State University; Anthony Dudo, University of Texas, Austin • The current study investigated how scientists from different types of organizations (university, NGO, industry and government) view and practice public engagement. This project surveyed scientist members from seven scientific societies. The results suggest that scientists in different organizations shared some views regarding the factors that influence engagement activities and communication objectives, differences were also observed. Scientists from the industry consider themselves less involved in public engagement and have slightly less willingness to practice in the future, and scientists from NGO are more engaged and perceive more positive normative belief than others. The findings addressed the gaps in science communication research that overlooked engagement contributors outside of academia, and suggest area of potential emphasis for public engagement support from organizations.

Scientific Societies’ Support for Public Engagement: An Interview Study • Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University; Anthony Dudo, University of Texas, Austin • Scientific societies play an important role in scientists’ career development and have a great impact on the advancement of science. The current study explores scientific societies’ view of and support for public engagement. Interviews with 21 key actors of societies based in the U.S. suggest that societies recognize the value of public engagement and outreach, and the emphasis has been increasing over time. Depending on the size and the discipline of the society, various types of engagement activities and support are offered. We also explored the potential challenges and opportunities for societies to support science public engagement. The current project aimed at providing societies an overview of this issue and identifying ways societies can better allocate resources to support public engagement.

Exploring Public Perception of Depression: The Interplay between Attribution of Cause and Narrative Persuasion • Nanlan Zhang, University of South Carolina; Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina • Improving awareness and mitigating stigma related to depression have been a concern to both health communicators and practitioners. This study conducted a 2 (narrative vs. non- narrative) by 2 (high controllability vs. low controllability) experiment (N=242) to test the interaction effects of narrative persuasion and cause controllability of depression. The results show that narrative messages attributing depression to an uncontrollable cause increase identification, feeling of pity, and intention to help. However, the study finds that the positive effects of narrative messages are conditional, and they may be less effective than non-narrative messages when the cause of depression is controllable. Also, the findings suggest identification as the underlying mechanism of such interaction effects on emotional and behavioral responses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed further.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Newspaper and Online News 2016 Abstracts

Open Competition
Can breaking news coverage fix lack of government openness? A case study of content strategies at Egypt’s increasing popular Youm7 online newspaper • Ahmed Orabi, Journalism Department, College of Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Eric Meyer, University of Illinois • “Increased attention to breaking news coverage of incremental developments rest have helped make Youm7 an Egyptian online newspaper one of the nation’s most frequent online destinations since Egypt’s Arab Spring unrest. This qualitative case study examines how and why the transformation occurred. It is based on four weeks of field work between April 8 and May 3, 2015, inside Youm7’s newsroom using three tools: ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews with 20 journalists and content analysis.

The Costs of Risky Business: What Happens When Newspapers Become the Playthings of Billionaires? • Alex Williams, University of Pennsylvania; Victor Pickard • This manuscript analyzes the actions of individuals that purchase struggling metro newspapers. We first contextualize the journalism crisis by reviewing the business model of the newspaper industry in the 20th century. To understand who buys metro newspapers, we then chronicle the most prominent newspaper acquisitions in 2011 and 2012: The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Orange County Register. We discuss three types of new owners: politicos; venture/vulture capitalists; and benevolent billionaires.

Tweeting news during a crisis: How professional norms influenced Ferguson coverage • Amber Hinsley, Saint Louis University; Hyunmin Lee, Saint Louis University • “This study explores journalists’ professional norms during a crisis by content analyzing their tweets in the week following Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo. It also identifies norms that resonated with the public and compares print and broadcast journalists. Journalists adhered to their objectivity norm, but broadcast journalists’ opinion tweets were more likely to be retweeted. Implications include whether journalists should have different social media policies, and if certain audience engagement measures should be reassessed.

The Portrayal of Schizophrenia in Legacy and Digital Native News • Anna Rae Gwarjanski, The University of Alabama; Scott Parrott; Brian Roberts; Elizabeth Elkin • A quantitative content analysis compared coverage of schizophrenia in legacy news websites and digital native news sites. Researchers coded 558 articles for the presence/absence of stereotypes concerning schizophrenia, the number and type of sources directly quoted, and the valence of source commentary and overall articles. Articles from legacy news sites stood greater chance of containing stereotypes about schizophrenia. Articles from legacy news sites stood greater chance of containing an overall negative valence about schizophrenia.

The Disappearance of the Front Page: Measuring Heterogeneity of Newspaper Stories in Print, Online and Mobile • Arthur Santana, San Diego State University • This paper examines the uniformity of news stories across three platforms – print, online and mobile – from the same newspaper, on the same day, at the same time of day. Using 50 U.S. newspapers in two constructed weeks, this paper quantitatively investigates the similarities of the top stories (N = 6,300) in each medium. Findings build on the theory of agenda setting in a digital age and prompt new discussions about the effects of media fragmentation.

Framing the same-sex marriage ruling: How audience ideology influences newspaper coverage • Brandon Szuminsky; Chad Sherman • This 487-newspaper study investigated the substantive differences in the media agenda of the 2012 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, as represented by newspaper front page coverage, with emphasis on differences in coverage between “red” and “blue” states. Framing decisions expressed through headline word choice and space allocation were analyzed as examples of variation within the media agenda. The findings suggest the media agenda is in fact significantly impacted at the local level.

A network approach to intermedia agenda-setting: a big data analysis of traditional, partisan, and emerging online U.S. news • Chris Vargo, University of Alabama; Lei Guo, Boston University • This large-scale intermedia agenda-setting analysis examines U.S. online media sources for 2015. Based on the NAS Model, the results showed news media of different types set network agendas to various degrees. Agendas were highly reciprocal. Online partisan media best explained the entire media agenda. The agendas of the New York Times and the Washington Post were more likely to be caused by emerging media. NAS effects varied by media type, issue type and time periods.

Newspaper front page photographs: Effects of image consumption in a digital versus print news format • Daniel Morrison, University of Oregon; Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; David Morris II, University of Oregon • Based on a volume of scholarship citing differences in recall and knowledge of text-based content consumed from print versus digital platforms, this experimental research found certain significant differences regarding the same visual content viewed in a print versus digital format. Study findings indicate that technological change (digital consumption) has effects for communication consumption regarding images, which may underlie the changing nature of iconic images and iconic image formation in the age of digital news.

Did Black lives matter? The evolution of protest coverage after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown • Danielle Kilgo, University of Texas at Austin; Rachel Mourao; George Sylvie • “This study utilizes devices from the protest paradigm to examine news media coverage of protests surrounding the judicial decisions of George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson. A content analysis of national newspaper coverage shows that coverage prior to the judicial rulings focused on protestors’ tactics (violence versus peaceful) and changed to the realm of ideas (grievances and demands) after the acquittals. No progression was found in legitimization of protests.

Why editors use human interactive features: Individual, organizational, and community level factors • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Seungahn Nah • Employing Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy of influences approach (1996), we investigate factors affecting U.S. daily news editors’ use of human interactive features that facilitate the expression of ideas (customization features) and dialogue/discussion (interpersonal features). Individual-level factors were found to predict the use of customization features while organizational characteristics predict the use of interpersonal features. When individual and organizational variables were removed, the community structural variable emerged as a predictor for use of interpersonal interactive features.

Who Is Willing to Pay? Understanding Readers’ Payment Intention of News • Donghee Wohn; Mousa Ahmadi, New Jersey Institute of Technology • Despite the increase of people paying for digital content, media companies have been experiencing limited success to get people to pay for news. We conducted interviews (N= 25) to examine why people are inclined or disinclined to pay for news. We then conducted a survey (N= 250) to examine how much people would be willing to pay for news and the differences between fixed rate and pay-what-you-want models. We then examined differences in motivation and news engagement between three groups: those who did not want to pay anything (savers), people who were inclined to pay very little (scrimpers), and people who were willing to pay for news services (spenders). Understanding differences between these groups not only helps inform business models, but also demonstrates that changes in design could alter people’s attitudes about paying for news.

5 Ways BuzzFeed is Transforming (Or Preserving?) the Journalistic Field • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University • Guided by field theory and the concept of journalistic boundary work, this study sought to examine whether BuzzFeed, a new agent in the journalistic field, is participating in the preservation or transformation of journalism. This was carried out by analyzing its news outputs based on the markers—or boundaries—that defined traditional journalistic practice, such as news values, topics, formats, and norms. The analysis found that while news articles produced by BuzzFeed are exhibiting some departures from traditional journalistic practice, in general BuzzFeed is playing by the rules, which might explain its legitimation as a recognized agent in the field.

Giving in or giving up: What makes journalists use audience feedback in their news work? • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado • Guided by the theory of planned behavior, this study sought to identify factors that lead journalists to monitor and incorporate audience feedback in their news work through Twitter and web analytics. Based on a survey of 360 online journalists in the United States, this study found that journalists’ personal attitudes toward using audience feedback, organizational policy on the use of audience feedback, as well as how much knowledge and skill they think they currently have to use audience feedback in their work, affect their intention to use, and ultimately, their actual use of, audience feedback in their editorial decisions.

Divvying Up How We Spend Time With News Devices and Channels • Esther Thorson, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Samuel Tham, University of Missouri – School of Journalism • Americans spent around 70 minutes a day consuming news. With so many ways to access news, what variables determine how much time we spend with legacy media like newspapers and television, and what leads to digital and mobile usage. This study develops a model of the variables that lead to device and channel choices for news, which is tested in a national sample of 1000 adults.

Differently Pitiless: Representations of Immigrants in Episodic and Thematic Frames. A Transatlantic Comparative Analysis • Francesco Somaini, Central Washington University • This study investigated the representations of immigrants emerging from news stories in Arizona and Italy and the relationship between online comments attached to those stories and the episodic or thematic frame used to tell them. Quantitative content analysis was used in a comparative approach across regions that constitute borderlands between first and second world countries. Implications of framing for journalists covering minorities and disempowered groups are discussed.

Local Newspaper Use in Hawaii Fosters Acculturation to Local Culture, Community Ties and Involvement • Francis Dalisay, University of Guam; Masahiro Yamamoto, University at Albany – SUNY; Chamil Rathnayake; Joanne Loos, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Kapiolani Ching, University of Hawaii at Manoa • We use the case of Hawaii to test a proposed mediation model positively linking local newspaper use with community ties (i.e., social cohesion and trust) and community involvement via acculturation to local culture. Findings revealed acculturation to local culture was associated with higher social cohesion, trust, and community involvement. Also, local newspaper use had an indirect positive association with sense of belonging, feelings of morale, social trust, and community involvement through its positive association with acculturation to local culture.

News of the future: Journalism organizations’ members look at content, news practice, their jobs and their organizations • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • This paper uses an online quantitative survey to explore the attitudes of members of journalism organizations toward journalism and the workplace, likely trends in employment, and what services those organizations should – and do – provide. By examining multivariate relationships rather than univariate measures, it offers suggestions for journalism organizations, employers, educators, and others interested in how journalists and colleagues in related professions see the world after the impact of the recession and the loss of revenue.

Normalizing Online Commenting: Exploring How Journalists Deal with Incivility on News Sites • GIna Masullo Chen, The University of Texas at Austin; Paromita Pain, The University of Texas at Austin • In-depth interviews with 34 journalists reveal they are becoming more comfortable with online comments and often engage with commenters to foster deliberative discussions or quell incivility. However, our data also suggest some journalists feel discomfort with engaging in this way for fear it breaches the journalistic norm of objectivity. Overall, findings suggest journalists are not ceding their gatekeeping role to the public through comments, but rather re-asserting it through moderating objectionable comments and engaging.

Active yet Passive: Students media habits begin with active choice, evolve to passive consumption • Hans Meyer, Ohio University; Burton Speakman • The definition of media habits must include more than one dimension: active choice. LaRose (2010) calls for expanding the theory to include active and passive use. This study advances LaRose’s call through at nationwide survey of more than 1,000 current college students. It finds that the main attitudes that drive frequent media usage are active, such as need to be involved, and passive, such as the need to know. In fact, the media students use demonstrate an evolution from a one-time active choice to passive attention. This is especially true for social media where students mainly seek entertainment and connection but end up getting a lot of important news and information.

The Reluctant Prosumer/Produser: Limited User Interest in Interactivity Offered by a Metropolitan Newspaper • Jackie Incollingo, Rider University • A mixed methods research project combining two quantitative survey results (n=632 and n=1,248) with semi-structured interview data (n=30) explored how users of a newspaper’s digital content engage with interactive features, and whether these features satisfy their desires. Although the literature celebrates the potential of prosumption (where the activities of consumer and producer converge), this research indicates that digital users do not prioritize sharing stories online, and reported little desire to leave comments or create content.

Groundbreaking Storytelling or Dancing Hamsters? What Eyetracking Tells Us About the Future of Longform Journalism • Jacqueline Marino; Susan Jacobson; Robert Gutsche • As journalists continue to integrate multimedia into longform journalism, news organizations wrestle with questions of audience interest and economic sustainability. To investigate audience reception to digital longform journalism, this study employs eyetracking technology and interviews with audience members to understand their interactions with text, video, and other elements. It also explores how digital longform journalism may attract and retain audience interest. Keywords:audience, digital journalism, eyetracking, longform journalism, mobile

Driving Las Vegas: News Coverage of Uber’s Clash with Unions in Sin City • Jessalynn Strauss, Elon University; Lauren Bratslavsky • This paper looks at the framing of Uber’s expansion into Las Vegas by the local newspaper of record, the Review-Journal. It examines and unpacks the complicated context of the fight between Uber and taxicabs in Las Vegas, taking into account the city’s strongly union history. The framing analysis pays particular attention to the portrayal of union opposition to Uber expansion in an attempt to determine how the newspaper mediates understanding of organized labor in this particular case.

“Two Cheers for ‘Doing It All’: Skills and Newspaper Reporting Jobs” • John Russial, University of Oregon • “This study looks at newspaper reporting jobs ads in order to examine whether reporters need to be able to “do it all” ¬– producing text, video and photography and using social media. It is based on content analyses of JournalismJobs.com, a major online marketplace. Photography and social media are mentioned considerably more often than video skills. Photo skills are more important for weeklies and social media for dailies. The results raise questions about what type of cross-platform training is necessary.

Journalists’ Use of Knowledge in an Online World: Examining Reporting Habits, Sourcing, and Institutional Norms • John Wihbey, Northeastern University • There has been little empirical study of how journalists are drawing on and applying academic research and systematic knowledge. This paper examines data from an original online survey (n = 1,118). A multivariate analysis finds that knowledge usage is more likely among journalists with certain forms of training, a national audience, and more coverage specialization. Politics and television reporting were associated with lower levels of engagement with expert knowledge.

The contextualist function: U.S. newspaper journalists value social responsibility • Karen McIntyre; Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; Jesse Abdenour • A survey evaluated U.S. newspaper journalists’ attitudes toward contextual journalism — stories that go beyond the immediacy of the news and contribute to societal well-being. Results indicated that journalists highly value professional roles associated with contextual journalism. Responses revealed new journalistic role functions, including the “Contextualist.” Contextualists and traditional journalists expressed positive attitudes toward contextual journalism forms — solutions journalism, constructive journalism and restorative narrative — while adversarial and market-oriented journalists had negative attitudes toward contextual journalism.

The Viability of Peace Journalism in Western Media Environments • Kimberly Foster; Beverly Horvit, University of Missouri School of Journalism • “Conflict is pervasive and inevitable. Although not all conflicts lead to violence, violent conflicts have left a measurable toll of devastation. Peace journalism, a concept born in the 1970s, aims to frame news in a way to provide a comprehensive understanding of conflict that empowers more insightful critical public discourse. This paper addresses the theoretical challenges to peace journalism practices and provides insight into opportunities for in-depth reporting from conflict zones by Western media practitioners.

#LoveWins: Sharing breaking news of the marriage equality act on Instagram • Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University; Sonia Bovio, Arizona State University • On the morning of Friday, June 26, 2015, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, commonly known as the marriage equality ruling. Within the minutes of the announcement, social media exploded with posts about the news. Participants in the online celebration rallied around the hashtag #LoveWins, with Twitter posts using the hashtag cresting at 5,187,809 when the day was done. But while Twitter garnered the most traffic, Instagram offered a different experience, along with a steady traffic flood of more than 1,500 posts using the #LoveWins hashtag within the first 20 minutes of the announcement. However, unlike Twitter, where imagery is an option, Instagram is fundamentally more visual as every post is image-driven. The #LoveWins feed on Instagram was awash in news reports from a wide variety of news organizations. Overwhelmingly, however, those breaking news posts did not come directly from the news organizations themselves. This qualitative study examines the visual messages of people using #LoveWins to share breaking news via Instagram. In light of those findings, it examines the visual messages and hashtag use of news organizations cited in #LoveWins breaking-news posts as news sources, and the potential news audience in Instagram communities.

Journalistic Identity as Branding: Individual, Organizational, and Institutional Considerations • Logan Molyneux, Temple University; Avery Holton, University of Utah; Seth Lewis • Journalists, scholars and industry observers have noted a rise in journalistic branding, especially on social media. To what extent and in what ways are journalists constructing social identities online? This study conducts a content analysis of Twitter profiles and tweets from a representative sample of U.S. journalists. It finds that nearly all journalists practice branding in some form (in bios, in tweets, via links), and branding is concentrated at organizational and individual levels.

Effects of News Framing on Reader’s Opinion of E-Cigarettes • Lu Wu, UNC-Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson • Electronic cigarettes have gained great popularity in the past few years but remain a novel and controversial subject in news coverage. The current study is an experiment that builds on existing content analyses of media coverage of e-cigarettes to determine what effects common news frames (those focused on regulation, health effects, and tobacco/smoking industry concerns) have on news consumers. Results show that different framing tactics in news can sway people’s attitudes towards e-cigarettes, specifically when it comes to discussion on regulation and youth smoking. Framing has little effects on people’s social norms towards e-cigarettes or their intention to use e-cigarettes.

Gathering Evidence of Evidence: News Aggregation as an Epistemological Practice • Mark Coddington, Washington and Lee University • News aggregation is often presented in opposition to reporting, though the two practices have much in common as journalistic evidence-gathering techniques. Using participant observation and interviews with aggregators, this study explores aggregation as an epistemological practice, examining the ways aggregators weigh evidence, evaluate sources, and verify information. It finds that narrative is a form of second-order newswork, built on the principles of reporting and reliant on it for secondhand evidence.

All The News That’s Fit To Post: Millennials’ Definitions Of News In The Context Of Facebook • Megan Mallicoat • The current study purposed to investigate the content of millennials’ Facebook news feeds with the intent of assessing how information therein compares with previously defined traditional news topics. The social-psychological theory of self-presentation was also considered: using Facebook can be a very public action, and so this study purposed to determine how self-presentation behavior might influence Facebook actions and news feed content. A purposeful sample of participants between the ages of 25-34 was selected (n = 20), and a computerized content analysis was conducted using Provalis Research’s program WordStat. One-on-one interviews were also conducted.

Framing Occupy Central: A Content Analysis of Hong Kong, American and British Newspaper Coverage • Mengjiao Yu, University of South Florida; Yan Shan, University of South Florida; Scott Liu, University of South Florida • Grounded in framing theory, this paper presents a quantitative content analysis of newspaper reporting of the Hong Kong protests, also known as the Occupy Central Movement or the Umbrella Revolution, between September 28 and December 11, 2014. The political, economic and legal implications involved have made the protests one of the most newsworthy events in the history of Hong Kong since the transfer of its sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. This study aims to examine the various frames used in the coverage of the protests in three major newspapers that operate within different political, economic and ideological boundaries: South China Morning Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Results of the content analysis supported the hypotheses that significant differences existed in the newspapers in their framing of the protests, the protesters, the government, news censorship, and politically sensitive issues. While the frames used by The New York Times and The Guardian were in agreement with the Western democratic-liberal press system, the frames used by South China Morning Post reflected the authoritarian-liberal nature of the Hong Kong press system.

Now You See Me, But You Don’t Know: Consumer Processing of Native Advertisements in Online News Sites • Mengtian Jiang, Michigan State University; Brigitte Balogh McKay, Michigan State University; Jef Richards, michigan state university; Wally Snyder, michigan state university • “Native advertising has become increasingly popular among publishers and advertisers to indirectly compete for consumer attention. Guided by the Information Processing Theory and using a mixed method design, this exploratory study investigates consumer’s cognitive processing of online native advertisements in terms of attention allocation, native ad recognition and brand recall. Results showed that participants had a relatively low literacy for native advertising. Implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions suggested.

The Effects of Native Advertising on Legacy and Online News Publishers • Michelle Amazeen, Rider University; Ashley Muddiman, University of Kansas • Extending research from Wojdynski and Evans (2015), this experimental study replicates the challenges of effectively disclosing native advertising and demonstrates a promising inoculation method that increases likelihood of recognition. Moreover, this quantitative research indicates that both legacy and online news publishers were punished for displaying native advertising. Attitudes toward the publisher and perceptions of its credibility declined for both, although online publishers suffered greater attitudinal damage than did legacy publishers who may benefit from their established reputation.

Micropayments for News: The Effects of Sunk Costs on News Engagement • Nicholas Geidner, The University of Tennessee; Jaclyn Cameron, University of Tennessee Knoxville • Survey walls – a micropayment scheme where users answer survey questions in order to access content – represent a way news organizations are monetizing content. This experimental study examines the effects of survey walls on engagement with online news. The results demonstrate that survey walls alter individuals’ engagement with news content. Specifically, individuals in “pay” conditions spent more time on the article and were less willing to share the content than people in the “non-pay” condition.

Who’s in, Who’s out? Constructing the Identity of Digital Journalists • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado; Tim Vos, University of Missouri • Through the framework of social identity theory, this study utilizes in-depth interviews with 53 digital journalists to see what they believe is essential to their work and who falls outside the label of digital journalist. The results support the notion that changes to the digital media environment have indeed been a new source of professional identity for digital journalists. We then explore what this might mean for the field of journalism.

Journalism Transparency: How journalists understand it as a professional value, ethical construct and set of practices • Peter Gade; Kevin Curran, Univ of Oklahoma; Shugofa Dastgeer; Christina DeWalt, The University of Oklahoma; Desiree Hill; Seunghyun Kim, University of Oklahoma; Emmanuel-Lugard Nduka, University of Oklahoma • This national survey of 524 journalists seeks to identify how journalists understand transparency as a professional value, ethical construct and set of practices. Results identify six dimensions of transparency knowledge, and that journalists strongly embrace transparency as an ethical construct. The extent to which journalists practice transparency is constrained by their existing work loads, concerns about negative outcomes and overall skepticism of change.

‘We don’t cover suicide … (except when we do cover suicide)’ • Randal Beam; Sue Lockett John; Michael Mead Yaqub • Unlike most other unnatural deaths, journalists approach suicide as an occurrence that they are hesitant to cover. “Our policy is not to write about suicides,” they say. Except that often, they do. This paper, based on interviews with 50 U.S. journalists, examines the rationales that the journalists invoke as they decide about whether to cover a suicide.

Twitter’s influence on news judgment: An experiment among journalists • Shannon McGregor, University of Texas – Austin; Logan Molyneux, Temple University • Literature suggests that journalists give a substantial amount of attention to Twitter. What affect might this have on their news judgment, their decisions on what to let through the gates? This study hypothesized a positive bias in favor of news appearing to be from Twitter. Instead, an experiment among working journalists (N = 212) finds a negative bias, suggesting that journalists who use Twitter less in their work tend to discount news they see there.

JOURNALISTS RESEARCHING BIG DATA: A study of research methods and processes in big data journalism • Soo-Kwang Oh; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University • Through a content analysis of data journalism stories from The Guardian (n=260), a pioneer in contemporary big data journalism, we sought to investigate how the practice of big data journalism takes into account rigorous research method and design. Findings suggested that big data journalism lacks discussions of several elements required for proper scientific research, such as size of data, date of collection and methods for analysis.

Advocacy or Objectivity? Role Perceptions and Journalistic Culture in Alternative and Mainstream Media in Brazil • Summer Harlow, Florida State University • Most research on journalists’ role perceptions and journalistic culture remains Western-focused, and is limited to mainstream media. This quantitative study uses a survey to fill two gaps in the literature by examining differences in role perceptions and journalistic culture among mainstream and alternative media journalists in Brazil. Results indicate significant differences in role perceptions, as mainstream media journalists place more importance on traditional ethics, while alternative media journalists value their normative responsibilities more.

Should There Be an App for That? An Analysis of Interactive Applications within Longform News Stories • Susan Jacobson, Florida International University; Robert Gutsche; Jacqueline Marino • The most-read story of 2014 on the website of The New York Times was a news app called “How You, Youse and You Guys Talk.” While news apps can enhance news stories, they cost a lot of time and money to produce. In this study, we conduct semi-structured interviews with 12 Millennial tablet computer users to evaluate longform multimedia news packages that include Web applications as part of the story presentation to better understand what might be involved in creating successful news apps.

#IfTheyGunnedMeDown: An analysis of mainstream and social media in the Ferguson, Missouri Shooting of Michael Brown • Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas; Meredith Clark, University of North Texas; Gwendelyn Nisbett, University of North Texas • Focusing on the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, this study examined the framing of mainstream newspaper coverage of social media activism in the aftermath of the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. People of color primarily used the hashtag to draw attention to what they perceived as negative stereotypes perpetuated by the news media. The study employed a textual analysis of news coverage followed by semi-structured interviews with hashtag-protest participants. The analysis found that the mainstream media followed news production rituals by relying primarily on elite, established sources and generally ignoring the social media protestors’ voices. The social media protestors who used the hashtag said they employed it to bypass the mainstream media, and this research indicates they may well have done so and possibly reached a younger generation that relies more on social media than legacy media.

Student Papers
Exploring the Effects of News Personalization and User Comments: Third-Person Perception of the 2013 Target Data Breach • Boya Xu, University of Maryland • It has been robustly supported that media can have a profound social impact indirectly that people’s attitudes or behaviors may be influenced by their perception of the effects of certain content on others, not by the content directly. This impact is particularly magnified when people see others as more negatively influenced than they are themselves, known as the third-person effect. The current study dives into the 2013 Target data breach that has grasped intense attention among the public and media outlets nationally. Survey results show that personalized news content and news sources may encourage individuals to perceive themselves as equally or more vulnerable to the information than others, which was overlooked by the original theorization of third-person effect.

#wjchat: Discursive Construction of Journalistic Values and Norms on Twitter • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri School of Journalism • This qualitative textual analysis of posts from @wjchat (web journalism chat) on Twitter provides evidence that journalists and journalism educators use social media to discursively construct institutional values and norms such as verification, objectivity, and diversity. The findings were consistent with and extended gatekeeping theory, the hierarchical influences model, and sociological and discursive institutionalism. Keywords: Gatekeeping, new institutionalism, journalistic values, Twitter. Method: Qualitative.

Carrying Credibility: How News Distribution Affects Reader Judgment • Holly Cowart, University of Florida • This experiment examines the impact of online platforms on source credibility. Using a traditional news media with an online presence, and an online-only news media, it compares news content on three platforms (website, Facebook, Twitter). Results of the 146-person experiment indicate a difference in perceived credibility among platforms. The traditional news media sees a significant drop in credibility between the website and the two social media sites. The online-only news media does not. The implications of these finding are discussed in terms of the changing way that news is presented. News media distribute their content to apps and social media sites. Based on this study, that distribution may result in a loss in credibility for the news source.

Framing EU borders in the news: An analysis of three European news websites • Ivana Cvetkovic, University of New Mexico • Human mobility is widely reported in the news with various framings of national spaces, migrants, borders, home, and security. Using discourse analysis of articles published in the online editions of Croatia’s Jutarnji list, Britain’s The Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel, this research identifies news frames about borders in the European Union context. The analysis produced four micro-frames: borders as lived space, border security, border materialization, and disputes over border-management.

Is That News Story an Ad? News Homepage Design May Mislead Consumers into Sponsored Content • Kate Keib, University of Georgia Grady College; Mark Tatge, University of South Carolina • “While advertisers are set to spend nearly $8 billion on native ads this year, the Federal Trade Commission released a policy on deceptive advertising specifically addressing paid content designed to look like editorial. We execute a content analysis of 60 top U.S. news websites, capturing the design elements of native ads and their similarity to editorial content. Results show that native ads are very similar to editorial content.

An Impolite Conversation: The Interaction between Anonymity and Online Discourse on Political Blogs • Meghan Erkkinen, University of Minnesota • “Previous research has indicated that anonymity is correlated with increased impoliteness and incivility in newspaper comments sections. This study uses quantitative content analysis to examine the impact of anonymity on the comments of partisan political blogs. Results indicate that sites allowing anonymous comments host more impolite and uncivil comments, and that those comments are more likely be directed interpersonally, than sites that require users to verify their identities.

National Issues and Personal Choices, Agendamelding in Iran: A Study of Traditional Media and Twitter in 2015 • Milad Minooie • Building on agenda setting research, agendamelding posits that audiences form their agendas based on social/horizontal media (e.g. Twitter) and their personal preferences in addition to traditional/vertical media (e.g. newspapers). The findings of the present study suggest that social media users adopt their agendas from social/horizontal media rather than traditional/vertical media. One of the implications of this finding is that when the government holds monopoly over traditional/vertical media, personal preferences and social/horizontal media become more salient.

Intermedia Attribute Agenda Setting in the Context of Issue-Focused Media Events: The Case of Caitlyn Jenner and Transgender Reporting • Minjie Li, LSU • On April 24, 2015, Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner confirmed her transgender identity on “Bruce Jenner: The Interview” with Diane Sawyer and started her own reality show, I am Cait. This study identifies patterns of second-level intermedia agenda setting in the framing of Caitlyn Jenner’s high-profile planned media events about her gender transition, examining the extent to which they influence the way national news outlets report transgender-related stories and the salience of certain story attributes. More specifically, through a comparative quantitative content analysis, this study found that transgender-related reports appearing after the Caitlyn Jenner’s interview were more likely to 1) mention alternative non-binary gender discourses to highlight transgender subjectivity, 2) take the intersectionality perspective to address the the complexity of transgender issues from the aspects of race, class, and sexuality difference, 3) differentiate transgender issues from LGBT issues, and 4) take in-depth approaches to report the stories.

How Online News and Informational Media Position Themselves in the Networked Media Ecosystem: A Study of Niche • Mohammad Yousuf, University of Oklahoma • This study used the Theory of the Niche to examine how four types of online news and informational media—Mainstream, Institutional, Alternative, and User-generated—position themselves in the networked media ecosystem. A total of 700 content units—175 from each media type—were analyzed to test four hypotheses regarding the primary functionalities of these media types. Three hypotheses were supported and one was rejected. Data did not find a primary functionality of the Institutional media.

Digital News Sharing: The Role of Influence and Habits in Social Media News Sharing • Samuel Tham, University of Missouri – School of Journalism • 30% of Americans use social media for news. With news organizations seeking to harness more online news sharing from their viewers, questions are raised as to what kinds of users share news on social media. This study proposes a model that examines the impact of technology leadership (social influence), news affinity, digital device use (habits), and the role of demographics to better understand the characteristics of users that share news on social media.

War of Perception: A Habermasian Discourse Analysis of Human Shield Newspaper Reporting During the 2014 Gaza War • Shane Graber, University of Texas-Austin • In 2014, as Arabs and Israelis fought a deadly and destructive 50-day military battle in Gaza, a simultaneous war of perception was being waged in American news media. This study uses a Habermasian critical discourse analysis to examine how five of the largest newspapers reported accusations of Palestinian human shielding. The findings show that journalists tended to report distorted representations of the human shield claims, potentially obfuscating unfairly a highly complex Middle East conflict.

“When India was Indira”: Indian Express’ Coverage of the Emergency (1975-77) • Subin Paul • When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed censorship in the summer of 1975, few newspapers tried to withstand the attack on press freedom. This historical study used framing theory to examine how Indian Express constructed its position against the Gandhi regime during the 21-month National Emergency. The qualitative content analysis of the Indian Express’ coverage demonstrated its struggle to frame the Emergency as authoritarian. More broadly, the analysis provided a way to understand how journalism functions under censorship.

2016 Abstracts