Mass Communication and Society 2019 Abstracts

Open Competition

Sharing Native Advertising on Twitter: Evidence of the Inoculating Influence of Disclosures • Michelle Amazeen, Boston University; Chris Vargo • Based upon a large data set of tweets linking to native advertising in leading U.S. news publications, this study explores whether the practice of native advertising disclosure in the field serves the inoculating function of resistance to persuasion. Leveraging the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad & Wright, 1994) and inoculation theory (McGuire, 1964), results show a) regular use of disclosures on publisher landing pages, b) the absence of disclosures in over half of publisher thumbnail images, and c) a negative moderating effect of disclosures on the valence of organic comments.

Effective Targeting of Youth through Online Social Networks in Diverse and Multicultural Marketplaces: New Developments and Perspectives. • Mian Asim, Zayed University • This study examines and compares the effectiveness of social networks to target youth for precision marketing under the conditions of cultural dispositions, innovative aptitude, and perceived medium credibility in emerging marketplaces. Under the premise of Social Identity framework, the results reveal external factors like recommendations, product offers, and appearance are more relevant than an individual’s traits and dispositions when evaluating products on social networks. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.

Ads for Forever Families: How Public Service Advertising Portrays Adoptive Children and Teenagers • Jackson Carter, University of South Carolina; Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina • There is a dearth of research in mass communication regarding family adoption, which may hinder meaningful progress to help policymakers, academics, content creators, and families. The current study adopts a qualitative approach to identify the persuasive appeals, dominant frames and media representation of adoptive parents and children in the PSAs that promotes adoption. This research informs social work professionals about how media portrait family adoption, and allow them to strategize how to shape future communication.

Developing and Validating the Scale of Parental Social Media Mediation Across Child and Parent Samples • Liang Chen; Shirley Ho, Nanyang Technological University; May Lwin; Lunrui Fu • “This research aims to enhance the conceptualization and operationalization of parental social media mediation. First, we conducted focus groups with both children and parents in Singapore to categorize parental mediation strategies of social media. Then, a survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1,424 child participants and 1,206 parent participants in Singapore to develop and test the scale. The results of focus groups identified four conceptually distinct parental mediation strategies of social media – labelled as active mediation, restrictive mediation, authoritarian surveillance, and monitoring as well as developed an initial scale of them. Based on the data from survey questionnaires, we investigated both inter-item and item-total correlations and performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which developed and validated the scale of parental social media mediation.

Third-Person Effects of Fake News on Social Media • Yang Cheng, North Carolina State University; Zifei Chen, University of San Francisco • This study proposed and tested a model to understand the antecedents and consequences of third-person perceptions of fake news about a company on Facebook. Survey results (N = 661) showed impacts of self-efficacy, social undesirability, and consumer involvement on the perceived influence of fake news on self and others. The perceived influence on others served as a mediator in the model and positively predicted support for corporate corrective action, media literacy intervention, and governmental regulation.

Local civic information beyond the news: Computational identification of civic content on social media • Yingying Chen, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University; Kourtnie Rodgers, Michigan State University; Kjerstin Thorson; Kelley Cotter; Sevgi Baykaldi • This study proposes a conceptual definition of local civic information to guide computational analyses of the civic information health of communities. We define civic information by the functions it could serve in a community, rather than producer. To demonstrate utility, we use structural topic modeling and human coding to identify clusters of Facebook posts which may serve a diverse community functions and demonstrate that these posts were produced by a diverse set of community organizations.

Outside of Spiral of Silence?: Examining Partisans Outspokenness on Social Networking Sites • Stella Chia • This study discloses the direct and the indirect effects of issue involvement on partisans’ outspokenness on SNSs in the context of legalizing same-sex in Taiwan. The indirect effects appear to offset the direct effects. On one hand, partisans are motivated to speak out online by their strong involvement; on the other hand, their strong issue involvement leads to presumed media influence, which prohibits them from expressing opinions on SNSs. Their offline participation is also affected.

Uncertainty Management in Mass Shootings: Antecedents, Appraisals, and Communication Behavior • Surin Chung, Ohio University • This study investigates how situational antecedents affect perceived uncertainty and how uncertainty appraisals influence publics’ communication behavior about mass shootings. A total of 637 responses were collected through an online survey. The results revealed that situational antecedents were significantly associated with uncertainty. The results showed that uncertainty had a positive indirect effect on information seeking intention via anxiety and hope. Also, uncertainty had a positive indirect effect on information attending intention via anxiety and sadness.

Combatting science myths: The effects of fact-checking and platform congruency on hostile media bias and news credibility perceptions • Raluca Cozma, Kansas State University; Xiaochen Zhang, University of Oklahoma • An experiment was conducted to examine differences in story credibility and hostile media bias perceptions between readers assigned to attitude congruent vs. incongruent cable news platforms and between readers who read stories fact checked by a reporter, a scientist, or not corrected at all. The study advances understanding of the effects of fact checking in the realm of science news and found attitude congruency to be a predictor of news credibility perceptions.

Audience’s Emotion and Sense of Social Solidarity during a Media Event: Examining the Effects of Two Media Platforms • Xi Cui, College of Charleston; Qian Xu, Elon University • This study examines audiences’ emotional and social experiences of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration through television and social media. A survey of a national sample (N = 420) was conducted following the inauguration ceremony. Drawing on media events, emotional appraisal and identity self-categorization theories, the study found that television was socially integrative while social media was socially disruptive. Media events’ influences on audiences’ social and emotional experiences depended on both their identities and media affordances.

How is CSR covered in news media? A cross-national study of comparative agenda setting of CSR news coverage using topic modeling • Chuqing Dong; Yafei Zhang • “This study explored multifaceted corporate social responsibility (CSR) covered in major news media in the UK, US, Mainland China, and Hong Kong (HK) from 2000 to 2016. Under the theoretical framework of agenda setting, 4,487 CSR-related news articles from both business and nonbusiness news sources were analyzed using computer-assisted content analysis (LDA) techniques. This study contributes to CSR communication research by adding a global media perspective regarding what CSR means and should focus on.

Identification with stereotyped social groups: Counter-stereotyped protagonists and stereotyped supporting casts influence on symbolic racism • Joshua Dunn, Texas Tech University; Bryan McLaughlin, Texas Tech University • While exposure to stereotyped minority characters reinforces prejudice, when viewers identify with counter-stereotyped characters prejudice tends to decrease. This study examines the juxtaposition of identifying with either a counter-stereotyped Black protagonist or a stereotyped supporting cast. Participants read a prompt (group vs. individual salience), watched a television episode, then reported their identification with the protagonist and the social group. Findings suggest that individual identification reduces prejudice, while social identification with a stereotyped group does not.

Making sense of Harvey: An exploration of how journalists find meaning in disaster • Gretchen Dworznik-Hoak • Thirty journalists who covered hurricane Harvey and who also lived in the areas affected were interviewed in order to explore how journalists make sense of and cope with their exposure to the trauma associated with a natural disaster. Baumeister’s (1991) four needs for meaning framework was used as a guide to uncover how journalists used justification, purpose, efficacy and self-worth to find meaning in their traumatic experiences. Implications for news managers and future research are discussed.

Engaging the Dark Side: Fictional Antagonists and Real World Attitudes toward Criminals • Rebecca Frazer, The Ohio State University; Emily Moyer-Gusé • This work investigates whether moral salience (vice salience vs. virtue salience) and the revelation timing of a character’s immoral behavior in a fictional narrative (late reveal vs. early reveal) impact identification with morally ambiguous antagonists. Further, real-world attitudinal outcomes of antagonist identification are examined. A two-part study (n = 173) demonstrated that identification with a fictional antagonist can significantly impact real-world attitudes. Additionally, gender differences emerged in the impact of revelation timing on identification.

The Hostile Media Effect in Coverage of International Relations: Testing the Relationship Between Source, Nationalism and Perceived Source Bias • Guy Golan, Center for Media and Public Opinion; T. Franklin Waddell, University of Florida; Matthew Barnidge, The University of Alabama • The significant expansion of government-sponsored news organizations across traditional and social media places mediated engagement of foreign audiences at the heart of the global news ecosystem and modern international relations. While governments compete to build and shape the desired foreign policy frames, there is some reason to believe that foreign audiences may view foreign media sources as biased. The current study aims to investigate this possibility. Drawing upon the rich body of scholarship on the hostile media phenomenon, the study experimentally compares perceived media bias in foreign versus domestic news sources.

A crisis in pictures: Visual framing of the opioid epidemic by the Cincinnati Enquirer • Matthew Haught, University of Memphis; Erin Willis, University of Colorado Boulder; Kathleen I. Alaimo, U of Colorado • Local newspapers often are on the front lines of reporting about drugs, particularly the current ongoing opioid epidemic. The present study builds on a case study of the Cincinnati Enquirer’s heroin and opioid reporting by considering the visuals used in the reporting. Thorough a visual framing analysis, this research finds that while the previous researchers’ case study found a dominance of thematic framing in reporting, its accompanying photojournalism tends to be more episodic in nature.

Spatial Dimensions of Latin American Journalists’ Role Perceptions: A Hierarchy of Influence Analysis • Vanessa Higgins Joyce, Texas State University; Summer Harlow, University of Houston; Amy Schmitz Weiss, SDSU; Rosental Alves • Local, national, regional, and global networks of power intersect in this digital era, raising questions of how re-conceived notions of space are transforming the hierarchy of influences model. This study surveyed (N=1,543) the journalism community from 20 Latin American countries examining how spatial influences are changing journalists’ role conceptions. Findings suggest that, at the organization-structure level, spatial dimensions are related to role perceptions, and regional-institutional forces remain strong influences over how journalists see their roles.

An Examination of Information Behaviors Surrounding Controversial Sociopolitical Issues: Roles of Moral Emotions and Gender • Cheng Hong, Virginia Commonwealth University; Weiting Tao, University of Miami; Wanhsiu Tsai, University of Miami; Bo Ra Yook, University of Miami • Given the emotion-laden nature and moral considerations of controversial sociopolitical issues, this study examines two key antecedents of information behaviors regarding controversial issues. We focus on the under-researched emotions by investigating the effects of moral emotions induced by controversial issues, and a key demographic factor, gender, on information behaviors toward such issues. Results of this study highlight the significant role of moral emotions and expand theoretical understanding of public advocacy on highly divisive sociopolitical issues.

Will Consumers Silence Themselves when Brands Speak Up about Sociopolitical Issues? Applying the Spiral of Silence Theory to Consumer Boycott and Buycott Behaviors • Cheng Hong, Virginia Commonwealth University; Cong Li, University of Miami • To investigate boycotting and buycotting as responses to brand activism, this study adopted a 2 (consumer stance: consistent vs. inconsistent with the focal company) × 2 (public support of consumer stance: majority vs. minority) between-subjects experiment, with a third factor (perceived credibility of public opinion survey) measured. Findings showed brand attitude mediated the effect of consumer stance on boycott and buycott intention, moderated by magnitude of public support and perceived credibility of public opinion survey.

The Safety Dance: Examining the Reasoned Action Approach in Severe Weather Preparedness • Jue Hou, University of Alabama; Cory Armstrong; Nathan Towery • In light of the recent national-scale severe weather hits from Hurricane Michael to wildfires on the West Coast and blizzards in the East, this study sought to investigate factors that may advance residents’ disaster preparedness behaviors. In particular, this paper examined the model of Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) under the context of severe weather preparedness. A number of natural disaster-related concepts, from prior experience to the perceived knowledge base, were examined regarding their predictive ability towards subjects’ behaviors against severe weather outbreaks. With data collected from 1,035 participants, findings indicated that people’s disaster preparedness behaviors generally fit the reasoned action approach model. In specific, background factors would predict behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, as well as control beliefs. These factors consequentially influenced people’s preparatory intentions, which would eventually impact extreme weather preparedness behaviors. Academic insights regarding severe weather protection as well as practical implications on public disaster education were discussed.

They said it’s ‘fake’: Effect of ‘fake news’ online comments on information quality judgments and information authentication • Rosie Jahng, Wayne State University; Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University; Scott Burgess; Annisa Meirita Patimurani Rochadiat, Wayne State University; Kai Xu, Wayne State University • Using a mixed-design online experiment, this study examined how individuals determine the quality of information they encounter online and what factors motivate individuals to engage in information verification and authentication processes. The effect of a heuristic cue typically encountered when reading online news articles, i.e., online comments labeling presented contents as ‘fake news’ was tested. Results showed main effects of ‘fake news’ label in online comments on participants’ accuracy in identifying fake news, need to authenticate the information encountered, and their reliance on legacy news channels to authenticate the information.

Press, Protests and The People: How Media Framing and Visual Communication Affects Support for Black Civil Rights Protests • Danielle Kilgo; Rachel Mourao, Michigan State University • This study tests the impact of news frames on audience support for a civil rights social movement. Using a 3 X 2 experimental design, we explore how frames and visuals affect audiences’ criticism of police and protesters, support, and identification with the movement. Findings show legitimizing narratives have limited impact on increasing support and identification with protesters, and police criticism. Delegitimizing frames increase criticism towards protesters, decrease support and identification, and decrease criticism of police.

Children’s Fear Responses to News: A Survey on Fear Evoked by Children’s Television News • Mariska Kleemans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Ming Ebbinkhuijsen, Radboud University Nijmegen; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University Nijmegen • To get up-to-date insights into children’s fear responses to children’s television news, a survey was conducted among 892 children (9-12 y/o). Results show that children’s television news is still an important source of information. However, a majority of children reports being frightened by this news, in particular girls and younger children. Thus, it is necessary –for both theoretical and practical reasons– to further investigate how news can be more adapted to children’s social-emotional needs.

Examining the Paths of Influence between Individual Motivators, Information Behaviors, and Outcomes in Disaster Risk Reduction • Chih-Hui Lai, National Chiao Tung U • Building on the integrative models of media effects and audience activity, this study conducts a cross-lagged analysis of two-wave data in Taiwan. The results show that the relationships between individual characteristics and disaster risk reduction (DRR) information behaviors are driven both by media effects and selection effects, depending on the type of information behavior. Different mediating mechanisms exist as personal factors influence DRR information seeking and sharing differently, which then predict outcomes of DRR.

Complementary and Competitive Framing: Framing Effects, Attitude Volatility or Attitude Resistance? • Shirley Ho, Nanyang Technological University; Yan Wah Leung, Nanyang Technological University • This study is designed to answer two big questions regarding framing theory. First, what happens when frames are challenged? Second, how resistant are the opinions that initial frames induce? 1,006 participants completed an online experiment where they were randomly assigned to first view a blog post with either complementary or competitive framing on driverless cars. Participants also viewed a blog post that challenged the stance of the first blog post. Participants indicated their attitudes and levels of support for driverless cars after viewing each blog post. Results revealed that complementary frames polarized opinions, while competitive frames neutralized opinions. Further, competitive frames induced more resistant opinions than complementary frames did. Overall, we found that attitude and support were exceptionally susceptible to new, antagonistic information. Taken together, this study found that framing effects are typically ephemeral and easily challenged by new information. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Power Exemplification of Minority Members in the News Can Influence Attribution of Responsibility for Social Issues, Intergroup Attitudes, dehumanization, and Aggression • Minjie Li • This study experimentally investigates how the power exemplification of minority members (i.e. High-Power vs. Low-Power Transgender Exemplar) in the news narrative interacts with the audience’s sex to redirect people’s responsibility attributions for transgender issues, intergroup attitudes, dehumanization, and aggression towards transgender people. The findings demonstrated that after reading the news article featuring a high-power transgender woman, cisgender women respondents reported significantly higher levels of transphobia, individual attribution of transgender issues, and dehumanization of transgender people’s human nature.

Exploring the Role of Perceptual and Affective Factors in Predicting K-Pop Gratifications and Transcultural Social Networking • Carolyn Lin; Suji Park; Xiaowen Xu; Yukyung Lee, University of Connecticut • This study examines how K-pop (Korean popular music) promotes social media use among non-Asian college students via testing a Transcultural Communication Networking Model. Findings indicate that perceived social distance, cultural familiarity and perceived cultural similarities (between K-pop and American pop music) have either an indirect or direct effect on attitudes toward K-pop. While attitudes are linked to K-pop gratifications, these two variables and perceived cultural dissimilarities contribute to transcultural networking frequency on social media.

The Effects of Framing and Advocacy Expectancy on Belief Importance and Issue Attitude • Jiawei Liu, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Min-Hsin Su; Douglas McLeod; Joseph Abisaid • Message frames have been found to influence relevant issue attitudes by influencing the weight of issue considerations emphasized in the message. This study investigates differences in the framing effects of advocacy groups, depending on whether the message fits readers’ expectations for the communicator’s issue position (expected advocacy) or not (unexpected advocacy). Findings suggest that frames with unexpected advocacy significantly influenced readers’ perceived belief importance, which in turn influenced issue attitudes.

25 Years of Thematic and Episodic Framing Research on News: A Disciplinary Self-Reflection through an Integrative Process Model of Framing • Lesa Hatley Major, Indiana University; Stacie Meihaus Jankowski • This current study analyzes over 25 years (1991 – 2018) of research in academic journals on thematic and episodic frames in news coverage of social issues. As Peters states at the onset of a lengthy piece on the struggle of the communication field to define its purpose and institutional focus,“self-reflection is a key part of healthy social science” (1986, p. 527). Our purpose in this paper is twofold: 1) an examination of the research conducted on thematic and episodic frames in news coverage of social issues (1991 – 2018) using Matthes’ coding concepts from a 2009 study on framing research, and 2) an exploratory exercise of systematically organizing and analyzing our research using deVreese’s integrative process of framing model (2005) to understand our findings about episodic and thematic frames in news coverage, while positing a path forward for research on these frames in news coverage. Without the first part of this study, we could not undertake the second part of our theoretical exploration. While we do not address the current debate on framing research, it’s fractured state or declared demise, we believe our work in this study sheds light on the value of framing as a theoretical and practical foundation and articulate one path for its continued use to conduct research in communication.

#Blocked: Engaging with Politicians on Social Media in the Age of Trump • Gina Masullo Chen, University of Texas at Austin • This study sought to understand the phenomenon of Americans being blocked on social media by politicians, including President Trump. Using qualitative interview data (N = 22), this analysis reveals that blocking constitutes a threat to democratic norms and damages American’s perceptions of political actors and the health of democracy. Findings also show that some Americans perceive blocking by Trump as a badge of honor, while blocking by other politicians is an unfair act of silencing.

Viewing media about President Trump’s dietary habits and fast food consumption: Partisan differences and implications for public health • Jessica Myrick, Pennsylvania State University • A nationally representative survey (N = 1,050) assessed connections between Americans’ attention to media about President Donald Trump’s preference for fast food and public perceptions and intentions regarding fast food. Results revealed a significant positive relationship between attention to media about Trump’s diet and perceptions that fast food is socially acceptable, as well as intentions to consume it. Additionally, some differences emerged for audiences who identified as Republicans versus Democrats.

Credibility Effects of Fact-Checking Labels on Social Media News Posts • Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, University of Connecticut; Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University; Alyssa Appelman, Northern Kentucky University; Michael Boyle, West Chester University • With most Internet users now getting news from social media, there is growing concern about how to verify the content that appears on these platforms. This study experimentally tests the effects of fact-checking labels on social media news posts on credibility, virality, and information seeking. Results indicate that fact-checking labels do not have a beneficial effect on credibility perceptions of individual news posts, but that their presence does increase judgments of the site’s quality overall.

Testing the Viability of Emotions and Issue Involvement as Predictors of CSA Response Behaviors • Holly Overton, University of South Carolina; Minhee Choi, University of South Carolina; Jane Weatherred, University of South Carolina; Nanlan Zhang, University of South Carolina • Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) has become more prominent as companies continue taking stands on politically charged social-justice issues. This study examines emotions and issue involvement as antecedents of theory of planned behavior variables (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) to predict CSA response behaviors. A survey (N = 373) was conducted to examine the public’s response to a recent CSA example–Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The Representation of Stigma in U.S. Newspapers • Scott Parrott, The University of Alabama; Nicholas Eckhart, The University of Alabama • A content analysis examined the representation of stigma in 1,524 stories published by U.S. news outlets between 2000 and 2018. Stigma was discussed in relation to dehumanized conditions such as schizophrenia, drug addiction, and HIV/AIDS. However, journalists frequently trivialized stigma by referencing it in relation to football teams, food, and objects that do not experience the stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination inflicted upon certain social groups.

Something is better than nothing: How the presence of comments may decrease the sharing of fake news on social media • John Petit; Cong Li, University of Miami; Barbara Millet; Khudejah Ali; Ruoyu Sun, University of Miami • This study used a between-subjects experimental design to examine the effect of user comments on news readers’ perceived news credibility and sharing intention. It was found that, regardless of the type of news, participants who read news with no comments were most likely to share the news. This effect was mediated by perceived news credibility and news liking. These experimental results have important theoretical and practical implications for future research on fake news on social media.

Interlocking Among American News Media • Adam Saffer, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Deborah Dwyer, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jennifer Harker, West Virginia University; Chris Etheridge, University of Arkansas Little Rock; Mariam Turner; Daniel Riffe, UNC-Chapel Hill • In today’s media landscape, companies seem to be more intertwined than ever. But are they? Is interlocking affecting journalists and the content being produced? This examines the networks at play among today’s media organizations and corporate businesses by using a three-method design. The first phase network analyzed interlocks among news media companies’ board of directors. The second phase surveyed editors of newspapers owned by these companies to assess the influence on the newsroom from the board and parent company. In the third phase, news coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was content analyzed for newspapers whose editors perceived pressure “from above.” The network analysis results suggest a monolithic structure that Han (1988) and Winter (1988) feared has emerged. Unlike previous studies, we took this investigation two steps further to examine whether interlocks were pressuring newsrooms and influencing the news content produced. For about one third of survey respondents, interlocks were seen by pressured editors as having influence on the newsroom. Pressured editors indicated significantly stronger perceptions of financial pressures emanating from the newspaper’s boardroom, board of directors, “ownership/upper management,” and business interests than editors who did not indicate pressure from interlocks or their corporate parent. So, what was the pressured newsrooms’ coverage of the interlocks? Routine coverage of interlocks and their affiliated organizations was lacking. Even the disclosure of a relationship between a director or affiliated organization and the newspaper was disclosed half of the time and traditional journalistic scrutiny was applied to less than half of the time.

Effects of Narrative Political Ads on Message and Candidate Attitudes • Fuyuan Shen, Pennsylvania State University; Guolan Yang, Pennsylvania State University; Jeff Conlin, Pennsylvania State University; Pratiti Diddi, Pennsylvania State University • This study examined the effects of narrative political ads on message attitudes and candidate evaluations. We conducted a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects online experiment whereby participants viewed political ads manipulated by message valence (positive vs. negative), message format (narrative vs. non-narrative) and message focus (issue vs. character). Results suggested that both message valence and message format had some significant main and interactions on message and candidate evaluations.

How does Profanity Propagate Online? Measuring the Virality of Swearing on Social Media • Yunya Song, Hong Kong Baptist University; K. Hazel Kwon, Arizona State University; Jianliang Xu; Xin Huang; Shiying Li, Brown University • Swearing, also known as profanity, refers to the behavior of using foul language that is often linked to online incivility. In China, state government has been actively censoring profanity under the rationale of protecting civility in digital space. This study examines the diffusion of profanity in social media, based on the case of China’s microblogging service, Sina Weibo. The study utilizes computational methods to reconstruct the cascade networks of sampled swearing and non-swearing posts and compares various structural features of diffusion networks, including size, depth, width, and interlayer width ratios, between the propagation of swearing and non-swearing posts. The study contributes to the understanding of the diffusion process of profane speech online, and expands discussions about the impact of online incivility in shaping online discursive culture in China.

The Rise of Fact-Checking in Asia • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Lim Darren, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Weng Wai Mak, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Shawn Tan, Nanyang Technological University Singapore • This study seeks to understand the roles, ethics, and routines of fact-checking organisations in Asia through interviews with 11 fact-checkers in the region. Results showed most fact-checkers developed similar routines whether they have a journalistic background or not. Leveraging of social media and technology were common answers given in searching for issues to fact-check, with those single operator or smaller fact-checking operation being dependent on their audience to bring trending issues to their attention. When it comes to the ethical principles that guide them, our participants identified the values of impartiality, independence, and accuracy. Finally, our participants conceptualised their role in society as educators, disseminators, and watchdogs.

Serial Tweeters: The individuals and organizations that sustain attention to the climate issue on Twitter • Luping Wang, Cornell University; Aimei Yang; Kjerstin Thorson • The study examines a group of serial participants who consistently tweeted about the climate change issue over five years. The findings suggest a once loosely connected set of Twitter users have become more akin to a community of practice over time. Their network positions in serial participants’ network correlate with their positions in the broader network of Twitter users discussing the climate issue. Organizational actors continue to play a strong role as attention hubs.

Who speaks for the majority? Comparing exemplar indicators of public opinion in a social media setting • Jinping Wang, Pennsylvania State University; Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • This study explores both the origins and consequences of perceived opinion climates in an online environment, combining exemplification theory and the spiral of silence. Using a 3 x 3 experimental design, we examine the effects of exemplars within news stories and subsequent social media comments. The results showed that the news exemplar shaped the majority opinion perception among one’s close friends, which predicted one’s willingness to express opinions, moderated by fear of isolation.

The Medium is (Indeed) the Message: The State of Social Media Research at the AEJMC National Convention • Amanda J. Weed, Kennesaw State University; Chris McCollough, Columbus State University; Karen Freberg, University of Louisville; Enakshi Roy, Western Kentucky University • A systematic review of AEJMC national convention abstracts (n = 1,345) examined the state of social media research from 2009 through 2018. Analysis of abstracts examined volume of social media research, what platforms were studied, which research methodologies were employed, and how research was practically applied in 10 unique content areas of journalism and mass communication. Findings revealed social media research has grown from 3.8% to 25.0% of total research presented at the national convention.

The Public and the News Media: How Americans Think About Journalists and the Media Before and After Trump • Lars Willnat, Syracuse University; David Weaver; Jian SHI, Syracuse University • Based on two national surveys conducted among U.S. citizens in 2014 and 2018, this study analyzes how political polarization and social media use might affect perceptions of the news media. While perceptions of the media improved from 2014 to 2018, Republicans have become significantly more negative in their views of the media. Traditional media use, social media interactivity, and perceived effects of social media on journalism were associated with more positive evaluations of the media.

A New Era of Para-social Relationship: Mapping the Value of Social Media Influencers • Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University; chen lou • The current study investigated the determinants of para-social relationship (PSR) between social media influencers and their followers and the effect of PSR in explaining the value of influencers via an online survey. Results showed that influencer traits and fairness of communication procedure significantly predicted the strength of PSR. PSR was a significant mediator that drove followers’ interests in influencer-mentioned products. The findings extended our understanding of PSR and provided practitioners insights in enhancing the relationship strategically.

Hostile Media Perception and Intention to Participate in Public Discussion of Mental Health: An Examination of the Role of Involvement • Xueying Zhang • The current study tested the “corrective action hypothesis” (see Rojas, 2000) by analyzing intentions to discuss mental health issues publicly after the exposure of news coverage of a mass shooting using a “dangerous people” vs. “dangerous gun” frame. 300 respondents were recruited through Qualtrics national research panels. The results of the survey suggested potential benefits of employing HMP (hostile media perception) in educating the public by appealing to empathy and value systems.

Keeping Up with the In-Crowd: The Extent and Type of Substance Use in Celebrity Gossip on Twitter • lara zwarun, UMSL • Following celebrity lifestyles via Twitter is a popular pastime. This study examines how often references to alcohol, tobacco, and drugs appear in tweets sent by celebrities and gossip media, and on webpages linked to in these tweets. It also considers whether the substances are portrayed in a positive or a negative light, using measures based on social cognitive theory. Substance references appeared occasionally but consistently in tweets, whether from celebrities or gossip organizations, and more frequently in content on the linked webpages. Portrayals were varied: some contain humor, slang, and appealing photographs that make substance use sound interesting and attractive, while others mentioned negative consequences. The findings suggest that people who follow celebrities and celebrity gossip via Twitter are likely to encounter substance use messages, and that some, but not all, of these messages may glamorize that substance use.

Student Competition

“Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t create it”: Online community formation through shitposting • Yi En Ho; Dion Loh; Tsi Ying Au; Celine Mok • This exploratory study provides a structured understanding of shitposting and examines its form and role in online community formation by conducting interviews and a content analysis on Facebook’s largest closed shitposting group, Spongebob Shitposting. Results revealed that members defined shitposting as posts with unfunny and nonsensical humour that require online cultural literacy to understand, having a recognisable form that are created with varying intentions. Findings also gave insight to shitposting’s role in forming a community.

Examining Media Modality and Social Media Engagement: A Content Analysis of Police Departments’ Facebook Posts • Rachel Italiano, Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University; Anthony Ciaramella, Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University; Jessica Wyers, Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University • This content analysis examined if modality (text, photo, video) used by police departments (PDs) in Facebook posts impacts post engagement. Poisson regression results show that modality impacts post engagement. Posts using photos and videos increased engagement. Significant differences were found between large city PDs and small city PDs. Small city PD posts have less engagement than large city PDs. Overall, these results suggest how PDs can use social media as a community engagement tool.

A serial mediation model of media exposure on body shame: The role of internalization of appearance ideals and self-objectification • Lin Li, Michigan State University • Building on objectification theory and media effects research, this study found that image-focused magazine and Instagram use was associated with higher levels of internalization of appearance ideals, which in turn was related to increased self-objectification; this greater self-objectification translated into greater body shame. Image-focused TV and Facebook use were directly related to greater body shame. Snapchat use was negatively related to body shame through reduced internalization of appearance ideals.

Where Local Meets Plethora: Patterns of Media Usage and Community Integration • Meredith Metzler • Communication scholarship is seeing a renewed interest in the question of the impact of declining local news media. Underlying much of this research is the assumption that local news media will be used if it exists. This qualitative study uses the case studies of two rural communities to understand which media connect and disconnect individuals from their geographic community. The findings reveal that media use often relied on affinity for outlets and were contextually dependent.

Disposition Theory and Protest: The Influence of Media Frames and Individual Disposition on Audience Response to Protest • Hailey Grace Steele, University of Alabama • This study examined the influence of news frames and individual disposition on audience response to protest. The study sought to determine whether the social group depicted as the main actor in news coverage of protest would influence audience support for protest. Informed by disposition theory and tested using experimental design, the study found that certain audience characteristics can significantly predict attitudes toward protest based on the types of media content to which audiences are exposed.

Beyond the Differential Gains Model: The Effects of Authoritarian Orientation, Social Media Use, and Political Discussion on Political Participation in Taiwan and South Korea • Yan Su, The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University; XIZHU XIAO • In an attempt to investigate the roles of authoritarian orientation, social media use, and political discussion in shaping political participation in transitional democracies, this study analyzes nationwide surveys from two third-wave democracies: Taiwan and South Korea. The regression results show that in both societies, the effects of social media use and political discussion are positively associated with political participation; authoritarian orientation was only negatively associated with political participation in Taiwan. This study does not find significant moderating effects of communication variables on their relationships with political participation, which expands extant research on the conventional differential gains model research that mainly focused on liberal democratic countries. A significant three-way interaction also emerged in South Korea.

#Ageism: Exploring aging issues on Twitter • Tammy Walkner, University of Iowa • Twitter is a microblogging site that many people use to share their opinions on various topics. It’s not just young people who tweet – 28% percent of Twitter users are 55 or older. People in this older age demographic are using Twitter to speak out about ageism and the discrimination they have faced. This research examined tweets using #ageism, #agism, and keywords ageism and agism to investigate if the tweets discuss stigma or activism.

Moeller Student Paper Competition

Does Internet Access Still Matter?: A Lesson from China – How VPN Usage Influences People’s Attitude towards China-US Trade War • yezi hu, Washington State University • Digital divide studies have shifted from access problem to use problem because of the high Internet penetration in the world. However, the case of China is challenging such an optimistic bias. China has the most Internet users in the world but also has strict censorship. Chinese people have to use a VPN account to access the uncensored information on blocked websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Youtube. Using a survey, this research studied predictors of VPN usage in China and found that age and income play pivotal rules. Moreover, revolving around a case of China-US trade war, this study found that the more frequently people use VPN, the more they support American positions. This study alerted us of the threat from censorship to the Internet access and made us rethink the definition of access. Therefore, it extended our understanding of access studies of the digital divide.

Two Sides of the Bed: Does Mood Affect Consumer Response to Controversial Advertising? • Chris Noland, University of South Carolina • Mood management theory posits that people try to maintain intensity of good moods and diminish intensity of bad moods. This study uses mood management theory to examine the interplay between mood and controversial advertising. The results suggest people in positive moods have more positive attitudes toward non-controversial ads and less positive attitudes toward controversial ads. Conversely, people in negative moods have more favorable attitudes toward controversial ads and less favorable attitudes when evaluating non-controversial ads.

Post Facto: Experimental Test of a Game-Based News Literacy Intervention • Tamar Wilner, University of Texas at Austin • “Online misinformation abounds, from the long debunked link between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, to doubts over climate change, to rumors that have stoked ethnic violence in Myanmar, India, and Sri Lanka. One way to address the misinformation problem may be news literacy, which aims to help people think more critically about the media they consume. But little is known about whether the current crop of news literacy interventions empower people to discern credible from non-credible information online, especially in the contexts of social media and news websites – a skill I call “digital news literacy.” In addition, most news literacy curricula do not take into account research findings related to selective exposure, which can substantially influence what media a person consumes and, therefore, what information they’re exposed to. This study sought to test, using a two-condition, single-level experiment (N = 228), whether a game-based news literacy intervention could improve the news literacy of adults outside a formal educational setting. Results showed that playing the game did not increase news literacy scores by a statistically significant amount compared with the control condition, in which participants played an unrelated game. However, people with more education were significantly more likely to score higher on news literacy, compared to those with less education. The results highlight the difficulty in affecting news literacy using short-term interventions, given that news literacy skills are likely built up over many years.

< 2019 Abstracts

Visual Communication 2018 Abstracts

From Reel Life to Real Change: The Role of Social-Issue Documentary in U.S. Public Policy • Caty Borum Chattoo, American University School of Communication and Center for Media & Social Impact; Will Jenkins • This study examines three digital-era U.S. documentary films – Sin by Silence (2009), Playground (2009), and Semper Fi (2011) – to reveal cultural and narrative elements of influence that underscored their successful U.S. policy engagement on federal and state levels. Expanding the coalition model of documentary’s political impact (Whiteman, 2004) through case studies constructed by interviews with the collaborating policymakers, policy advocates and film directors, this study finds that social-issue documentaries may be influential for policy engagement because their narratives are perceived as emotional, factual, and nonpartisan. Documentary narrative is positioned as “situated knowledge” (Epstein, Farina & Heidt, 2014), narrative that presents human implications and lived experiences within the policymaking context. Ultimately, the policy impact of these three social-issue documentary films can be attributed to the dual defining characteristics of documentary as a visual mediated storytelling genre: both creative artistic expression and reflection of truth.

Giving Guidance to Graphs: Evaluating Direct and Indirect Annotations of Data Visualizations for the News • Russell Chun, Hofstra University • This study quantifies the effectiveness of information recall with direct and indirect labeling of the annotation layer in a news data visualization. Three variations of a New York Times graphic were presented to participants in a crowd-sourced experiment to measure their story comprehension. Our results demonstrate that direct labeling offers no advantage over indirect labeling. More significantly, annotations on visualizations do no better to enhance comprehension than visualizations without them, contradicting data visualization orthodoxy.

“This is still their lives:” Photojournalists’ ethical approach to capturing and publishing graphic/shocking images • Kaitlin Bane, University of Oregon; Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon • Graphic and gut-wrenching images of death, violence, and the aftermath of pain fill our news media. This paper uses in-depth interviews with photojournalists to explore fundamental ethical questions about the decision-making process and ethical considerations involved in photographing and publishing such images. Research found participants utilize an ethic of care and focus on subjects when taking pictures, and consider audience effects only tangentially. Additionally, they maintain that images can create positive change, but not always.

To tone or not to tone: A hierarchy of influences examination of photojournalistic image manipulation • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado Boulder; Ross Taylor, U of Colorado-Boulder • This study investigates how professional photojournalists apply toning ethics in their news routines and whether those ethics vary by organization. Utilizing data collected from in-depth interviews with professional photojournalists and a hierarchy of influences framework, we found that while some ethical decisions are embedded in photojournalists’ news routines, these do vary greatly by organization. These findings illustrate how journalistic norms could be potentially changing and that individual news organizations are applying ethics differently.

Recoding Language with Fatty Memes: How Chinese Netizens Avoid Censorship When Referring to North Korea • Bingbing Zhang, Texas Tech University; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University; David Perlmutter, Texas Tech University • Memes are humorous images, often featuring captions with superimposed text, that are shared online. In an effort to avoid censorship, Chinese netizens strategically use memes to discuss political issues. This study content analyzes memes that feature an image or likeness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un posted by Chinese social media users on the Weibo platform. Results highlight how politically astute, tech-savvy publics can express political dissent, even in a high-censorship online environment.

Capturing the Crisis: A Content Analysis of News Photographs of the Syrian Refugee Crisis • Tamar Gregorian, The University of Southern Mississippi; Elizabeth Radley • The Syrian refugee crisis, the largest migration of displaced persons in recent history, has been widely documented through photographs. In an attempt to understand the media frames and tones that the media used in covering the crisis through photographs of the refugees, the researchers conducted a content analysis of 629 photographs and captions from The New York Times and The Washington Post from May 2014 – May 2016. Results indicate that the majority of the photographs containing Syrian refugees had a negative tone, a main message of migration, and stereotyped the refugees as victims.

Mobile Augmented Reality through the Lens of Eye Tracking • Sheree Josephson, Weber State University; Melina Myers, Weber State University • This eye-tracking study compared the usability of Yelp’s Augmented Reality app with its familiar map-based app. Results showed AR users could successfully find a destination using the location-based technology that augments a display of the physical landscape with digital information. However, AR users took longer to find the location. They also spent more time looking at the mobile screen and looked back and forth between the screen and the environment more often than map users.

Effects of Playfulness on SNS Emoji Uses • Yeon Joo Kim; Jaehee Park; Jong Woo Jun, Dankook University • This research tries to verify, from a marketing strategy perspective, various purchasing motivations and factors affecting the purchase of special emoji graphics and explore the relationship between these purchase motivations and psychological factors, including playfulness that contribute to emoji purchases. For this study, Kakao which is the number one SNS service in Korea was selected as a research target and examined relationships among four latent constructs: Self-presentation, symbolic values, playfulness, and purchase intentions. The results illustrated that self-presentation influenced symbolic values, and self-presentation is positively related with playfulness. Symbolic values influenced playfulness, which in turn lead to purchase intentions of the characters. Direct relationships between symbolic values and purchase intentions were also found.

All About the Visuals: Image Framing, Emoticons and Sharing Intention for Health News Posts on Facebook • Yen-I Lee, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia; Bartosz Wojdynski, University of Georiga; Katherine Keib, Oglethorpe University; Brittany Jefferson, University of Georgia; Jennifer Malson, University of Georgia; Hyoyeun Jun, University of Georgia • Responding to calls for research on effects of visual communication in the cognitive processing of health information, a 2 (visual framing: gain/loss) x 2 (personal relevance of topic: high/low) x 2 (emoticon valence: positive/negative) mixed-factorial eye-tracking experiment tested effects of photographic images (gain-or-loss framed) and visual sentiment displays (emoticons) on sharing of health news posts. Negative emoticons led to greater sharing intent, while image framing shaped perceptions of disease severity and susceptibility.

Who Can Be Put at Risk by “Virtual Makeovers”?: Self-Photo Editing, Disordered Eating, and the Role of Mindset among Adult Female Instagram Users • Roselyn Lee-Won, The Ohio State University; Dingyu Hu, The Ohio State University; Yeon Kyoung Joo, Myongji University; Sung Gwan Park, Seoul National University • We investigated the relationship between self-photo editing on Instagram and disordered eating among adult females. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with U.S. female Instagram users (N = 382). Results showed that more frequent self-photo editing was associated with greater rumination about eating, weight, and shape, which in turn was associated with disordered eating. Furthermore, a moderated mediation analysis revealed that the mediation was significant among those with moderate and high levels of fixed mindset.

Social beautifying: How personality traits and social comparison affect selfie-editing behavior • Yu Liu, Florida International University; Weirui Wang • Individual users worldwide purposefully and selectively edit their selfies and post their photos on social networking sites. Based on social comparison framework, this study examines how personality traits affect individuals’ selfie-editing behavior through social comparison process: downward identification, downward contrast, upward identification, and upward contrast. The findings suggest individuals with high public self-consciousness, low self-esteem, and high neuroticism tend to engage in different types of social comparison, which are associated with their selfie-editing behavior.

Two days, twenty outfits: Coachella attendees’ visual presentation of self and experience on Instagram • Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin • This study uses visual discourse analysis to study how people utilize social media and photography at events such as a music festival, theoretically guided by how technological affordances allow for a new way of presentation of self. Analysis of 200 Instagram posts from attendees at the 2017 Coachella music festival reveals they care less about sharing photos of the concerts and more about curating a sense of taste, sense of embrace and sense of place.

Celebrating Life or Adversity? The Redefinition of Features in the Pictures of the Year International Contest • Jennifer Midberry; Ryan N. Comfort, Indiana University Bloomington; Joseph Roskos, Indiana University-Bloomington • “Photojournalism contests have been criticized for continually awarding top prizes in hard news categories to images that depict conflict, disaster, poverty, and other problems. Pictures like these, which have a social issues visual frame, usually focus on people from countries other than the United States and on minorities. Some photojournalism contests, like Pictures of the Year International (POYi), include a features category. Traditionally, feature photos capture

humorous, tender, or picturesque moments of everyday life, and their purpose is to celebrate the human condition. The feature photo category should theoretically be an area in photojournalism contests that breaks from the pattern of emphasizing social issues. However, in recent years of POYi the features category appears to also be dominated by images that stress hardship. To investigate whether this represents an increasing trend in POYi of awarding prizes to pictures that focus on social issues, a content analysis of the winning photographs from the past twenty years was conducted. Understanding whether the feature category in POYi has evolved is important because when it comes to shaping discourses about social issues, national identities, ethnicity and race, feature photos have the potential for emphasizing commonality. If the newsworthiness of feature photos starts to become tied to similar criteria as hard news photos, that potential will be diminished.”

Internet memes and copyright law: The transformativeness of memes as tools of visual communication in remix culture • Natalia Mielczarek; W. Wat Hopkins • Internet memes have become popular artifacts of visual communication in digital culture. They are, by definition, reiterative as they remix already existing content to produce new rhetorical statements. This interdisciplinary study explores the legal implications of such “produsage” vis-à-vis the U.S. copyright law. With the help of legal research and theoretical framework of remix culture and memetics, the study shows how and why memes deserve legal protection as transformative work.

Reinvestigating the Beauty Match Up in Food Ads • Juan Mundel, DePaul University; Patricia Huddleston, Michigan State University • In two studies, we explore how males evaluate models of different body sizes in snack and fast food ads, and the effects of the pairing of different models with products perceived to be healthy (vs. unhealthy) on participants’ evaluations of the the product, the ad, and purchase intentions. Overall, participants had better evaluations of the ads when presented with unhealthy foods and models with idealized bodies.

The Visual Framing of Immigrants and Refugees in U.S. News: Content and Effects • Scott Parrott, The University of Alabama; Jennifer Hoewe, Purdue University; Minghui Fan, The University of Alabama; Keith Huffman, The University of Alabama • This research examines the visual framing of immigrants and refugees by U.S. news outlets and its effects on news consumers. In Study 1, coders examined the photographs used in stories about immigrants and refugees that were shared on Twitter by regional news outlets in each of the 50 states. Stories most often contained one of two visual foci: a human interest frame, featuring immigrants and refugees as everyday people; or a political frame, showcasing politicians. In an experiment, Study 2 determined the equivalency framing effects of these visuals on participants’ emotions and, in turn, their attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. Exposure to a human interest visual frame predicted more positive emotional responses, leading to greater support for immigrants and refugees. Conversely, exposure to a political visual frame predicted more negative emotional responses and then less support for immigrants and refugees.

Profile Pictures Across Platforms: How identity visually manifests itself among social media communities • T.J. Thomson, Missouri School of Journalism; Keith Greenwood, University of Missouri • A profile picture is a ubiquitous and salient part of almost any online account and provides a window not only into the individual user but also to the larger online community’s culture. Profile pictures have been called “one of the most telling pieces of self-disclosure or image construction” in online communities and users face dizzying freedom when deciding on their selection. Such choices have been studied in discrete contexts, such as how personality type affects profile picture selection on Twitter, but they have not yet been studied across platforms to see whether the same photo is used across multiple sites or whether users select different photos for different communities and what such differences or similarities reveal both about the users and about the communities from which they originate. Informed by literature in social psychology and self-representation, this study offers a seminal look into how profile pictures differ across platforms and how user personality and perceived audience affect such decisions. It does so through a three-pronged approach of personality assessment, textual analysis, and in-depth interview. The findings reveal that the younger users sampled in this study overwhelmingly prefer polychromatic images and a majority preferred to have a unique picture on each platform. These same users are comfortable having their identifiable features in their profile pictures and those who are more extroverted preferred to share the frame with someone else. In many ways, the users in the sample rejected artifice for authenticity in terms of their profile pictures’ form, content, and the the way they were processed, if at all, in post-production.

Analysis of Photographic Representation of Refugees in France • Anna Warner, Biola University; Tamara Welter, Biola university; Jason Brunt, Biola University • This research investigates the photographic representation by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) of Middle Eastern refugees seeking asylum in France. The objective is to determine how refugees were represented to audiences and whether that depiction changed in the wake of the November 2015 Paris Suicide Attacks. Analysis shows that refugees were represented differently after the attacks, in a way that aligned more closely with French collectivism than before.

Feminine, Competent, Submissive: A Multimodal Analysis of Depictions of Women in U.S. Wartime Persuasive Messages • Easton Wollney, University of Florida; Miglena Sternadori, Texas Tech University College of Media and Communication • This analysis used Peirce’s triadic approach to interpret 58 public depictions of wartime women from 1914 to 1918 and from 1941 to 1946. The images appeared in government posters or as ads and illustrations in U.S. magazines and newspapers. Aligned in five thematic clusters, many invited polysemy through discrepant visual and verbal cues aimed at different audiences. Women as viewers and as objects of representation were addressed in the context of both citizenship and consumption.

It Costs a Lot to Look This Cheap: Preference for Low Quality Graphic Design • Shannon Zenner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Some 1000 surveys were conducted on Amazon’s MTurk, asking respondents to rate a high and low-quality visual design, in this case, a billboard ad. While most respondents preferred the high-quality ad, over a third opted for the low-quality design. The qualities they described liking in the ad differed from those respondents who preferred the high-quality design. Age also played a role in preference. Implications for many different types of visual communication are discussed.

Effects of Visual Theme and View Perspective on Visual Attention and Brand Constructions: An Eye-Tracking Study on Instagram Posts • Lijie Zhou, Southern Utah University; Fei Xue, The University of Southern Miss • This eye-tracking study examined the effects of visual theme and view perspective on Instagram users’ visual attention. It also explored whether visual attention influenced brand attitude and recognition. Results showed that participants spent the longest time viewing and paid the most attention to customer-centric images with a first-person view perspective. When in a third-person view, product-centric images received the longest fixation duration and most fixation frequency. It was also found that brand recognition was positively influenced by fixation frequency but not by fixation duration.

2018 ABSTRACTS

International Communication 2018 Abstracts

Markham Student Paper Competition
Phillip Arceneaux, University of Florida • The West Africa we were shown: A visual content analysis of the 2014 Ebola epidemic • Via content analysis, this study investigated what themes of West Africa were visually publicized by U.S. newspapers, and if such themes mirrored coverage of African groups. Data were collected from the New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Dallas Morning News. Quantitative findings suggest coverage favored victim-based frames which became significantly less negative once Ebola patients were in the United States. Such results contribute to literature regarding public perception of foreign affairs covered in the media.

William Edwards; Kyle Saunders • Perceptions and Reality of Press Freedom Following the Arab Spring: An Analysis of Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia • This study examines the relationship between perception of press freedom and both frequency of political news consumption and perception of government corruption in Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia in 2013. Results showed that frequency of political news consumption is positively correlated with a poor perception of press freedom in Egypt, and that poor perception of press freedom is positively correlated with perception of corruption levels in government in Egypt and Iraq.

James Gachau • Facebook Groups as Affective Counterpublics • Using counterpublic theory à la Nancy Fraser, Catherine Squires, Zizi Papacharissi, and Michael Warner, this article analyzes the media content shared on three Facebook groups’ walls. Based in Kenya, the first group identifies with freethought and atheism in a society that is predominantly Christian. The second group campaigns for a proud Black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks. The third group espouses a feminist atheist identity against Judeo-Christian “white male supremacy.”

Chen Gan, 1990 • Influence of Cultural Distance on Female Body Image: Race, Beauty Type, and Image Processing • This experimental study aimed to investigate the role of cultural distance on beauty ideal, regarding different races and inclined beauty types, in women’s responses to idealized media images. A sample of 140 young Chinese women viewed advertisements containing East Asian models in Cute/Girl-next-door looks (CG), East Asian models in Sexual/Sensual looks (SS), Caucasian models in CG looks, Caucasian models in SS looks, or product-only images. Image processing variables (comparison, fantasy, and internalization) and body image outcomes (state mood and body satisfaction) were measured immediately after advertising viewing. It was found that exposure to CG-type models elicited higher comparison, fantasy, internalization, and improved positive emotions among participants than SS-type models. Model’s race only had effect on internalization, and participants exposed to Caucasian models reported higher internalization than those exposed to East Asian models. Moreover, regression analyses revealed significant relationships between image processing variables and body image outcomes. This study develops a framework for cross-cultural body image research and casts some implications on the influence of exposure to Western media on Chinese women’s beauty ideal and feminine values.

Gregory Gondwe, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO • News believability, trustworthiness and information contagion in African online Social networks: An Experimental design • This experimental study seeks to find out what kind of news source is most believable in Africa between those generated by the West and those generated within the African continent. Second, it measures the levels of contagion within those news stories from two different continents. Using Zambian and Tanzanian online news sources, the study employs experiments to argue that NWICO and McBride’s debates are still relevant in today’s digital age.

Volha Kananovich • Thanks, Obama: Internet Memes as Contested Political Spaces in the United States and Russia • Drawing on the concept of a meme as a “nationwide inside joke” and a potential vehicle of anti-elite political expression, this study compares the evolution of Obama memes in America and Russia. The findings show that, despite the broad participatory appeal of the format, the reach of the meme remains contingent on the socio-political context. This may constrain the meme’s diffusion outside the tight community of liberally minded, politically savvy Internet users.

Liudmila Khalitova, University of Florida; Sofiya Tarasevich, University of Florida • Assessing the role of international broadcasters as information subsidies in the international agenda-building process • This paper explores the agenda-building potential of government-sponsored international broadcasting (GIB) by focusing on the relationships between congruence of political culture and journalists’ practices regarding the use of foreign government-sponsored news content. The findings suggest that value proximity between a broadcaster’s home country and the host country increases the likelihood that the host country’s media will use the GIB as an information source and will accept frames promoted by the government that funds the GIB.

Claire Shinhea Lee • Making Home through Cord-cutting: The Case of Korean Temporary Visa-status Migrants’ Post-Cable culture in U.S. • With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are “cutting the cords” and viewing television through Internet-based video services via streaming or downloading. This study aims to better understand and contextualize this phenomenon through investigating Korean temporary visa-status migrants’ television viewing practices. Through 40 qualitative interviews and employing the framework of the domestication theory perspective, this paper examines how these deterritorialized individuals who experience dislocation make home through cord-cutting practices. By making use of the Internet and delivery technologies/ interfaces legally and illegally, Korean tempv migrants go beyond territorial limitations and make home materially, feel home affectively, and connect home relationally in their diasporic space. Moreover, the study debunks some utopian ideas about online audiences and shows what remains fixed in terms of transnational post-cable culture. I argue that the paper provides many insights into investigating contemporary television audiences and suggest a novel approach to studying migrant media practices.

Nyan Lynn, University of Kansas • The danger of words: Major challenges facing Myanmar journalists on reporting the Rohingya conflict • When covering the Rohingya conflict, Myanmar journalists were criticized for failing to question the government and army. They were also criticized for their reports, most of them are one-sided and lack of multiple voices. This research studied why Myanmar journalists failed to report this conflict professionally and what major challenges they have faced. This research interviewed 17 reporters and editors from 10 media outlets, most of them based in Yangon.

Ruth Moon, University of Washington • “They only threaten you or cut off your job”: How Rwandan journalists learn self-censorship • This paper examines the communication and implementation of a self-censorship norm among journalists in Rwanda. Using observation and interview data from eight months of fieldwork, I show that self-censorship in this context is communicated in a two-step process that can be understood using the concept of isomorphism from institutional theory. Editors and publishers are directly pressured to produce particular kinds of news coverage and pass on the expectation to reporters through obliquely communicated expectations.

Subin Paul, University of Iowa • The Qatar-Gulf Crisis and Narratives of Emotionality in Nepal’s English-language Press • This study examines the media discourse on the 2017-18 Gulf diplomatic crisis and its effect on one of the most marginalized populations in Qatar: Nepali migrant workers. While the diplomatic crisis made news headlines across the Middle East, Nepal-based newspapers were the only ones to cover the vulnerable migrant worker population in some detail. In writing about this population, three prominent English-language publications in Nepal, the Kathmandu Post, Republica, and People’s Review employed emotional storytelling. Drawing on Wahl-Jorgensen’s notion of the “strategic ritual of emotionality,” this study specifically analyzes the use of emotion in the three publications’ news coverage. The study finds that the publications engaged in the ritual of emotionality not by assigning that function to external news sources, as common in Western newspapers, but mainly through their own journalists and opinion writers who narrated their subjective viewpoints and concerns. This unreserved embrace of emotions and subjectivity in newswriting illuminates a unique, cultural mode of producing journalism.

Robert L. Stevenson Open Paper Competition
Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Riffe; Meghan Sobel; Seoyeon Kim • “Pivoting” With the President’s Gaze: Exploring New York Times Foreign-Policy Coverage Across Nine Administrations • Through an analysis of 50 years of New York Times’ international news coverage (N = 20,765) across nine presidencies, ranging from Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 to Barack Obama in 2015, we apply an interpretive framework guided by presidential historians’ nonpartisan insights to an examination of the top-ten countries and topics covered during each administration in order to assess whether the Times’ gaze toward particular events or issues aligned with presidential “pivots” or priorities in foreign policy agendas. This study extends previous research on press nationalism and foreign policy coverage, updating this line of inquiry to examine whether or how an elite American newspaper covered international affairs throughout the past 50 years. We find limited evidence exists of an “echoing press” consistently following the “presidential gaze,” illustrating that events in the rest of the world can turn the press’ gaze away from policy goals; however, countries and topics covered during each administration do indicate some alignment with key presidential “pivots” or priorities over time. Further, some presidential and press priorities remained consistent across administrations, illustrating the linear way conflict and diplomacy carry over from one president to the next. This study documents and interprets changing patterns in foreign-policy coverage and contributes to a larger body of work discussing the complex roles of the president-as-newsmaker and of the press who cover – and sometimes “echo” – his administration’s efforts.

Aje-Ori Agbese • Thanks, Tonto and Mercy! Three Nigerian Newspapers’ Coverage of Domestic Violence in Nigeria, 2015-2017 • This study explored how Nigerian newspapers portrayed domestic violence and domestic violence cases in Nigeria. Through content and thematic frame analyses of three Nigerian newspapers from 2015 to 2017, the study found that Nigerian newspapers provided their audiences with a variety of information and failed to portray domestic violence cases as a social problem. Rather, they were portrayed as isolated incidents and blamed the victim for her death or beating.

Ali Al-Kandari, Gulf University for Science and Technology; Mariam Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University; Deb Aikat, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Political and Cultural Forces on the Uses and Gratifications: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat in the U.S and Kuwait • Fundamentally disparate norms of politics, freedom and culture distinguish civil societies in U.S. and Kuwait and impact social media users. By integrating uses and gratifications theories, this study compares U.S. and Kuwaiti social media users’ motivations, time spent, and engagement with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, the leading social media platforms. Based on an audience-oriented survey of U.S. and Kuwaiti social media users, this study concludes that while Kuwaiti users were more likely to use Snapchat and Twitter, U.S. users were more likely to use Facebook and Instagram. Different free speech norms differentiate U.S. and Kuwait. Freedom of speech is not absolute in Kuwait like most nations in the Arab region. The U.S. protects free speech through the First Amendment to its Constitution. This explicates why Kuwaiti social media users’ motivation of learning and information through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat constituted mean values higher than users in the U.S.

Mel Bunce • Foreign correspondents and the international news coverage of Africa • This paper contributes to our knowledge of the factors influencing international news coverage of Africa. It presents the results of 67 interviews with foreign correspondents in sub Saharan Africa that explore the daily practices, working conditions and news values of these journalists. The interviews show that foreign correspondents in Africa have significant autonomy to shape news content – but only when they work at more elite news outlets – those which Pierre Bourdieu would describe as seeking ‘symbolic capital’.

Li Chen, WTAMU • When Hippocrates encountered Confucius – A textual analysis of representations of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas • Using the theory of Social Representation, the current research project studies the representations of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas. The study has three goals: 1) to reveal the anchoring of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas; 2) to examine the objectification of medical professionalism; and 3) to analyze the consistency and inconsistency between the localized medical professionalism and the medical professionalism codes proposed by medical scholars and professional associations such as Charter on Medical Professionalism. The results of the textual analysis suggest that medical professionalism was anchored within a Confucian framework: medical dramas used two typical terms, benevolent skills and benevolent heart, to describe the meaning of medical professionalism. Chinese medical dramas were found to add two more components to medical professionalism, making it inconsistent with conventional medical professionalism.

Karin Assmann, University of Maryland; Stine Eckert • ProQuote: A German women journalists’ initiative to revolutionize newsroom leadership • Using standpoint epistemology and critical mass theory this study examines outcomes of the so-called ProQuote [Pro Quota] initiative in Germany to bring at least 30 percent of women journalists into leadership per newsroom. In-depth interviews with 25 journalists in 12 newsrooms find somewhat increased transparency in personnel decisions; improvements in work culture; and more representation of women and diversity on the editorial agenda in all newsrooms that have reached or came near ProQuote’s goal.

Katherine Grasso; William Edwards • A Different Story: Examining the Relationship between Exposure to Snapchat’s “LIVE” Story Feature and Perceptions of Muslims and Arabs • Using Intergroup Contact Theory, the relationship between viewing content depicting Muslims/Arabs on Snapchat and viewers’ attitudes toward Muslims/Arabs was tested. In an online survey, 397 participants reported the frequency and nature of portrayals of Muslims/Arabs in news media, entertainment media, and on Snapchat. Participants’ attitudes about Muslims/Arabs were also measured. Portrayals of Muslims/Arabs on Snapchat were positive, but attitudes toward Muslims/Arabs were not better among Snapchat viewers than non-viewers. These tests, however, lacked statistical power.

Lyombe Eko; Natalia Mielczarek • Raping Europa Again?: Discursive Constructions of the European Refugee Crisis in Four German and Polish News Magazine Covers. • Newsmagazine covers are visual narratives that draw upon myths and archetypes to explain contemporary events. We analyzed how four German and Polish news magazine covers re-presented the European immigration crisis of 2015. The covers of Der Spiegel, Die Stern (Germany), WSieci and Polityka (Poland) couched critiques and concordance with government policy in ancient myths of difference between East and West. Despite discordance of form, the covers demonstrated concordance of substance with respect to the crisis.

BELLARMINE EZUMAH, Murray State University • De-Westernizing Journalism Curriculum in Africa through Glocalization and Hybridization. • The debate that dominant model of global journalism education is predominantly western has permeated the journalism education discourse for decades. Despite several attempts by scholars and international organizations, specifically, the UNESCO through the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC), to de-westernize journalism curriculum, remnants of the dominant paradigm debate still persists. This paper recognizes the existence of western concepts in journalism education worldwide at the same time, concedes that striking attempts have been made to de-westernize and glocalize journalism curriculum. Essentially, this paper hinges on the thesis that instead of resisting the UNESCO model, reformation and adaptation through glocalization and hybridization is encouraged. As such, we further provide a practical application whereby both sides of the above argument are accredited and a hybridization intervention was applied in a collaborative venture between a US-based Scholar and Ugandan Scholars in developing a locally-congruent curriculum for a brand new journalism program at a university in Uganda.

Alex Fattal, Penn State • Target Intimacy: Notes on the convergence of the militarization and marketization of love in Colombia • This article looks beneath the linguistic hinges of “campaigns” and “targets” that connect military and marketing expertise, two spheres that are experiencing a tactical and epistemological convergence in Colombia. The plain of that convergence, I argue, is intimacy and the shared objective is the instrumentalization of love—in the pursuit of victory and profit. I trace how both sets of experts—generals and executives—have come to valorize and appropriate, by any means possible, intimacy, a fleeting index of love, in the context of the Colombian military’s individual demobilization program. Through ethnographic analysis I trace the way in which consumer marketers working with the military try to persuade guerrilla fighters to abandon the insurgency, and the ways military intelligence officers do the same. In juxtaposing the two respective the processes, I show how targeting serves as a switch that connects the counterinsurgency state and the marketing nation in Colombia.

Victor García-Perdomo, Universidad de La Sabana; Summer Harlow, University of Houston; Danielle Kilgo, Indiana University • Framing the Colombian Peace Process: Between Peace and War Journalism • This bilingual, cross-national study analyzes stories about the Colombian peace process that were engaged with on social media to understand the use of peace and war framing in news reporting. Results show that, even during peace talks, media use war narratives more often than peace frames, and social media users amplify more war than peace-oriented content. Proximity also was shown to be an important factor, as Colombian media used more war frames than foreign media.

Vanessa Higgins Joyce, Texas State University; Summer Harlow, University of Houston • Seeking Transnational, Entrepreneurial News from Latin America: An Audience Analysis • Digital-native entrepreneurial news sites from Latin America are generating change in the region’s industry. These news organizations are being accessed nationally and across national boundaries. This study examined, through the theoretical lens of social capital, factors contributing to the creation of transnational audiences for these news organizations. A survey of audiences for these independent news sites in Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela indicated that economic capital, youth, and being female predicted transnational entrepreneurial news use.

Lea Hellmueller; Valerie Hase • Giving Voice to Terrorists: A longitudinal model explaining how national political contexts influence media attention toward terrorist organizations • Few studies have examined how national political contexts shape news attention of terrorism beyond the coverage of terrorist attacks. Based on an automated content analysis between 2014 and 2016 (N = 18,531), this study examines media attention in the US and the UK toward international terrorist organizations in a longitudinal setting. Results reveal that mediated visibility of terrorists is based on media’s political and national embeddedness besides characteristics of terrorist groups.

Lea Hellmueller; Matthias Revers, University of Leeds • Populist Journalism Challenging Media and Political Fields: Transnational analysis of right-wing meta-journalistic discourses • Anti-institutional media discourses have become an integral part of digital right-wing media (e.g. Big Journalism on Breitbart.com). Drawing on automated text analysis, this study analyzes media criticism of right-wing digital websites (2015-2017) in Germany, Austria, and the US. Media outlets, while focusing on anti-globalization discourses, embrace transnational logics of concerns for the decline of Western democracies. Discourses are theorized as space between journalistic and political fields that transcend national boundaries and contribute to social destabilization.

Liefu Jiang, University of Kansas; Peter Bobkowski, University of Kansas • Reading, commenting, and posting: Social media engagements and Chinese students’ acculturation in the United States • Through an online survey with 209 participants, this paper employs acculturation theory to investigate the relationship between social media use and Chinese students’ acculturation in the United States. The findings suggest that the use of western social media platforms is positively related to Chinese students’ acculturation. Specifically, consuming and creating engagements on western social media are positively related to students’ psychological adaptation, while contributing engagements on western platforms are positively related to sociocultural adaptation.

Ralph Martins; Shageaa Naqvi, Northwestern University in Qatar; Justin Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar • Predictors of Cultural Conservatism in Six Arab Countries • This study examined predictors of self-reported cultural conservatism/progressivism among nationals in six Arab countries (n=4,529): Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE. Many variables found in prior research to be correlated with conservatism in Western countries—support for censorship, income, support for cultural preservation, and others—were not positively associated with conservatism in Arab countries. In fact, willingness to censor media was mostly negatively associated with conservatism in the Arab countries studied here. Some variables did correlate with conservatism in ways reflective of countries where conservatism has been studied extensively; age was positively associated with conservatism and education was negatively correlated, for example, but these relationships were not consistent across countries. Self-reported conservatism differed significantly across countries; Emiratis and Tunisians felt more conservative than people in their countries, while Lebanese and Egyptians were more evenly split among conservatives and progressives.

Mireya Máruqez-Ramírez; Claudia Mellado; María Luisa Humanes; Adriana Amado; Daniel Beck; Jacques Mick; Cornelia Mothes; Dasniel Olivera; Nikos Panagiotou; Svetlana Pasti; Henry Silke; Colin Sparks; Agnieszka Stepinska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan; Gabriella Szabo; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Moniza Waheed; Haiyan Wang • Detached watchdog versus adversarial reporting: a comparative study of journalistic role performance in 18 countries • This paper analyses the performance of the detached/passive and the adversarial/active orientations of the watchdog role (N= 33,640) from 18 countries, modelling the factors that better explain their presence in the news. The findings showed that the detached watchdog prevails around the world, although significant differences appear in the type of hybridization of journalistic cultures depending on the orientations – passive versus active – of the watchdog role. The data revealed that the adversarial/active type of watchdog prevails in advanced democracies with contexts of political and economic turmoil, and also in some transitional democracies from Eastern Europe; while the passive stance of this role peaks in liberal democracies such as the United States and Germany. Our results also indicate that societal variables are the strongest predictors of both types of orientations, but specially of adversarial reporting.

Rachel Mourao, Michigan State University; Weiyue Chen, Michigan State University • Covering protests on Twitter – The Influences on Brazilian Journalists’ Social Media Portrayals of the 2013 and 2015 Demonstrations • This paper uses a media sociology approach to untangle how multiple influences shaped the way Brazilian journalists tweet about left and right-leaning protests. Through a mixed methodology matching survey to social media data, we found that individual attitudes predict the way reporters tweeted about protestors, indicating that social media is a space for personal, not professional, expression. As a result, patterns of protest coverage were often challenged, suggesting that Twitter has not yet been normalized.

karlyga myssayeva, al-Farabi Kazakh National University; Saule Barlybayeva, al-Farabi Kazakh National University; Sayagul Alimbekova, al-Farabi Kazakh National University • Political News Use and Democratic Support: A study of Kazakhstan’s TV impact • This study examines the impact of television during the democratization process in Kazakhstan. Television plays a significant role as a public watchdog, with greater success than other media in disseminating a range of perspectives, information, and commentary in Kazakhstan. The analysis examines whether televised political news and information leads to support for democracy and increases public interest in the democratization process. The study discusses the utility and implications of the role of television in democratization.

Olga Kamenchuk, Ohio State University; erik nisbet • Liberation or Control? How do the attitudes of Russian Facebook users differ from those on Runet platforms Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki? • We examine the potential of social media to be a technology of liberation or control in Russia. We theorize that Facebook users, as opposed to users who only use co-opted Russian platforms will express more pro-democratic attitudes. Employing a nationwide household survey conducted in 2016 our analysis shows Facebook users are less trusting and more critical of the government and also express greater support for civil liberties than Russian’s who only use Vkontakte or Odnoklassniki.

BRETT LABBE, University of Indiana South Bend; SangHee Park, University of Wisconsin – Whitewater • U.S. News Media’s Framing of the ‘North Korean Crisis’ Under the Trump Administration: The New Ideological Foreign Affairs Paradigm • On 11 February 2017, North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test of the Trump Administration. Over the ensuing year the North Korean government continued to defy international pressures through the intensification of its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. During this timeframe, an escalation of adversarial rhetoric between the Trump Administration and the Kim Jong-un military government gained widespread media attention for its potential to escalate into military aggression. This study analyzes USA Today coverage of the ‘North Korean crisis’, and its subsequent de-escalation following the announcements of diplomatic talks in March 2018 in order to gain insight into the nature of mainstream U.S. media framing of the issue. Consistent with ‘Cold War’ and ‘War on Terror’ framing scholarship, this study found that the mainstream U.S. media facilitates the construction of dominant, ideological narratives that guide dominant interpretations of the international system and the United States’ position and actions within it.

Subin Paul, University of Iowa; David Dowling • Dalit Online Activism: The Digital Archive as a Site of Political Resistance in India • As digital news archives maintained by mainstream media outlets and libraries proliferate across the world, much less is discussed in academic literature about the efforts of socially marginalized groups to document their news stories. Our case study of Dalit Camera (DC), an online news archive based in Hyderabad, India, examines how historically disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, or “Untouchables,” are leveraging digital tools to narrate their oppressive past to the outside world parallel to the rise of political censorship in India. As part of its archiving process, DC is preserving footage of Dalit resistance against the hegemonic domination by caste Hindus and is thus becoming a useful resource for journalism history scholars. Through their grassroots network of citizen journalists, DC is also engaged in reporting caste-based discrimination and violence today, contributing to the Dalit social movement for equality and justice. Using Manuel Castells’s insights on social movements in the digital age and situating the work of DC within the field of Subaltern Studies, our essay explores the challenges and politics of news archiving in contemporary India, in the process explaining how various socio-political factors curate the content of news archives, and consequently, the construction of journalism history.

Victoria Knight, University of Georgia; Ivanka Pjesivac, University of Georgia; Michael Cacciatore, University of Georgia • Otherization of Africa: How American Media Framed People Living with HIV/AIDS in Africa from 1987 to 2007 • This study examined otherization framing of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa in American media 1987-2007. The results of a content analysis of the representative sample of news articles from three outlets (N=421) show that American media overwhelmingly used otherization frames throughout the 20-year period, in relation to negative article tone. The study represents the first attempt to quantify otherization framing of Africa in HIV/AIDS context. The implications for international reporting and theory are discussed.

Jyotika Ramaprasad • Journalism Ethics and the BRICS Journalist • This paper presents results of a survey of journalists from BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on their ethical orientations: absolutist, situationist, subjectivist, and exceptionist. These orientations are personal level generalized ethical beliefs based on a person’s relativism and idealism in the ethics arena. Individual, work related, and societal level factors are considered as correlates to assess how much they account for these beliefs.

Nataliya Roman, University of North Florida; Mariam Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University; Margaret Stewart, University of North Florida • Tweeting about Terror: Using World Systems Theory to compare international newspaper coverage online • This study looks at news coverage of terrorist attacks on Twitter over a five-year period. It examines Twitter accounts of three American and three UK elite newspapers. This study found that World Systems Theory predicted terrorist attacks coverage in the American media, but not in the UK media. Terrorist attacks in core countries received significantly more attention than attacks in non-core countries in the American media. Also, this study revealed that just three terrorist attacks: January and November 2015 Paris attacks and Brussels 2016 bombings, accounted for nearly a half of the overall U.S. and UK tweets examined in this study.

Jane B. Singer, City, University of London; Marcel Broersma, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen • Innovation and Entrepreneurship: International Journalism Students’ Interpretive Repertoires for a Changing Occupation • Amid ongoing media disruption worldwide, discourse about journalism has increasingly emphasized innovation within the newsroom and the rise of entrepreneurial initiatives outside it. This paper uses the concept of interpretive repertoires to understand how international students preparing for journalism careers understand innovation and entrepreneurialism in relation to changing industry circumstances and long-standing conceptualizations of occupational norms and behaviors. We find shared repertoires that embrace technological change, but generally within an acceptance of traditional normative practice.

Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University; Maria Clara Martucci; G. Scott Burgess, Wayne State Univesity • To censor and surveil: Cross-national effects of online suppression technologies on democractization • Using country- and multi-level analyses, we assess whether internet censorship and surveillance obstruct democratization, providing the first cross-national tests of online surveillance effects. Across 63 countries, online government monitoring is negatively associated with democratization, while internet censorship exhibits no additional effect. We theorize that suppression technologies erode democratic progress by thwarting collective action and examine how they affect individual-level disruptive political participation in a sub-sample of 21 countries. Together, these results suggest the need for greater scrutiny of surveillance and censorship technologies and the countries that use them. Political implications are discussed.

Linsen Su; Xigen Li • Perceived Agenda-Setting Effects in International Context: Media’s Impacts on Americans’ Perception toward China • The previous studies on agenda setting mainly address the effects on aggregate level without full consideration of individual differences. The current study puts forward a highly-related but different concept—the perceived agenda setting effects of media by the audience. The study confirms the existence of perceived agenda setting effects through a structured online survey (N=848) of American adults in April 2016. It finds that coverage on issue involving US interests has the strongest perceived agenda setting effect, while coverage on Chinese tourism has the least effect. The study finds that the media use, interest in China, and media trust are all positively related with perceived agenda setting effect, but direct experience of traveling to China has no significant effect. The study identifies the mediation effect of media use on perceived agenda setting effect through interest, but moderation effects of media trust and direct experience are not significant.

Miki Tanikawa • Is “Global Journalism” truly global? Conceptual and empirical examinations of the global, cosmopolitan and parochial conceptualization of journalism • An acute debate has arisen among some journalism scholars as to whether or not a brainchild of the age of globalization was born in the media world: global journalism. This study introduces the debate and conceptually clarifies the points of disagreement between the two camps including those who deny its existence. In a parallel quantitative study, measures developed to capture the concepts, “stereotypes” and “domestication” whose existence in the news journalism is viewed as inconsistent with the tenets of global journalism, were employed, and found that such content has increased in major international news media in the last 30 years.

Olesya Venger • Nation’s Media Usage and Immigration Attitudes in Europe: Exploring Contextual Effects Across Media Forms, Structures, and Messages • Drawing upon theories of social threat and media systems, the current study uses aggregate data on 20 European nations to examine the basic relationship between nation’s media usage, public attitudes about the general consequences of immigration, and their specific beliefs about immigrants worsening the nation’s crime problem. Nations with higher daily usage of newspapers and the internet were found to have more positive general attitudes toward immigrants, but television viewership was not significantly associated with these attitudes. Regardless of media source, national attitudes about immigrants causing crime were also unrelated to the density of media usage within these countries. Content analyses of several national newspapers (e.g., UK, Hungary, Sweden) were conducted to help understand the pattern of these aggregate relationships and other supplemental analysis revealed the moderating effects of nation’s media system on these results. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and their implications for future research on media’s role in shaping public attitudes about immigration and other social issues across different types of media forms, structures, and messages.

Anan Wan, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina; Linwan Wu, University of South Carolina • Online Social Viewing: Cross-Cultural Adoption and Uses of Bullet Screen Videos • Bullet screen technology, is an innovative way of presenting online videos, allowing viewers to contribute comments that simultaneously appear over the videos. Popular in East Asia, the technology is making its way to American audiences. This study employs a comparative qualitative focus group approach to explore how American and Chinese viewers respond to and interact with this new format of online videos. Three themes have emerged: 1) unique affordance, 2) barriers to adoption and usage, and 3) cultural differences pertaining to technology adoption and usage. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Aimei yang, University of Southern California; Wenlin Liu, U of Houston; Rong Wang • Discourse of the Cross-Sectoral Alliances Network in the Global Refugee Crisis: Studying CSR through a Global Perspective • The scope and magnitude of the current global refugee crisis is unprecedented. This crisis has posed severe challenges to social stability and sustainable development around the world. Surprisingly, in an era when corporations are expected to take part in addressing social issues, our initial assessment showed that some of the largest corporations in the world have communicated their alliances with NGOs and IGOs on the refugee issue quite differently. We draw upon the National Business System Theory and the Media Repertoires Approach to understand what factors influence corporations’ CSR communication of strategic alliances with nonprofit and public-sector organizations on the refugee issue. Findings of this study showed that countries’ economic inequality, citizens’ education level, and philanthropic culture, as well as the nature of digital media platforms affected the communication of cross-sector strategic alliances. Implications for CSR theory and practices are discussed.

Li ZHI, Cityu University of Hong Kong; Limin Liang • Media Improvisations and Bureaucratic Tensions in China:Transcending media control & news routines in disasters • In the controlled media environment in China, marketized media go beyond their normal reporting mode when bureaucratic tensions arise in the propaganda system’s response to major disasters. This study builds on the framework of regulated marketization and the literature of fragmented authoritarianism in understanding Chinese media and the propaganda system. Through analyzing 36 significant disasters and conducting a case study on one typical disaster, it reveals how marketized media get the chance to strive for more autonomy and improvise new strategies to report disasters. Regulated by the Party-State, marketized media must follow the propaganda apparatus’s reporting guidelines in routines. The media’s journalistic roles, norms, obligations are confined to the limited realm delineated by the reporting guidelines. Even in the very unexpected and newsworthy disasters, the marketized media need to abide by the guidelines. They could not go beyond the routine practices and improvise strategies to accommodate the disasters, when the Party-State’s control are strict and consistent. However, sometimes, the propaganda agencies involved in disasters may lack good coordination or have conflicts of interests. Such tensions delay, suspend, and nullify some of the strict reporting guidelines, making disasters venues for improvisations.

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

Advertising 2018 Abstracts

Teaching
Expectations v. reality: Comparing perceptions of the advertising industry between students and professionals • Sara Champlin, The University of North Texas; Sheri Broyles, Dr. • Perceptions of the industry matter to newly minted advertising graduates and to the professionals who recruit new talent. However, it’s unclear how these two perspectives overlap. The present study assessed student and professional perceptions simultaneously to determine opportunities for teaching that will bridge discrepancies. Professionals and students see eye-to-eye in many areas, but specific skills, salaries for account executives and media buyers, and overall performance/supervision differed between the two groups. Teaching suggestions are discussed.

Dimensions of News Media Literacy among U.S. Advertising Students • Jami Fullerton, Oklahoma State University; alice kendrick • A national survey of advertising students addresses AEJMC’s 2017 recommitment to teaching news media literacy. On scales of knowledge and attitudes, advertising students rated themselves overall as above average on self-reported estimates of Media Literacy. Students exhibited higher degrees of understanding of and interest in the “Messages and Meanings” and “Authors and Audiences” dimensions than they did in the “Value of Media Literacy”. Those with higher grade point averages and access to internships placed a higher value on media literacy than other groups. Implications for educators are discussed.

Rebuilding from the Ground Up: Developing a New Approach to Visual Communications Curriculum • Adam Wagler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Collin Berke • As technology develops, visual communications education must evolve with the times. In the fall of 2015, the curriculum committee at [University Name] College of Journalism and Mass Communications was tasked with evaluating the visual communications program. This committee set out to answer one question: “Are we preparing graduates of our program to be successful in a dynamically changing media industry?” The purpose of this case study is to explore the development of a new visual communications program with summative assessment data that addresses this reality. The proposed solution changed the objectives from four production areas to four conceptual areas: critical thinking, storytelling, how technology works, and integrating media. This paper assesses the effectiveness of an emporium and challenged based learning model implemented for the new program that was launched in the fall of 2016. The results indicate evidence of the effectiveness of the approach through assessment data. The program recognizes that students need the space to learn, fail, and experiment while faculty must be willing to change as well as resist the urge to profess. The success relies on everyone’s comfort in embracing changes in media.

“Keep it true-to-life”: The role of experiential learning in advertising and public relations pedagogy • Amanda Weed, Ashland University • Experiential learning is an important component of advertising and public relations pedagogy as “real world” projects and provides students with distinct benefits that may improve their success as early-career practitioners. Through examination of five experiential learning categories, this study contributes to pedagogy practice by providing a detailed snapshot of how award-winning practitioners and educators perceive experiential learning, how experiential learning is integrated in advertising and public relations education, and identifies areas for improvement.

Open Competition
Applying artificial neural networks to predict ad viewership during TV programs • Fiona Chew, Syracuse University; Beth Egan; Chilukuri Mohan, Syracuse University; Ruochen Jiang; Sushanth Suresh, Syracuse University; Kartik Joshi, Syracuse University • We applied artificial neural networks (ANNs) to analyze TV ad viewership during commercial breaks predicated on second-by-second data that tracked audiences’ mechanical ad avoidance behavior. ANNs comprise hardware and algorithm processing devices trained to discover relationships and patterns, establish and define linkages among numerous variables with large and diverse data. Results identified key attributes that predicted ad viewing declines. These included programs originality/rerun, number of ads, ad placement pod position and ad duration.

An Examination of the Effects of Multicultural Advertising Strategies on Consumer Decision-Making Processes • Carolyn Lin; Linda Dam • Few advertising research studies address how perceived social distance – the level of acceptance individuals feel towards people from a different racial background – may impact consumer responses toward advertising spokespersons from different racial groups. This study explores whether perceived social distance between consumers and multicultural advertising spokespersons influences consumer decision-making processes. Findings suggest that cross-cultural group relations could help explain the underlying consumer decision-making process, which influences the effectiveness of multicultural advertising practices.

Make It Fit: The Effects of Brand-Game Congruity in Advergames on Brand Recall, Attitude, and Purchase Intent • Frank Dardis, Penn State University; Michael Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University; Jose Aviles, Wittenberg University; Erica Bailey, Angelo State University; Stephanie Orme, Penn State University; Jin Kang, The Pennsylvania State University • Brand congruity, or how well a brand seems to “fit” within the media or external environment in which it is placed, has been studied in numerous sub-areas within the advertising and marketing literature. The concept has received some attention in the realm of embedded in-game advertising (IGA) and advergames, with most studies focusing on brand memory. The current study was the first to manipulate a high-congruity and low-congruity brand within a single advergame and simultaneously evaluate players’ brand recall, attitude, and purchase intent. Further, although differing from each other in absolute congruity, each brand was conceivably suitable in performing some of the real-world functions exemplified in the game. Results indicate strong support for the placement of a high-congruity brand in an advergame, particularly regarding brand attitude and purchase intent. This is especially compelling because, in the current study, participants had to use the brand to succeed at the game; the brand communication was not simply an embedded message. Practical implications are discussed.

Got Muscle? A Longitudinal Study of Masculinity in Fragrance Ads in Esquire and GQ • Laura Beth Daws, Kennesaw State University; Justin Pettigrew, Kennesaw State University • Fragrance ads for women proliferate in style magazines for women, but what about ads for men’s cologne in men’s style magazines? This study examines men’s fragrance ads in the print edition of those periodicals longitudinally to see how ads use nudity and the “masculine ideal” to portray their product. Results of a content analysis of Esquire and GQ from 1950-2015 showed that the “masculine ideal” has remained a constant in fragrance ads over time.

Investigating the Implications of Distinct Personality and Message Factors on Consumer Responses • Naa Amponsah Dodoo, Emerson College; Cynthia Morton Padovano, University of Florida • This research examined psychological determinants of consumer responses to social media ads to understand the effect of consumer personality traits, regulatory focus and product appeal on consumer responses to social media ads. To that effect, this study assessed the impact of openness to experience and neuroticism on consumer responses following exposure to social media ads that employed message strategies that manipulated regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and product appeal (hedonic vs. utilitarian). Experimental results indicate main effects for openness to experience and neuroticism on responses to social media ads. Additionally, interaction effects were found between openness to experience, regulatory focus and product appeal, lending evidence to the influence of personality traits on message persuasiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Comparative Advertising as a Signal of Quality: The Role of Brand Credibility in Consumer Responses • Naa Amponsah Dodoo, Emerson College • Comparative advertising is a widely-researched area within advertising research. Despite the wealth of information on comparative advertising, research suggests that results from these studies more often than not demonstrate insignificant findings. Drawing on the signaling theory as a framework, this study sought to examine comparative advertising and its role in conveying brand quality relative to noncomparative advertising. With a focus on the U.S. wireless industry, consumer responses to comparative advertising were investigated. Results to some extent support previous literature espousing advertising as a signal of quality. Brand credibility as an important aspect of signaling theory was also examined for both comparative and noncomparative ads and was found to have an impact in consumer responses. Implications and limitations are discussed.

The role of media context and general advertising attitudes on ad avoidance • Esther Thorson, Michigan State; Samuel M. Tham, Michigan State University; Margaret Duffy, U of Missouri • This research develops theory about the role of media context and advertising attitudes regarding why people appreciate, are annoyed by, or attempt to avoid advertising. Media context is comprised of three elements: different media devices, media channels, and media content. The theory was applied in a nationwide survey and findings suggest that advertising appreciation, annoyance, and avoidance are processes rooted on all three factors identified as media context.

Beauty Brands and Micro-blogging in China: How Content Choices Affect Consumer Engagement on Sina Weibo • Mengling Cao, Florida Institute of Technology; Youngju (YJ) Sohn, Florida Institute of Technology; Heidi Hatfield Edwards, Florida Institute of Technology • The purpose of this study is to explore how beauty brands use social media to meet customer’s needs and improve customer engagement through social media posts. The development of social media helps brands extend their marketing areas and gain various benefits. Based on the uses and gratifications theory and literature about customer engagement, this study proposes several aspects about posts include posting day, message originality, modality, post content, and how they affect customer engagements online. In this study, a content analysis was conducted of 2,676 posts from the top 10 beauty brands in China on Sina Weibo, the biggest micro-blogging website in the country. In the results, customer engagements on Weibo were positively affected by modality (i.e., posts with videos) and post content (i.e., posts of incentives, giveaways, news, shows, and feedback, as well as posts with celebrity or spokesperson content).

Soil and Flower: The Relationship between Social Media Usage and Consumer Response to Social Media Advertising • Yang Feng; Quan Xie • This study examines how consumers’ motivations to engage with seven social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and YouTube) influence their evaluations of advertising on those platforms. Results from survey (N = 972, aged 18-35) not only provide empirical evidence for media context literature, but also advance media context literature by delving into different social media platforms. In particular, results revealed that people are driven by different motivations to use the seven social media platforms and they evaluate advertising on each platform in a different way. Furthermore, regression results revealed significant relationships between social media engagement motivations and ad evaluations (i.e., ad relevance, ad trust, ad attention, and ad intrusiveness). Also, the relationship pattern differs across the seven social media platforms. Discussion and practical implications were provided.

Eye-Catching and Unforgettable: The Role of Ad Creativity in Online Video Ads Featuring Augmented Reality Technology • Yang Feng; Quan Xie • This study aims to examine the role of ad creativity in video ads featuring augmented reality (AR) technology uploaded on YouTube. Through an online experiment, we compared people who hold positive pre-existing attitudes toward a familiar brand, people who hold negative pre-existing attitudes toward a familiar brand, and people who are unfamiliar with a brand in terms of their perceived creativity of a video ad featuring AR technology. Further, we explored the differential effect of three dimensions of ad creativity, namely, message usefulness, ad novelty, and ad-consumer association, on short and long-term brand name recall, short and long-term brand message recall, ad attitude, and brand attitude. Results demonstrated that for a familiar brand, people’s perceived creativity of an ad is biased by their pre-existing brand attitudes. For an unfamiliar brand, since people do not have pre-existing attitudes toward it, their perceived creativity of an ad for the unfamiliar brand is mostly shaped by their impressions of the ad. Moreover, results revealed that the three dimension of ad creativity play different roles in ad effectiveness.

The Impact of Erotic Appeal and Message Relevance on Selective Attention to Print Advertisements • Zijian Gong, Texas Tech University; Steven Holiday, Texas Tech University; Glenn Cummins, Texas Tech University • The effectiveness of sexual appeals in advertising continues to be subject to debate. One moderator of this effect is relevance, typically viewed as congruence between sexual appeals and the product. A contrasting view offered here is the relevance of the product to the audience. This experiment employed eye tracking to demonstrate how sexual appeals caused a visual distraction effect for low relevance ads. For high-relevance ads, this effect was not observed.

Social Network for Good: Framing the Message Type and Execution Style of “Cause- Related Marketing” Advertising for a Sports Brand on Social Network Sites • Ji Yoon (Karen) Han; Seungae Lee • Companies now use social network sites (SNS) as an opportunity to promote their values and interact with consumers, particularly for purposes of cause-related marketing (CRM). Traditional print CRM ads focused on promoting social cause (PCS) messages about which a brand commits. However, recent social media-based CRM ads rely on partake-in-our-cause (PIOC) messages. This study applied cause framing (cause-focused ad) and profit framing (product-focused ad) to CRM execution styles and investigated the interplay between the message type (PIOC vs. PCS) and execution style (cause-focused ad vs. product-oriented ad) on consumer response in social media contexts. The findings indicate that when a product-oriented ad is shown, a PIOC message led to more favorable attitudes toward the cause and higher levels of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention than did a PCS message. In contrast, when people were exposed to a cause-focused ad, the message type did not significantly affect attitudes or eWOM intention. Further, attitude toward the cause is identified as the mediator to explain the interplay between message type and execution style on eWOM intention.

How Advertising Relevance and Brand Relationship Strength Limits Disclosure Effects of Native Ads on Twitter • Jameson Hayes, University of Alabama; Guy Golan, University of South Florida; Janelle Applequist, University of South Florida; Stephen Rush, The University of Alabama • The growing scholarship on native advertising indicates that advertising recognition often leads to audience resistance of the persuasive messages. The current research conducts two national online experiments examining the impact of advertising relevance and brand relationship strength on native advertising outcomes on Twitter at low and high disclosure levels. Study findings indicate that both perceived relevance and brand relationship strength have the potential to limit audience resistance to the native advertisement.

Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Influencer Product Recommendation Motives on Social Media • Mengtian (Montina) Jiang, University of Kentucky; Nora Rifon, Michigan State University • Social media has seen an explosion of sponsored content created and shared by social media influencers. This study examines how a consumer interprets and infers the influencer’s underlying motives for writing and sharing these posts on Instagram. Three online surveys develop and validate a scale that identifies six distinct types of influencer motives that co-exist during consumer processing of sponsored content: Money, Selling, Image, Love, Sharing and Helping motives. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Effects of Sensation Seeking, Creator Attractiveness, and Content Characteristics on Branded Entertainment • Dahyun Hong; Jong Woo Jun, Dankook University • This study explores effects of branded entertainment on information processing of consumers. Using Korean female consumers as research samples tries to identify roles of consumer psychological factors, creator attractiveness, and content factors on purchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. The findings of this study show that sensation seeking influenced purchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. Creator attractiveness is related in positive ways, and content novelty and content credibility influenced purchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. Lastly, attitudes toward content is connected to both purchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. These results could provide academic and managerial implications in terms of branded entertainment marketing.

How Storytelling Advertising Affects Consumers: Emotion as a mediator between narrative level and WOM intention • Sookyeong Hong, Hansei University; Jin-Ae Kang, East Carolina University; Glenn Hubbard, East Carolina University • Experimental study (n=300) tested the effects of storytelling in radio advertisements on participants’ emotional responses and intentions to share information about the product by word of mouth. Treatments included a story told by the founder of a company, the same story manipulated to come from a customer and a purely informational non-story control stimulus. The founder’s story elicited more favorable responses and had some effect on word-of-mouth intention, especially among participants preferring narrative formats.

Another Super Bowl Study: An Exploratory Research on the Impacts of Ad Effectiveness Factors on Consumer Engagement on Social Media • Gawon Kim; Ian Skupski; Yongick Jeong, Louisiana State University • Using Super Bowl ads, this study explores the relationship between various ad effectiveness factors (length, frequency, clutter, position, social media mention, and liking) and consumer engagement (overall, positive, and negative comments) on social media (Facebook and Twitter). The findings of this study indicate that ad factors have significant impacts on consumer engagement. The effect is in overall social media posts positive and negative sentiment posts, but differently. Marketing implications for the results are discussed.

The attitudinal and behavioral effects of pictorial metaphors in advertising: Considering need for cognition and the mediating effect of emotional response • Soojin Kim, Louisiana State University • The current study investigates the effect of the interrelation between pictorial metaphor and headline in ads with an individual’s difference by Need for Cognition (NFC) on the attitude toward the ad, the brand, and purchase intention (PI), while considering emotions as a mediator. The current study’s findings highlight the importance of the match between pictorial metaphor and headlines for the ad effects by consumer’s cognitive tendency, considering affective responses.

Examining the Personality Traits and Motives That Predict Attitudes Toward and Engagement with Sponsored Content in Snapchat • Tiany Sousa; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • Social networking sites (SNS) have revolutionized the communication between consumers and brands, publishers, and marketers. These platforms have become a way for advertisers to communicate directly and engage users with content that is innovative and less intrusive. The aim of this research is to examine the personality traits and motives (based on the uses and gratifications theory) that predict attitudes toward and engagement with sponsored content in Snapchat including Filters, Lenses, Discover, and Snap Ads. An online survey with 606 participants showed that the main motives of using Snapchat were social information seeking, entertainment, and impression management. Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to examine the models that predict attitudes toward the sponsored features in Snapchat as well as the engagement with them. Several personality traits and Snapchat motives combined to predict attitudes toward and engagement with sponsored filters. In contrast, only social information seeking was significant predictor of attitudes toward and engagement with Discover feature. More results and practical implications are discussed.

Influencer Marketing on Instagram: The Effects of Sponsorship Disclosure, Source Credibility, and Brand Credibility • Susanna Lee, University of Florida; Eunice Kim • With the rise of social media, influencer marketing appeared as a relatively new form of celebrity endorsement. Although promotional posts on Instagram include messages that disclosure sponsorship and activate persuasion knowledge, consumers’ attitude toward the post may vary by source credibility and brand credibility. This study examines the effects of disclosure types, source credibility, and brand credibility on the effectiveness of Instagram marketing using influencers. Findings reveal that highly credible brands featured in Instagram posts have a positive impact on message credibility, eWOM intention, purchase intention, and attitude toward the ad. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

The Effect of Soliciting Consumer Participation in Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns • Sun Young Lee, Texas Tech University; Yeuseung Kim; Young Kim, Marquette University • This study explores the mechanisms through which corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns that require consumer participation create more value for companies than do non-participatory CSR campaigns. Based on two distinguishing characteristics of participatory CSR campaigns—interactivity and consumer empowerment—we posit two routes to persuasion, one in which participatory CSR activities generate more favorable attitude toward the company and higher purchase intention through consumer–company identification, enhanced through perceived interactivity, and the other in which participatory CSR activities, in comparison to non-participatory, empower consumers, which, in turn, affects perceived CSR motives. We demonstrate these proposed mechanisms using an online experiment with one non-participatory CSR activity and three different types of participatory CSR activities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Credible corporates require many likes: An examination of corporate credibility and bandwagon cues • Ruobing Li, Louisiana State University; Michail Vafeiadis, Auburn University; Anli Xiao; Guolan Yang • Compared to conventional advertising forms, social media native ads blend in the context and tend to be more interactive. To examine how corporate credibility and other viewers’ collective opinions associated with a promotional post influence its effectiveness, we conducted a 2 (high vs. low corporate credibility) by 2 (high vs. low bandwagon cues) between subjects experiment. Findings suggested that native ads published by highly credible corporate lead to less negative emotions among viewers and higher intention to engage in behaviors related to the ad and the product advertised; bandwagon cues influenced viewer psychology in a way that high bandwagon cues led to better evaluation of the ad, more positive attitude towards the ad, and higher behavioral intention. Corporate credibility also interacted with bandwagon cues in influencing the persuasive outcomes of the ad. Theoretical and practical implications on native advertising were discussed.

Cognitive Appraisals on a Brand Safety Issue and Hostile Consumer Behaviors: The appraisal-emotion-behavior (AEB) model • Joon Soo Lim, Syracuse University; Junga Kim; Chunsik Lee • Grounded in appraisal theories of emotions, this study tested the appraisal-emotion-behavior model for brand safety. The model posited that the appraisals of harm severity, ad intrusiveness and blame attributions for brand ads displayed next to offensive content would elicit negative emotions, which propels consumers to engage in hostile behaviors such as complaints, negative word of mouth and boycotts. To test the model, data were collected through an online survey using quota sampling (N = 483). Results of the SEM analysis supported the hypotheses regarding the effects of the appraisals on negative emotions. A mediation analysis further demonstrated that the effects of appraisals on the hostile consumer behaviors were mediated by evoked negative emotions. Findings of this study suggest that consumers react to the brand safety issue to the extent that they appraise the potential harm of the offensive content and attribute the responsibility to the brand.

Does When and Where Matter? The Influence of Ad Timing and Placement Context on the Effects of Online Behavioral Advertising • Xinyu Lu; Haesung (Claire) Whang; Jisu Huh • Behaviorally targeted advertising is receiving growing attention due to the preponderance of advertising dollars spent on online advertising and the rapid development of targeting techniques. Drawing on the goal activation model, this study examined the effects of two behavioral targeting strategies—ad timing and ad-context congruity—on consumers’ evaluations of an online behavioral ad. Results show a marginally significant relationship between ad timing and perceived ad relevance, and a significant relationship between ad-context congruity and consumer evaluations through perceived relevance. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

Placing Brands on Facebook: How the Source and Context of Brand Posts Affect Brand Likeability • Mira Mayrhofer; Brigitte Naderer; Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna • In two experimental studies we examined how the source of branded messages and the contextual mechanisms elicited by surrounding posts influenced viewers’ evaluations of the messages. We found that humorousness of surrounding posts positively affected brand evaluations but only when the brand itself communicated the persuasive content. Hence, while user-generated brand posts might be less effective than previously thought, humorous contexts on social media sites can support positive environments for advertisers to communicate branded messages.

Political Campaigning Meets Digital Engagement: “Old” Failures and “New” Triumphs • Sally McMiillan, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Courtney Childers, University of Tennessee; Stuart Brotman; Jinhee Lee; Jian Huang; Natalie Bogda • For decades, advertising spending, journalistic coverage, and polling predictions have been linked to presidential election outcomes. In the U.S. presidential election of 2016 those “old media” tools failed. Using big-data analytics, this study shows that volume and valence of digital political engagement on social media corresponded to the campaign outcome. The 2016 U.S. presidential campaign may represent a “tipping point” between “old” mass communication strategies and tactics and “new” approaches to citizen/consumer digital engagement.

Healthy Living and The Companies That Pay for It: A Qualitative Exploration of Health Native Advertising on BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post • Chris Noland, University of South Carolina; Jo-Yun Queenie Li, University of South Carolina; Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina • This exploratory study investigates the presentation of health native advertising on BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, the two pioneers of displaying native advertisements on their sites. This qualitative content analysis identifies the sponsored companies, promoted products, presentation formats, information sources, and disclosure types in related to health native advertising. The current research offers health related advertisers, publishers, governmental officials, and scholars with key theoretical and practical insights upon which they can more effectively propose appropriate regulations and refine health native advertising strategies for audiences.

Value from construal level theory: The matching effects of social distance and message orientation for environmental advertising • Sun-Young Park, University of Massachusetts Boston; Eunyi Kim • This study examines the effects of the interaction between social distance and message orientation (i.e., construal level effects) on responses to advertising messages that promote recycling behaviors. The results show that the messages focused on the high-level (why-laden) features were more persuasive in terms of generating more positive attitudes toward advertising when messages are framed in terms of socially distant entities, whereas the messages focused on the low-level (how-laden) features were more effective when asking participants to make judgments for their proximal entities. For behavioral attitudes and intentions these effects were observed under the how-laden and proximal condition, but not observed under the why-laden and distant condition. The findings also demonstrate a unique pattern of construal level fit effects and potential moderators/mediators, such as message persuasiveness and the perceived relatedness between recycling and climate change mitigation, in the context of recycling advertising campaigns. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

When Our Goals Set Our Biases: How Regulatory Focus Moderates Persuasion Knowledge and Third-person Perception in Health Advertising • Giang Pham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Chang-Dae Ham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • This study investigates how regulatory focus moderates the effect of persuasion knowledge on third-person perception in the context of health advertising. Two experiments revealed that persuasion knowledge positively influenced third-person perception, which in turn negatively affected ad evaluations. Regulatory focus, either chronic (Study 1: n=105) or induced (Study 2: n=97), significantly moderates the effects of persuasion knowledge on third-person perception and ad evaluations. Implications for improving advertising effectiveness are discussed.

A Meta-Analysis of Cause-Related Advertising Effects on Global Consumers • Michelle Rego, Johnson & Wales University; Dana Rogers; Mark Hamilton, University of Connecticut • Over the past 30 years, cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns have expanded worldwide. A series of 6 bivariate meta-analyses were conducted using a random effects assumption to determine effect sizes in this field. Moderators were tested using meta-analytic regression, but not found to qualify the results, which included the effect of CRM campaigns on brand attitudes, r=.248, 95% CI(0.189,0.373), and purchase intentions, r=.277, 95% CI(0.141, 0.404). Recommendations for future campaigns and research are discussed.

The Effects of Mood and Arousal on Information Searching and Processing on a Search Engine: Implications for Paid Search Ads • Sela Sar; George Anghelcev, Northwestern University in Qatar; Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina; Chang-Dae Ham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jie(Doreen) Shen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • An experiment was conducted to examine how mood and arousal interact to influence consumers’ searching tasks and their information processing on a search engine result page (SERP). The results showed that people in a positive mood were more likely to focus on general (global) information of search result ads, whereas people in a negative mood were more likely to focus on detailed (local) information of search ads. There was a significant interaction effect between mood and arousal on information searching and processing on SERP. Theoretical and practical implications for advertisers/marketers and web content designers are discussed.

Determining the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives in advertisements for congruent and incongruent companies • Brett Sherrick, Purdue University; Jennifer Hoewe, Purdue University • This study aligns three theories – narrative engagement, identification, and congruity – to determine the most effective ways to communicate messages regarding companies’ work toward increasing their environmental sustainability. Using an experimental design, the results show that companies whose products run in line with a message of environmental sustainability should create advertisements illustrating their environmental efforts, as those ads should increase positive evaluations of that company. Featuring groups of people in these ads may work to further magnify those positive evaluations. Most interestingly though, this study finds that an advertisement containing a message presented in narrative form is effective in overcoming incongruity between the type of company and the sustainability initiatives presented in the ad.

Explaining the Success of Femvertising: A Structural Modeling Approach • Miglena Sternadori, Texas Tech University College of Media and Communication; Alan Abitbol, University of Dayton • This survey of U.S. adults (N = 419) investigates attitudes toward femvertising as they relate to gender, age, support for women’s rights, feminist self-identification, political affiliation, and trust in advertising. Femvertising is defined as “advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls.” Structural equation modeling reveals several antecedents and consequences of attitude toward femvertising, specifically women’s rights supporters and self-identifying feminists seem highly receptive of femvertising.

How Anticipated Regret Messages Interact With Mood To Influence Purchase Intention • Yanyun Wang; Sela Sar • The current study examines how different types of anticipated regret advertising messages (verbally framed vs. graphically framed) interact with consumer’s mood (positive vs. negative) to influence their attitudes and behavior toward the advertised product. The results revealed a significant main effect of message types. People tended to have better ad evaluation when the ad used graphically framed AR message compared with verbally framed AR message.

Memory at Play: Personalizing Advertisements Based on Consumers’ Autobiographical Memory • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Jin Kang, The Pennsylvania State University; Michael Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • Targeted advertising promises to increase relevance to consumers, but risks backfiring if it seems overly intrusive. In the present study, we examined whether personalizing the online advertisement based on one’s autobiographical memory can foster positive reactions toward the advertisement. In two studies, participants went through a fictitious social media website where they talked about a special memory and saw an advertisement that was or was not personalized based upon their memory. Results demonstrate that personalized advertisements elicited favorable reaction towards the advertisement via enhanced feeling of nostalgia, but did not show an influence on affect or perceived intrusiveness.

Social Information in Facebook News Feed Ads: A Social Impact Theory Perspective • Fei Xue, The University of Southern Miss • Using social impact theory as a conceptual framework, the current research examined the effects of “social information” on Facebook users’ response to News Feed ads, including ad credibility, attitude-toward-the-ad, brand interest, intention to click, and purchase intention. Three factors were manipulated – relationship strength, physical distance, and number of affiliated friends. Strong main effects were found for relationship strength and physical distance. An interaction effect in click intention was also found between relationship strength and physical distance.

Perceived Native-ness of Social Media Advertisements: A Conceptualization & Scale Development Study • Jing Yang; Linwan Wu, University of South Carolina; Rachel Quint; Jaini Bhavsar • As the development of native advertising across various social media platforms, it has gradually become one of the main streams in digital advertising. It is difficult to reach an agreement on a comprehensive definition of native advertisements among industry practitioners and academia scholars, due to the diverse formats of presenting native advertisements. Specifically, in the social media context, different social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and etc., all have their own formats of native advertising. Therefore, the current study proposes the concept of perceived native-ness, which emphasizes on individuals’ perceptions of native-ness of advertisements presented in the social media context. Through a two-phase research which involved (a) in-depth interviews and (b) a scale development and validation study, we generated and examined a 15-item scale for three underlying dimensions of perceived native-ness of social media advertisements, namely design congruence, personal congruence and content congruence. The theoretical and practical implications of this scale are discussed.

Teens’ Responses to Facebook Newsfeed Advertising: The Effects of Cognitive Appraisal and Social Influence on Privacy Concerns and Coping Strategies • Seounmi Youn, Emerson College; Wonsun Shin, University of Melbourne • This study examines how cognitive (benefit-risk appraisal) and social factors (parent and peer communication) affect teenagers’ privacy concerns and individual and social coping strategies in dealing with Facebook newsfeed advertising. A survey conducted with teen Facebook users (N=305) demonstrates that benefit appraisal induces greater ad engagement while risk perceptions result in reactive coping strategies. Parents have limited impact on teens’ responses to newsfeed advertising, whereas peer communication makes teens less critical about advertising practices.

Effects of Visual Strategies and Personal Relevance on Young Users’ Responses to Brand Content on Instagram • Lijie Zhou, Southern Utah University; Fei Xue, The University of Southern Miss • A 4 (customer-centric, employee-centric, non-brand, and product-centric) × 2 (first-person-view vs. third-person-view) × 2 (personal relevance: high vs. low) mixed-design experiment was used to investigate the effects of visual theme, visual perspective, and personal relevance on brand constructions (attitude-toward-brand, brand love, brand respect, brand image) on Instagram. Findings indicated using customer-centric-images with the first-person-view to promote a high relevance brand on Instagram received the most favorable attitude, strongest brand respect, and strongest feeling of sensuality.

Professional Freedom & Responsibility
Ethnic Diversity as a Solution to the Advertising Industry’s Creative Problem • Robin Spring, Grand Valley State University; Fang (Faye) Yang, Grand Valley State University • “Ethnic diversity in the advertising industry could be a solution for culturally insensitive advertising. Insights from advertising professionals, obtained via in-depth interviews, reveal prevalence of bias in recruiting, hiring and retention of minorities. Findings suggest that current methods to increase minority representation are not effective. Viewing ethnic diversity as a creative/business solution, versus a public relations problem, could motivate meaningful change in the advertising industry

Special Topics
Informing, Reinforcing, and Referencing: Chinese Young Male Consumers’ Interpretation of Social Media Luxury Advertising • Huan Chen; Ye Wang; Eric Haley • A qualitative study was conducted to explore Chinese young male consumers’ perception on luxury brand social media advertising. In-depth interviews were used to collect data and the phenomenological reduction was used to analyze data. Findings revealed four themes regarding the socially constructed meanings of luxury, luxury brand, and luxury brand social media advertising. According to Chinese young male consumers, “luxury” is perceived as a dual-dimensional lifestyle; for luxury brands, although Chinese young male consumers consider the price to be a blatant index of luxury, they perceive brand meanings are a more important symbol to differentiate luxury brands from other brands; and, luxury brands are deemed as an expression of those consumers’ personalities and styles or extension of their identities. Findings further uncovered the meanings of luxury brand social media advertising among Chinese young male consumers. According to the participants, luxury social media advertising assists their luxury brand products purchase in informing them about products of new seasons, reinforcing luxury brands’ image, and offering them a referential source. Theoretical and practical implications were offered.

The Positive and Negative Effects of Intrusive In-App Advertising • Yunmi Choi, Indiana University Southeast • “As smartphone usage and ownership has increased, advertisers need to understand how to place mobile advertisements appropriately without causing negative effects such as irritation on their target audience. This empirical study focused on in-app advertising and its negative and positive impact on smartphone users. Subjects were invited to a computer lab and asked to play a smartphone application. The design of the study was a 2 (Ad Intrusiveness: 5-second vs. 30-second) x 2 (User Controllability: a close ad button vs. no button) x 2 (Task Orientation: hurry vs. free). The results indicate that users are more sensitive to the duration of ad exposure and controllability to close an ad. Irritation and perceived intrusiveness of the ad and app were found to be negative effects of intrusive in-app advertising while recall and recognition of the advertised brand were positive effects. In addition, perceived value and purchase intention of the brand were positively correlated with attitude toward ad and brand. Based on the study findings, it is suggested to offer the option to close in-app ads and reduce the ad exposure time to avoid irritation and perceived intrusiveness. However, if the goal of the in-app ad is to raise the brand awareness, being intrusive would be a good choice. App developers and managers should understand the influence of the absence of a close ad button will result in negatively perceived intrusiveness of their own application.”

Training to Lead in an Era of Change: Insights from Ad Agency Leaders • Sabrina Habib, University of South Carolina; PADMINI PATWARDHAN, Winthrop University • This study examines leadership training in advertising. Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, in-depth interviews with U.S. based agency professionals found lack of a systematic approach to leadership development; a consensus among professionals that training (whether formal or informal) is needed; diverse approaches to training; and recognition of barriers to establishing such programs in agencies despite need and benefits. The study also finds a role for advertising education to train the next generation of advertising leaders.

Role of Immersive Characteristic, Emotional Engagement, and Consumer Responses in Virtual CSR Experiences: Drunk Driving Prevention 360 Degree Video by an Alcohol Company • Yoon-Joo Lee; Wen Zhao, Washington State University; Huan Chen • This study examined a unique context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the format of virtual reality (VR) video sponsored by an alcohol company through quasi-experimental design. The study aims to examine whether individual difference (immersive tendency) plays a role in perceiving the CSR initiatives in VR videos. This study revealed that consumers with a higher level of immersive tendency are more likely to have a positive attitude toward CSR ads via emotional involvement than those with a lower level of immersive tendency. However, consumers’ immersive tendency or emotional involvement with the VR video did not influence purchase intention. This study attempts to investigate how unique characteristic of VR video (e.g., telepresence, emotional engagement) can play a role in evaluating cognitive, attitudinal, and purchase intention in the unique context of VR video by adopting dialogic (emotional) engagement and HOE model. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.

Does VR attract visitors? The mediating effect of presence on consumer response in tourism advertising using Virtual Reality • Wai Han Lo, Hong Kong Baptist University; Benjamin Ka Lun Cheng, Hong Kong Baptist University • 203 college students participated in an experiment exposing to a hotel advertorial that either use online blog, VR 360° video on mobile phone or VR 360° video using Cardboard goggles. The result supports the proposed path model, suggesting the mediating role of presence between using VR and consumer response. Theoretical and practical implications of the use of VR technology in branding and promotion are discussed.

I (Don’t) Want to Consume Counterfeit Medicines: Preliminary Results on the Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes Toward Counterfeit Medicines • S. Senyo Ofori-Parku, University of Oregon; Sung Eun Park, The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa • “Counterfeit medicine trafficking (an estimated $200 billion) enterprise has become one of the worlds’ fastest growing criminal enterprises. To the pharmaceutical industry, the uptick in counterfeit medicines raises brand equity and brand safety concerns, leading to huge financial losses. To consumers, it is a health and safety issue. But research has primarily focused on supply chain processes, technological, and legal mechanisms, ignoring consumer aspects. This exploratory study sheds light on some of the social, psychological, and normative factors that underlie consumers’ attitudes, risk perceptions, and purchase intentions. Consumers who (a) self-report that they know about the problem, (b) are older, (c) view counterfeit medicine consumption as ethical, and (d) think their significant others would approve of them using such products are more inclined to perceive lower risks and have favorable purchase intentions. Risk averseness is also inversely related to the predicted outcomes. Implications for brand advocacy and consumer safety education is discussed.

Watching AD for Fun: Native Short-video Advertising on Chinese Social Media • Ruowen Wang; Huan Chen • Since 2016, the popularity of Social Media Marketing and Weibo short videos have encouraged brands and companies to cooperate with Weibo influencers to create attractive native short-video advertising for consumers. The current study used phenomenological research method to explore Chinese consumers’ attitude toward and perception on native short-video advertising. The first author recruited 20 Weibo short-video viewers to conduct in-depth interviews to understand their experiences of watching Weibo short-video advertising. The current study has theoretical implication on influencer marketing, native advertising, and social relationship marketing. Furthermore, the study also provides guidance and reference for social media influencers and brands on how to create effective native short-video advertising.

Student Research
The Effect of Endorser Body Type on Attitudes and Emotional Responses Toward Weight Loss Advertisements • Lindsay Bouchacourt, University of Florida • The present study explores the effect of endorser body type on female consumers’ attitudes and emotional responses toward weight loss advertisements. Millennial female consumers were exposed to a weight loss advertisement that featured one of three endorser conditions: a mediated body type endorser, a realistic body type endorser, and no endorser. Attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, purchase intentions, and emotional responses were measured.

#Insta-Credible: The Impact of Influencer-Brand Fit on Source Credibility and Persuasive Effectiveness • Priska Breves, University of Wuerzburg; Nicole Liebers, University of Würzburg; Marina Abt, University of Wuerzburg; Annika Kunze, University of Wuerzburg • Two online-studies analyzed the impact of the fit between Instagram-influencers and the endorsed brand. While the first study (N = 687) used an experimental design and focused on internal validity, the second study (N = 197) employed a survey, presenting results high in external validity. Both studies validated a positive impact of influencer-brand fit on source credibility (trustworthiness and expertise), brand evaluations and behavioral intentions, especially for social media users with low-level parasocial relationships.

Testing the Limits: Self-Endorsement in Ambient Intelligent Environments • Kristy Hamilton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; SeoYoon Lee; Un Chae Chung; Weizi Liu • Self-endorsement—depicting the “self” as an endorser of a brand—illustrates a new, powerful advertising strategy made possible by affordances of new media platforms. Still, research on self-endorsement in advertising is dominated by discussions of features enabled within immersive virtual environments. Recognizing the multidimensionality of an affordance perspective, this experiment empirically tests the influence of self-endorsers and other-endorsers on brand attitude and purchase intentions using ambient intelligent technology (i.e., digital assistants).

The Changing Landscape of Mobile Advertising: Current Practices, Key Insights and Future Research Directions • Xinyu Lu • Mobile advertising is gaining full momentum now. Consumers’ increasing reliance on mobile devices for consumption of media, coupled with improvements in targeting for mobile advertising, contributes to the growing market share of mobile advertising. Despite the increasing attention from advertisers and scholars, there is not a clear accumulation of empirical findings. This article delves into the changing landscape of mobile advertising brought by the advancement of mobile technologies to examine its implications on mobile advertising research, and provides an overview of the empirical findings. The article also develops a summary of key research opportunities and future directions. In sum, this review is intended to serve as a basis for scholars interested in understanding the mobile advertising literature, as well as a catalyst for future research explorations.

We Eat What We Can “Process”: How Regulatory Fit Affects Consumers’ Evaluation of Front-of-package Food Label and Health Claim • Giang Pham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • This study investigates how regulatory fit affects consumers’ processing and evaluation of information on front of food packages. Promotion and prevention-focused participants (N = 253) evaluated food package designs that varied in nutrition labeling system (Facts Up Front, Traffic Light) and health claim frame (enhanced function, reduced disease risk). Results showed that there were significant three-way interactions between regulatory focus, nutrition labeling system and health claim frame on consumers’ perception of product healthiness, purchasing intent and recommending intent, but not attitude toward the package. Implications for improving food advertising effectiveness are discussed.

The Effect of Ad appeals on Materialistic Consumers’ Ethical Purchase • Yuhosua Ryoo; WooJin Kim; Eunjoo Jin, University of Texas at Austin • Materialism is known to be negatively related to consumers’ ethical behavior. Advancing this conventional wisdom, the current research investigated ways to motivate highly materialistic consumers’ ethical consumption by examining the moderating role of advertising appeals. The results indicated that consumers with high materialism showed more positive attitude toward advertisements and greater intention to purchase ethical products when the advertisements convey self-benefit appeals, rather than other-benefit appeals. On the other hand, low-materialistic consumers’ responses did not vary with different types of advertising appeals. The research also demonstrated that protective and enhancement motivations mediate the positive effect of self-benefit appeals on highly materialistic consumers’ ethical consumption.

Do disabilities belong?: Exploring non-disabled consumer attitudes toward persons with physical disabilities in advertising • Summer Shelton, University of Florida • In advertising, which relies heavily on visual stimuli, what place do persons with disabilities (PWDs) hold? Through focus groups with non-disabled consumers, this research asked if advertisements featuring PWDS are encountered, assessed attitudes toward PWDs in advertising, and perceived reasons brands use PWDs. Findings revealed disability/health related advertisements encountered frequently and a desire for “normalization” of disabilities. Print or social platforms are presumed best, and larger brands are proposed leaders in improved disability representation.

Using Anger and Efficacy as A Strategy to Prevent Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault: Dissuading Female College Students from Excessive Drinking within Social Settings • Jie(Doreen) Shen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Despite the fact that female college students’ excessive drinking is a prevalent risky factor that contributes to sexual assault, existing sexual assault prevention programs have rarely addressed the issue of women’s alcohol use. This study examines the effects of anger message appeals and efficacy message appeals on persuasion outcomes. An online experiment was conducted with 122 female college students in United States. They study used a 2 (anger appeal, non-anger appeal) x 2 (high-efficacy appeal, low-efficacy appeal) between-subjects design with attitudes toward excessive drinking and intentions of maintaining sober within social settings as the outcome variables. Results indicate the effectiveness of anger appeals as compared to non-anger appeals and the moderating effect of efficacy appeals on the relationship between anger appeals on attitudes. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

The 360-Degree Drunk Driving Prevention Advertising: The Impacts of Gender Role Beliefs and Self-Referencing on Purchase Intentions and Drunk Driving Avoidance • Wen Zhao, Washington State University • The primary purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influenced the effectiveness of the 360-degree CSR drunk driving prevention advertisement with nontraditional gender-role portrayals on consumers’ behavioral intentions. By conducting an experiment, this study found that the gender role beliefs exerted positive influences on purchase intentions through two sequential mediators, self-referencing and attitudes toward the ad. Additional analysis suggested that gender role beliefs negatively affect individuals’ avoidance of drunk driving through self-referencing.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Public Relations 2017 Abstracts

OPEN COMPETITION
What’s the “Right” Thing to Do? How Ethical Expectations for CSR Influence Company Support • Lucinda Austin; Barbara Miller, Elon University; Seoyeon Kim, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study investigated a new concept in corporate social responsibility (CSR) research—publics’ perceived ethical obligation of companies to address CSR, comparing low- and high-fit CSR programs when companies contribute negatively to social issues through their products or processes. Through a mixed-design experiment, findings revealed that participants placed higher expectations for ethical obligation on corporations in high-fit CSR scenarios. Additionally, ethical expectations—when met—influenced participants’ attitudes about and supportive intentions towards the company.

Risky Business: Exploring Differences in Marketplace Advocacy and High-fit CSR on Public Perceptions of Companies • Barbara Miller, Elon University; Lucinda Austin • A between-subjects experiment explored differences in outcomes for high-fit corporate social responsibility (CSR) versus marketplace advocacy programs. Findings revealed that marketplace advocacy, as compared to high-fit CSR, led to increased skepticism and attributions of egoistic motives, and decreased attributions of values-driven motives, company attitudes, attitudes about the social initiative, and supportive intentions.

Testing Perceptions of Organizational Apologies after a Data Breach Crisis • Joshua Bentley, Texas Christian University; Liang Ma, Texas Christian University • This study used a 2x2x2x2x2 experimental design (1,630 participants) to test stakeholder reactions to four apology elements in two data breach scenarios. All four elements, expressing remorse, acknowledging responsibility, promising forbearance, and offering reparations contributed to participants’ perception that the organization had apologized. In a high blame scenario, remorse and forbearance were even more important. Acknowledging responsibility did not have a significant effect on organizational reputation, future purchase intention, or negative word of mouth intentions.

Giving from the heart: Exploring how ethics of care emerges in corporate social responsibility • Melanie Formentin, Towson University; Denise Bortree, Penn State University • Public relations-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) research largely focuses on organizational goals; scholars rarely examine CSR impacts. In this paper, nonprofit-organization relationships are explored, illustrating how ethics of care is an appropriate normative perspective for encouraging CSR that privileges the beneficiary’s needs (Held, 2006). Depth interviews with 29 nonprofit representatives addressed scholarly gaps. Inductive analysis revealed that nonprofit practitioners describe good CSR as being concerned with themes related to trust, mutual concern, promoting human flourishing, and responsiveness to needs.

Whose responsibility? Connecting Organizational Transgressors with Government Regulating Institution • ZHUO CHEN, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Yi-Hui Huang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study examines the underlying logic of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), i.e., the concept that organizational transgressors are independent from the broader “institution” of their environment. Based on analysis of a case of false medical advertising (the Baidu-Wei Zexi case), our study contends that the responsibility attributed subject of a crisis should be extended from the corporate transgressor (Baidu and the hospital involved) to an institutional subject— the government regulating institution. Accordingly, we believe that the intensifying factors (consistency and distinctiveness) and consequential factors (affective and behavioral) should be modified. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the empirical findings support this argument; for example, attributing responsibility to the government regulating institution rather than to a corporate transgressor can provide a more powerful predictor of activist action. Similarly, negative emotion about corporate transgressors can damage affective attitudes towards the government regulating institution. All in all, this study expands the theoretical scope of attributed subjects in SCCT—linking corporate wrongdoers to their government regulating institution. Thus, our study calls for revisiting the underlying logic of SCCT and contends that a corporate actor is indeed intertwined with the broader institution.

President Donald Trump Meets HBCU Presidents: A Public Relations Post-Mortem • George Daniels, The University of Alabama; Keonte Coleman • When President Donald Trump welcomed more than 60 presidents of the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to the Oval Office for a photo opportunity in February 2017, he made history in the size of the crowd in his office. A textual analysis of 44 news articles and 22 statements of the HBCU presidents shows national media played up controversies while local media gave the HBCU leaders an opportunity to advocate for more resources.

Linking SNS and Government-Citizen Relationships: Interactivity, Personification, and Institutional Proximity • Chuqing Dong; Hyejoon Rim, University of Minnesota • Recent years have seen an increasing adoption of social network sites (SNS) in governments at all levels, but limited research examined the effectiveness of the government using SNS that may differ by institutional proximities (e.g., federal, state, and local). To fill the gap, the study explored the interactive and interpersonal approaches of relationship management in the context of government SNS communication. Specifically, two experiments were employed to examine the effects of interactivity, organizational characters, and institutional proximity in predicting the public’s perceived government transparency, engagement intention with government SNS, and trust in government. The study found that agencies at the state and local levels would benefit to different degrees in the government-citizen relationship quality based on the two communication strategies. Moreover, the results encouraged authorities to embrace SNS as a relationship-building tool by replying more to individual citizens’ comments, use a personal tone in conversations, and post more of citizen-oriented contents instead of organization-centered information. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed in the context of the Organization-Public Relationships (OPR) in the public sector.

Using Real and Fictitious Companies to Examine Reputation and News Judgments in Press Release Usage • Kirstie Hettinga, California Lutheran University; Melanie Formentin, Towson University • This study uses an experimental design to explore working journalists’ (N = 253) willingness to use or reference press releases that contain typos. The authors explore whether company reputation can overcome errors. The use of both real and fictitious companies yielded interesting findings for future public relations research. The reputations of existing companies, Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, were rated more favorably than a fake company, and press release judgments most strongly predicted potential usage.

CSR, Hybrid, or Ability Frames: Examining How Story Frames Impact Stakeholders’ Perceptions • Michel Haigh, Texas State University; Frank Dardis, Penn State University; Holly Ott, University of South Carolina; Erica Bailey, Penn State University • This study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility messaging strategies and messages frames on stakeholders’ perceptions of organizations through a 3 (ability/CSR/hybrid) x 2 (thematic/episodic) online experiment. Results indicated that corporate social responsibility and hybrid strategies perform significantly better than the ability strategy when thematic framing is employed, but that the ability strategy performs well in the episodic-framing condition. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Is social media worth of investment? Seeking relationship between social-mediated stakeholder engagement and nonprofit public donation–a big data approach • Grace Ji; Don Stacks • The majority of investigations in nonprofit public relations have been continuously studying how and whether nonprofit organizations (NPOs) can maximize the full potentials of social media to engage stakeholders online. Yet few have questioned if social media-based stakeholder engagement can impact organizational outcomes that happen both on and offline, such as public donation. Taking the stakeholders’ perceptive, this study attempts to examine the effect of Facebook-based stakeholder engagement with NPOs on organizations’ fundraising success. Using Ordinary Least Square estimation method with lagged variables, the authors modeled nine-year longitudinal social media and financial penal data from the largest 100 NPOs in the United States. Results suggest that not all stakeholder engagements are significant predicators for charitable donation. Only liking and commenting engagement behaviors are positively associated with public donation, but sharing behavior does not improve fundraising success. More interestingly, over posting could associate with a decrease in public donation. The findings bring new empirical insights to existing literature and also practical implications to non-profit public relations professionals.

An Examination of Social Media from an Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Perspective in Global & Regional Organizations • Hua Jiang; Marlene Neill, Baylor University • Communication executives perceive internal social media as a channel that should be integrated and consistent with other communication messages, and also understand the necessity of coordinating with other communication disciplines. Through in-depth interviews with 28 internal and social media communication executives working in the United States, we found evidence of both true collaboration and functional silos. We also examined social media policies and resources provided to empower employees as social media ambassadors. Implications and recommendations were discussed.

The Rashomon Effect of an Air Crash: Examining the Narrative Battle over the Smolensk Disaster • Liudmila Khalitova, University of Florida; Barbara Myslik, University of Florida; Agnieszka Turska-Kawa, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland; Sofiya Tarasevich, University of Florida; Spiro Kiousis, University of Florida • The study explores the agenda-building efforts by Russian and Polish governments in shaping international news coverage of the airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the Polish President. Compared to the two governments’ public relations messages, Polish and Russian news outlets played a more significant role as their countries’ advocates in determining the international media agenda. Moreover, the Russian media seemed more influential than the Polish outlets in shaping the international narrative about the crash.

Growth of Public Relations Research Networks: A Bibliometric Analysis • Eyun-Jung Ki, University of Alabama; Yorgo Pasadeos, University of Alabama; Tugce Ertem Eray, University of Oregon • This research reports on a 6-year citation study of published scholarly research in public relations between 2010 and 2015 in comparison with Pasadeos, Berger, and Renfro (2010) and Pasadeos, Renfro and Hanily’s (1999) works, which examined the literature’s most-cited works in the 2000s and 1990s respectively and identified a research network. Like the two earlier studies, this study identifies current authors and their publication outlets, taxonomizes most-cited works, and draws a co-citation network. Comparing the current study’s findings with those of ten and twenty years earlier helps us understand how the field has evolved as a scholarly discipline and offers future directions for study.

Enhancing Employee Sensemaking and Sensegiving Communication Behaviors in Crisis Situations: Strategic Management Approach for Effective Internal Crisis Communication • Young Kim, Marquette University • Understanding employees and their communication behaviors is essential for effective crisis communication. Such an internal aspect of crisis communication, however, has been undervalued, and the need for research has been recently growing. To fill the research gap, the aim of this research is to explore effective internal crisis communication within the strategic management approach, considering employee communication behaviors for sensemaking and sensegiving and their antecedents. A nationwide survey in the U.S. was conducted among full-time employees (N =544). This study found that two-way symmetrical communication and transparent communication were positively strong antecedents of employee communication behaviors for sensemaking and sensegiving in crisis situations, controlling for other effects.

Bless or Curse: How Chinese Strategic Communication Practitioners Use Social Media in Crisis Communication • Sining Kong; Huan Chen, University of Florida • This paper aims to examine how Chinese strategic communication practitioners use social media in crisis communication. In-depth interview was used to collect data from twenty Chinese strategic communication practitioners, who have experience in dealing with crises and issues via social media. A model was advanced and depicted how to use social media to monitor and respond to crises, and how to use social media, especially the live broadcast, to mitigate publics’ negative emotions to rebuild positive relationship with publics.

Unpacking the Effects of Gender Discrimination in the Corporate Workplace on Consumers’ Affective Responses and Relational Perceptions • Arunima Krishna, Boston University; Soojin Kim, Singapore Management University • The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) how allegations of gender discrimination impact consumers’ relationship with the brand in question, and (b) individual-level factors that impact consumers’ negative affective response to the allegations and eventually, consumer-brand relationships. Findings from a survey conducted among U.S. Americans indicate that individuals’ relational perceptions with a corporate brand whose products/services they consume are negatively affected by allegations of misconduct, in this case, gender discrimination. Results revealed that individuals’ moral orientation and anti-corporate sentiment predicted their perceptions of moral inequity of corporate behavior, which in turn impacted their negative affective response to the allegations. Such negative affective response then impacted individuals’ consumer-corporate brand relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed (120 words).

Crisis Information Seeking and Sharing (CISS): Scale Development for Measuring Publics’ Communicative Behavior in Social-Mediated Public Health Crises • Yen-I Lee, University of Georgia; Yan Jin, University of Georgia • Although publics’ information seeking and sharing behaviors have gained increasing importance in crisis communication research, consistent conceptualization and reliable scales for measuring these two types of communicative behavior, especially in social-mediated crises, are lacking. With a focus on public health crisis situations, this study first refined the conceptual framework of publics’ communicative behavior in social-mediated health crises. Then two multiple-item scales for measuring publics’ crisis information seeking and sharing (CISS) in public health crises were developed and tested by employing online survey dataset from a random national sample of 559 adults in the United States. Results indicate that there are eight types of crisis information seeking behavior and 18 types of crisis information sharing behavior, online and offline, crossing over platforms, channels and information sources. The two CISS scales reveal underlying processes of publics’ communicative behavior and provide a valid and reliable psychometric tool for public relations researchers and crisis communication managers to measure publics’ information seeking and sharing activities in social-mediated public health crisis communication.

Enhancing Empowerment and Building Relationships via Social Media Engagement: A Study of Facebook Use in the U.S. Airline Industry • Zhiren Li, University of Florida; Rita Linjuan Men, University of Florida • Born in the Web 2.0 era, social media platforms have altered the way people communicate and collaborate with others and with organizations. This study uses Facebook to examine the U.S. airline companies’social media engagement with their consumers. By conducting a web-based quantitative survey, our findings suggest that social media engagement in the U.S. airline industry has a positive influence on airline-customer relationships. Social media empowerment also mediates the effect of social media engagement on overall organization-public relationships. However, the results of our findings differ somewhat from previous studies, hence, we call for further research on social media engagement and organization-public relationships.

Is Experience in Fact the Best Teacher? Learning in Crisis Communication • Clila Magen, Bar Ilan University • The following study deals with the crisis communication learning process of organizations in the private sector. It indicates that if there is any crisis communication improvement it is primarily on the exterior layer. In the cases analyzed in the study, very few profound changes were apparent when the organizations faced recurring crises. Despite the promising potential which lies within the Chaos Theory for crisis communication, the research demonstrates that a crisis will not necessarily lead to self-organizing processes which push the organization to improvement and advancement.

How Should Organizations Communicate with Mobile Publics on Social Messengers: An Empirical Study of WeChat • Rita Linjuan Men, University of Florida; sunny tsai, university of miami • Mobile-based social messengers are overtaking social networking sites as the new frontier for organizations to engage online stakeholders. This study provides one of the earliest empirical studies to understand how organizations should communicate with mobile publics to enhance public engagement and improve organization-public relationships. This study focuses on WeChat—one of the world’s most popular social messaging apps. Organizations’ information dissemination, interpersonal communication, and two-way symmetrical communication are found to effectively drive public engagement, which in turn enhances relation outcomes. Strategic guidelines based on the study findings are provided.

Crisis Management Expert: Elements and Principles for Measuring Expert Performance • Tham Nguyen, University of Oklahoma; Jocelyn Pedersen, University of Oklahoma • Crisis management or crisis communication has become an important research area and recommended course for college students studying public relations and communication. Yet, it takes time for students or average professionals to transfer knowledge into practice in order to be considered an expert in the field. In a study of twenty-five in-depth interviews with Belgian crisis communication practitioners, Claeys and Opgenhaffen (2016) found that practitioners relied mainly on experience, scientific research, gut feelings and intuition rather than theories to respond to a crisis. This study also noted that decision-making about crisis communication depends on the circumstances, particularly, when the crisis involves potential legal issues or when it threatens to damage an organization’s reputation and its many important relationships. Organizational decision makers sometimes call on experts to help them reduce the uncertainty and ambiguity of the situation they face. Yet, when is it appropriate to call an expert in a crisis situation? And how can decision makers gain the most from what a crisis management expert can offer? By reviewing literature in crisis management and expert performance, this conceptual paper discusses what experts and decision makers are, the relationship between crisis experts and decision makers, and it outlines elements and principles to consider in developing a measurement system for expert performance. In addition, the paper proposes a general model for crisis management expert performance. Concluding thoughts will provide suggestions about what to consider before calling a crisis management expert and what decision makers should expect from crisis experts.

A Qualitative Analysis of How People Assess the Credibility of Sources Used by Public Relations Practitioners • Julie O’Neil, Texas Christian University; Marianne Eisenmann, inVentiv Health; Maggie Holman, Texas Christian University • This study examined how people assess the credibility of sources used commonly by public relations practitioners—earned news stories, traditional advertisements, native advertisements, independent blogs and corporate blogs. Researchers conducted five groups with 46 participants and implemented a survey with 1,500 participants recruited from a consumer panel. Participants view earned media stories as the most credible. Regardless of source utilized, people value strong writing, copious facts and balanced perspectives when processing public relations messaging.

Examining the role of Culture in Shaping Public Expectations of CSR Communication in the United States and China • Holly Ott, University of South Carolina; Anli Xiao, the Pennsylvania State University • This study examines the role of culture in shaping publics’ expectations for CSR communication through survey research in the United States (N = 316) and China (N = 315). Results highlight differences in each public’s expectations of what and how companies should communicate CSR. Among Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity are identified as the strongest predictors for CSR variables. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Where are the women? An examination of the status of research on women and leadership in public relations • Katie Place, Quinnipiac University; Jennifer Vardeman-Winter, Univ. of Houston • Despite evidence that there are no significant differences in leadership ability among women and men in public relations, women are still largely absent from leadership and senior management positions. Furthermore, very few studies about leadership in public relations have considered the affect gender has on leadership enactment and success. Therefore, this secondary analysis examined the state of women and gender scholarship about leadership in public relations as part of a larger study about the state of women in the communication discipline. Specifically, our research found that the majority of the research about leadership and gender highlights women’s lackluster leadership presence, factors contributing to women’s lack of presence, leadership styles and preferences, and leadership and management roles of women. This manuscript provides recommendations for improving women’s presence in leadership roles, particularly in providing a roadmap for future research opportunities. These include considerations for methodological approaches, leadership approaches and roles research, types of leadership, cultural change, and education.

Changing the Story: Implications of Narrative on Teacher Identity • Geah Pressgrove; Melissa Janoske, University of Memphis; Stephanie Madden, University of Memphis • This study takes a qualitative approach to understanding the connections between narrative, professional identity and reputation management in public education. Central to the findings are the factors that have led to a reputation crisis for the profession of teaching and thus contribute to the national teacher shortage. Ultimately, this study points to the notion that increasing retention and recruitment can be effected when narratives are understood and the principles of reputation management are applied.

Spokesperson is a four-letter word: Public relations, regulation, and power in Occupy New York • Camille Reyes, Trinity University • “This case study analyzes interviews with members of the press relations working group of Occupy Wall Street in New York. Using critical cultural theory as well as history, the group’s media relations tactics are discussed with an emphasis on the role of spokesperson, revealing contested meanings about public relations work in the context of a social movement. The moments of regulation and production in the circuit of culture explain the constraints experienced by many of these activist practitioners as they navigate the horizontal structure/ideal of their movement with hierarchical norms of more institutional public relations practices—creating a paradox of sorts. How does one defy the status quo when seeking to engage with a mainstream media system that—to their eyes—is co-opted by the wealthy elite, while using tactics that are seen as equally problematic? Historical analysis lends a comparative frame through which to view a critical cultural interpretation of public relations in an understudied context.

Distal Antecedents of Organization-Public Relationships: The Influence of Motives and Perceived Issue and Value Congruence • Trent Seltzer, Texas Tech University College of Media & Communication; Nicole Lee • Using an online survey of 514 US adults, this study identified which relational antecedents motivated individuals to enter organization-public relationships (OPRs) across a variety of organization types. Additionally, we examined the relative influence of motives, perceived issue congruence, and perceive value congruence on OPR perceptions. Findings suggest social/cultural expectations and risk reduction are the primary motives influencing perceptions of OPRs; however, perceived issue and value congruence with the organization are more influential antecedents than motives.

Does an Organization’s CSR Association affect the Perception of Communication Efforts? • Kang Hoon Sung, Cal Poly Pomona • Organizations often utilize interpersonal communications tactics on social media such as responding to customer comments or adopting a human conversational voice for better evaluations. Past studies have shown that these interpersonal communication tactics could indeed lead to positive outcomes and give the organization a more human and sincere face. The study examined whether the organization’s perceived CSR associations could have an influence in this process. Grounded in prior research on suspicion and organization’s personality dimensions, the current study investigated the influence of organization’s prior CSR associations on the organization’s interpersonal communication efforts that are associated with increasing the sincerity personality dimension (e.g., increased interaction, enhanced conversational tone). The results of the online experiment revealed that CSR activities significantly increased the organization’s perceived sincerity personality dimension and decreased suspicions about motives of the organization’s communication efforts. The mediation analysis suggests that less suspicion leads to more perceived sincerity toward organization, eventually leading to increased relationship quality.

The ‘New York World,’ Byron C. Utecht, and Pancho Villa’s Public Relations Campaign • Michael Sweeney, Ohio University; Young Joon Lim, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley • This paper attempts to assess Francisco “Pancho” Villa not as a general or quasi-politician, but rather as a practitioner of public relations. It investigates, by close observation of his actions and words, his strategy and tactics to build support among three specifically targeted audiences: the people of Mexico, American war correspondents, and the people of the United States. This paper examines secondary literature about public relations and about Pancho Villa’s life for evidence of his practicing public relations as we understand it today. Supplementing this literature review are primary documents from the archives of Byron C. Utecht at the University of Texas at Arlington. Utecht’s collection consists of his original photographs of his travels in Mexico on behalf of the New York World; telegrams to and from the World; typewritten notes and stories; clippings of his articles in the World and the clients of its wire service; and published interviews with Utecht about his trips into Mexico both as a lone journalist and as an accredited correspondent. It seeks to answer the key question: How did Villa practice public relations?

Ten years after The Professional Bond: Has the academy answered the call in pedagogical research? • Amanda Weed, Ashland University • CPRE is scheduled to release its next report of the status of public relations education in September of 2017. In anticipation of the report, this research seeks to determine if the academy has answered the call of The Professional Bond through an examination of pedagogical research published from 2007 to 2016 in four academic journals including the Journal of Advertising Education, the Journalism & Mass Communication Education, the Journal of Public Relations Education, and Public Relations Review. By conducting a meta-analysis of published research through a content analysis of article types, themes, and topics, this research determined that pedagogical research in public relations is lacking, especially among the topics specifically addressed in The Professional Bond.

The Role of Dissatisfaction in the Relationship Between Consumer Empowerment and Their Complaining Behavioral Intentions • Hao Xu, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities; Jennifer Ball, Temple University • This experimental study examined the mechanism of how consumer complaining behavioral intentions are driven by social media empowerment, and the role of dissatisfaction in this mechanism. The results revealed that dissatisfaction has both mediating and moderating effects in the relationship between consumer empowerment and some of the specific complaining behavioral intentions. Both theoretical and practical implications in terms of the dynamics of consumer dissatisfaction and power-induced complaining intentions were discussed.

Partisan News Media and China’s Country Image: An Online Experiment based on Heuristic-Systematic Model • Chen Yang, University of Houston – Victoria; Gi Woong Yun, University of Nevada, Reno • Based on Heuristic-Systematic Model, this research used a 2×2 pretest-posttest experimental design to measure China’s image after participants’ exposure to the news stimuli about China from a partisan media website. Two manipulated factors were media partisanship (congruent or incongruent partisan media) and news slant (positive or negative coverage of China). The results did not demonstrate any priming effect of news coverage. However, media partisanship had a significant influence on country beliefs. Significant interaction effects on country beliefs and desired interaction were also found.

NGOs’ humanitarian advocacy in the 2015 refugee crisis: A study of agenda building in the digital age • Aimei Yang, University of Southern California; Adam Saffer • In the 2015 European refugee crisis, humanitarian NGOs offered help and actively advocated for millions of refugees. The current study aims to understand what communication strategies are most effective for humanitarian NGOs to influence media coverage and publics’ social media conversations about the crisis. Our findings reveal that agenda building on traditional media and in social media conversations require different strategies. Specifically, although providing information subsidies could powerfully influence traditional media coverage, its effect waned in the context of social media conversations. In contrast, NGOs’ hyperlink network positions emerged as the one of the most influential predictor for NGOs’ prominence in social media conversations. Moreover, stakeholder engagement could influence agenda-building both in traditional media coverage and social media conversations. Finally, organizational resources and characteristics are important factors as well. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Using Facebook efficiently: Assessing the impact of organizational Facebook activities on organizational reputation • Lan Ye, State University of New York at Cortland; Yunjae Cheong, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies • This study analyzed 22 companies’ efficiency of using Facebook in reputation management by using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Results reveal that overall, the efficient companies (n =8) posted less frequently than did the inefficient companies (n = 14); companies receiving more engagements were more efficient than those receiving fewer engagements; and companies adopting one main Facebook Page were more efficient than those adopting multiple Facebook Pages. Size and length of history of an organization were not found to affect efficiency outcomes significantly.

The Effects of Behavioral Recommendations in Crisis Response and Crisis Threat on Stakeholders’ Behavioral Intention Outcomes • Xiaochen Zhang, Kansas State University; Jonathan Borden, Syracuse University • This experiment investigates the intersection between crisis threat, self-efficacy, affect and organizational messaging strategies on stakeholder behavioral outcomes in crises. Behavioral recommendations in crisis messages affected stakeholders’ behavioral outcomes through self-efficacy. Negative emotions also mediated behavioral recommendation and threat’s influence on stakeholders’ behavioral outcomes. Results imply that the extended parallel process model has significant implications for crisis management, however increases in stakeholder self-protective behaviors come at the expense of organizational reputation.

Issues Management as a Proactive Approach to Crisis Communication: Publics’ Cognitive Dissonance in Times of Issue-Related Crisis • Xiaochen Zhang, Kansas State University • Through an experiment, this study examines effects of issues management (issues attribution framing) on publics’ response to issue-related crisis. In Coca-Cola and obesity crisis’s case, public-organization identification and issues involvement were identified as predictors of blame, corporate evaluation, and purchase intentions. Results indicated that high identification and high issue involvement publics may experience cognitive dissonance and are more likely to support the organization under the external attribution frame (framing the obesity issue as personal responsibility).

STUDENT
The First Generation: Lessons from the public relations industry’s first university-trained social media practitioners • Luke Capizzo, University of Maryland • Public relations educators are grappling with the best methods to prepare undergraduates for the constantly shifting world of social media practice. The recent graduates (2011-2016) interviewed for this study constitute the first generation of practitioners with robust, formal social media training. Their experiences in school and in the workforce reinforce some current best practices—such as the value of internship experiences, the resonance of case studies, and the importance of excellent writing skills—but also point toward the need for increased emphasis on strategic social media, brand writing, visual communication, and the continued importance of a deeply integrated curriculum. Using social cognitive theory as a guiding framework, this study examines the salience of observational learning, behavior modeling, and self efficacy for building pedagogical theory for the social media classroom.

Unearthing the Facets of Crisis History in Crisis Communication: Testing A Conceptual Framework • LaShonda Eaddy, The University of Georgia • Coombs’s (2004) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) identifies performance history, which includes crisis history and relationship history, as an intensifier of attribution of responsibility during crises. The proposed model examines crisis history and its possible roles among various stakeholder groups as well as possible impact on organizational control, crisis emotion and crisis responsibility. The study also offers a crisis history salience scale that was developed based on a thorough literature review as well as in-depth interviews with public relations practitioners, public relations scholars, journalists, and the general public. The crisis history salience scale can assist crisis communicators consider the multiple facets of crisis history during their crisis communication planning and implementation.

Dominant coalition perceptions in health-oriented, non-profit public relations • Torie Fowler, University of Southern Mississippi • Unlike many departments within an organization, public relations is often faced with the task of proving their importance to the dominant coalition. In health-oriented, non-profit organizations, leaders may find it hard to prove their value when patients, research, or life-saving technology takes precedent. This study examined the perceptions of public relations leaders in this specific field regarding their inclusion in the dominant coalition, how they are able to influence decision-making in their organization, and what barriers could keep leaders from obtaining membership into the coalition. This qualitative study included nine in-depth interviews, where four of the nine participants, perceived they were included in the dominant coalition of their organization. Several themes were identified when participants were asked how they were able to influence decision-making, such as: being included early, having credibility, practicing proactive public relations, and devising a strategic plan. Although less than half of the participants believed they were included in the dominant coalition, all of them thought they could influence the decisions made by the dominant coalition in some capacity. There were two consistent barriers to inclusion: a misunderstanding of public relations and an uneducated or inexperienced practitioner. This study contributes to the body of knowledge about public relations by bringing additional insight into how health-oriented, non-profit public relations leaders perceive that they are able to influence decision-making of the dominant coalition. The study also shows how current literature about public relations inclusion in the dominant coalition does not align with actuality for this group of leaders.

Constructing Trust and Confidence amid Crisis in the Digital Era • Jiankun Guo • Using a hypothetical food-poisoning crisis on campus, this qualitative research explored college students’ construction of trust and confidence online/offline via in-depth interviews. It applied the Trust, Confidence, and Cooperation (TCC) Model as a conceptual lens, but added new insights pertaining to the altering media landscape. Results showed that students constructed trust/confidence online according to a variety of factors (message features, sources, sites, and targets), but virtually all of them valued offline “facetime” due to its ability to convey emotional cues. Multimedia, therefore, offered an advantage in offering emotional reassurances via online channels. Participants also viewed trust-/confidence-building from the authority as a fluid process accumulated slowly overtime, regardless of channels. This study contributes to crisis communication scholarship in the digital era, particularly with an aim to facilitate community resilience.

Understanding the Donor Experience: Applying Stewardship Theory to Higher Education Donors • Virginia Harrison, The Pennsylvania State University • This study examines how stewardship strategies and involvement impact organization-public relationship outcomes for higher education donors at three different levels of giving. Findings suggest that stewardship strategies positively predict OPR outcomes, and that donors at different giving levels experience stewardship strategies and OPR outcomes differently. Also, findings reveal that stewardship may include only three strategies. Involvement only slightly moderates the relationship between stewardship and OPR outcomes. Implications for fundraising practice and theory are made.

Stakeholder relationship building in response to corporate ethical crisis : A semantic network analysis of sustainability reports • Keonyoung Park; Hyejin Kim, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • This study explored how a corporation’s ethical crisis affects the way of sustainability reporting as a crisis communication tool. Especially, this study sheds light on the relationship building with stakeholders after the ethical crisis. To do so, we examined the Korean Air’s sustainability annual reports (SAR) before and after the ‘Nut Rage’ incident using a series of semantic networking analyses. Asiana Airline’s SARs before and after the crash at the San Francisco International Airport were also analyzed to find distinctive characteristics of the ethical crisis. The result suggested that the Korean Air’s SAR seemed to show the importance of relationship with stakeholders after the ethical crisis, while there was no meaningful change after the non-ethical crisis of Asiana Airlines. The results were discussed in relation to the situational crisis communication theory.

What Did You Expect? How Brand Personality Types and Transgression Types Shape Consumers’ Response in a Brand Crisis • Soyoung Lee, The University of Texas at Austin; Ji Mi Hong; Hyunsang Son • The current research examined how different types of brand personality play a role to develop a specific consumers’ expectation toward a brand, and how this expectation works in various ways in different types of brand transgressions. Based on expectancy violation theory and brand transgression research, a 2 (brand personality types: sincerity vs. competence) × 2 (brand transgression types: morality-related vs. competence-related transgression) factorial design was employed. Corporate evaluations and purchase intention toward the brand were considered as dependent variables. The results revealed that a brand having a sincerity personality is more vulnerable to a morality-related transgression. However, there is no difference in consumers’ responses by transgression type for a brand with a competence personality. Findings showed that brand personality types and transgression types can be critical factors to influence consumers’ responses in times of crisis. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

What Makes Employees Stay Silent? The Role of Perceptions of Problem and Organization-Employee Relationship • Yeunjae Lee • This study aims to examine the impacts of individuals’ perceptions of problems and organization-employee relationship on employees’ silence intention during periods of an organizational issue. Using the situational theory of problem-solving (STOPS) and relational theory, this study intends to explore conceptual convergences by building linkages among issue-specific perceptions, relationship, and employee silence. An online survey was conducted for 412 full-time employees working in companies with more than 300 employees in the U.S. Results suggest that individuals’ perceived relationship is negatively related to their problem, constraint recognition, and silence intention, while it is positively related to involvement recognition. Perceptions of constraint recognition and less involvement to an organizational issue are associated with employee silence. Different impacts of individuals’ issue-specific perceptions and relationship were also examined for different types of silence—acquiescent, prosocial, and defensive silence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

“Breaking the Silence”: Segmenting Asian Americans in the United States to Address Mental Health Problems in the Community • Jo-Yun Queenie Li • This article describes an exploratory study designed to investigate the applicability of cultural identity in public segmentation within a racial/ethnic population in order to address mental health issues in Asian community in the United States. Using a pilot survey of 58 Asian Americans, this research employs the acculturation theory and the situational theory of publics to explore individuals’ communication behavior related to mental health issues. By doing so, this study contributes to the (re)conceptualization and operationalization of cultural identity in intercultural public relations discipline and provides practical implications to organizations that target specific racial/ethnic groups. The findings show that Asian Americans who are more highly acculturated in the United States could be considered as the active publics. They may be helpful in spreading out information, reaching out potential publics, encouraging themselves and other members in the community who have suffered from mental health issues to utilize mental health services.

Pouring Water on Conservative Fire: Discourse of Renewal in Facebook’s Response to Allegations of Bias • Tyler G Page, University of Maryland • Using Facebook’s 2016 trending topics crisis, this study applies the message convergence framework and discourse of renewal to analyze an organizational crisis response. The study reports a qualitative analysis of Facebook’s crisis response statements and a quantitative content analysis of 140 blog, magazine, and newspaper articles covering the crisis. Tone of news coverage improved when discourse of renewal strategy was covered and when media coverage included at least one quote from the organization.

Understanding Public Engagement in Sustainability Initiatives: The Situational Theory of Publics and the Theory of Reasoned Action Approaches • Soojin Roh, Syracuse University • In an attempt to extend the situational theory of publics, this study tested a public engagement model to explain how situational factors, subjective norm, and attitudes toward a sustainability initiative influence public’s communication action as well as different types of behavioral engagement intention. An online survey (N=502) was administered to test predictors of participation intent for recycling clothes campaigns and continuous public engagement with the sustainability cause. Structural equation modeling results indicate that problem recognition and constraint recognition are key predictors of information gaining (information seeking, sharing, and processing) and campaign participation intent. Subjective norms and positive attitude toward the campaign lead to the greater likelihood of participating in the campaign. The analysis also yielded a significant association between information gaining and public’s behavioral engagement including civic engagement, suggesting the mediating role of information gaining. Furthermore, the analysis showed a significant direct effect of involvement on civic engagement. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Understanding Public Engagement on Digital Media: Exploring Its Effects on Employee-Organization Relationships • Yuan Wang, The University of Alabama • This study examined the effects of employees’ organizational identification and engagement with mobile phones and social media on their relationships with the organization and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) communication through a web-based survey of employees via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Findings suggested that employees’ organizational identification significantly influenced their digital media engagement. This study also identified employees’ organizational identification and digital media engagement as new predictors of employee-organization relationships, which, furthermore, led to positive WOM communication.

Defining and Communicating Diversity: A Content Analysis of the Websites of the Top PR Agencies • Anli Xiao, the Pennsylvania State University; Jinyoung Kim; Wunpini Mohammed; Hilton Erica; Colleen Pease • “This paper examines how top PR agencies define diversity, how they express diversity identities and communicate diversity values to prospective employees and clients. Through a content analysis of top PR agencies’ websites, this study finds PR agencies’ defined diversity narrowly and they showed limited efforts in communicating diversity values to future employees and clients. Agency ranking significantly correlated with some diversity efforts communicated. Implications are discussed.

TEACHING
Experiential Learning and Crisis Simulations: Leadership, Decision Making, and Communication Competencies • Hilary Fussell Sisco, Quinnipiac University; John Brummette; Laura Willis, Quinnipiac University; Michael Palenchar, University of Tennesseee • Students benefit from simulation exercises that require them to apply public relations research and theories. Using an experimental learning approach (N=16), this present paper assesses the effectiveness of a crisis simulation exercise using a pre-test/post-test evaluation. Findings suggest that crisis simulation exercises can prepare future practitioners by providing them practices in discipline-centric experiences that also bolster their personal professional development in the areas of leadership, decision making and communication competency.

One Liners and Catchy Hashtags: Building a Graduate Student Community Through Twitter Chats • Melissa Janoske, University of Memphis; Robert Byrd, University of Memphis; Stephanie Madden, University of Memphis • This study takes a mixed-methods approach to understanding how graduate student education and engagement are intertwined, and the ability of an ongoing Twitter chat to increase both. Analysis includes the chats themselves, a mixed-methods survey to chat participants, and memoing completed by the researchers (also faculty chat participants and the chat moderator). Key findings include the importance of building both online and offline connections, the ability of Twitter chats to increase fun and reduce stress, and to gain both tacit and explicit knowledge. Finally, the project offers practical suggestions for those looking to start their own chat series.

Millennial Learners and Faculty Credibility: Exploring the Mediating Role of Out-Of-Class Communication • Carolyn Kim • Every generation experiences distinct events and develops unique values. The Millennial generation is no exception. As Millennial Learners enter classrooms, they bring with them new views about education, learning and faculty/student communication. All of this blends together to influence their perspectives of faculty credibility. This study explores the mediating role of out-of-class communication (OCC) in relation to the historical dimensions known to compose faculty credibility.

Examination of Continuous Response Assessment of Communication Course Presentation Competency • Geoffrey Graybeal, Texas Tech University; Jobi Martinez, Texas Tech University • This study examined the use of continuous response (dial test) technology as a means of providing feedback to improve formal presentations required to meet learning objectives in college communication courses and a variety of assessment strategies utilized in the assignment. Findings suggest that use of video assessment and a student self-assessment have the greatest impact on final presentation performance and that the first dial test pitch should not be graded.

Competition and Public Relations Campaigns: Assessing the Impact of Competition on Projects, Partners, and Students • Chris McCollough, Columbus State University • Scholars in public relations pedagogy have provided a strong body of research on the impact of service learning, community partnerships (Daugherty, 2003), and applied learning in general on campaigns, writing, and production courses common to the public relations curriculum (Wandel, 2005). Rarely explored, however, is the impact of competition among student groups within a public relations course on the quality of campaigns, student experience, client satisfaction, and achievement of learning outcomes (Rentner, 2012). The paper will present a comparative analysis of campaign courses that employed competitive and non-competitive campaign course models to demonstrate the impact of incorporating competition within public relations courses.

Integrating Web and Social Analytics into Public Relations Research Course Design: A Longitudinal Pedagogical Research on Google Analytics Certification • Juan Meng, University of Georgia; Yan Jin; Yen-I Lee, University of Georgia; Solyee Kim, University of Georgia • This longitudinal pedagogical research contributes with integrating web and social analytics-based activities into the Public Relations Research course design. Results from the pre- and post-tests confirmed that students’ knowledge on web and social analytics is low but desire to learn is high. Consistent patterns on learning outcomes suggest more experience-based learning activities are needed to leverage the practical implications of web and social analytics in public relations research and practice. More pedagogical recommendations are discussed.

Media Relations Instruction and Theory Development: Relational Dialectical Approach • Justin Pettigrew, Kennesaw State University • There has been almost no research in the area of media relations or media relations instruction in the public relations literature. This study seeks to fill a gap in theory-building in the area of media relations and examines the state of media relations instruction in today’s public relations curriculum through a survey of public relations professors. The author suggests relational dialectical theory as a way to better understand the relationship between public relations practitioners and journalists, and proposes a relational dialectical approach to theory building and in teaching media relations in today’s changing landscape.

Developing a Blueprint for Social Media Pedagogy: Trials, Tribulations, and Best Practices • ai zhang, Stockton University; Karen Freberg, University of Louisville • Social media research, and particularly social media pedagogy, has increased substantially as a domain in public relations research. Yet, along with this increased focus on social media pedagogy, educators and other higher education professionals are under pressure from industry, professional communities, and university administrations to keeping their classes updated and relevant for their students. To better understand the current state and rising expectations facing educators teaching social media, this study interviewed 31 social media professors to explore the trials and tribulations of their journey and to identify best practices of social media as a pedagogical tool. The study also suggested a blueprint for implementing social media pedagogy in the classroom. Future implications for both research and practice are also discussed.

DOUG NEWSOM AWARD FOR GLOBAL ETHICS GLOBAL DIVERSITY
An Exploratory Study of Transformed Media Relations Dimensions After the Implementation of an Anti-graft Law • Soo-Yeon Kim, Sogang University; JOOHYUN HEO • The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, which went into effect on September 28, 2016, strictly prohibits gift-giving to journalists, thereby making a traditional media relations practice in Korea illegal. A survey of 342 public relations practitioners revealed that providing monetary gifts, performing formal responsibility, building informal relationships, getting paid media coverage, and taking informal support were found to be significant subdimensions of media relations. After implementation of the anti-graft law, public relations practitioners expressed a belief that the practice of providing monetary gifts will shrink the most and performing formal responsibility would experience the most growth. The formal responsibility factor was significantly positively related to support for the new law and public relations ethics, while taking informal support was negatively linked to public relations ethics. Getting paid media coverage showed the most significant positive relationship with difficulties of effective media relations.

MUSEUM OF PUBLIC RELATIONS PR HISTORY AWARD
Raymond Simon: PR Educational Pioneer • Patricia Swann, Utica College • Raymond Simon, professor emeritus of public relations at Utica College, whose teaching career spanned nearly four decades, was among PRWeek’s 100 most influential 20th century people in public relations. Simon’s contributions to education include developing one of the first full-fledged public relations undergraduate curriculums; authoring the first public relations-specific classroom textbooks for writing and case studies, in addition to a textbook for the principles course; and developing student potential through national student organizations and mentoring.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Mass Communication and Society 2017 Abstracts

OPEN COMPETITION
Beauty ideals and the media: Constructing the ideal beauty for Nigerian women through music videos • Aje-Ori Agbese • The research examined how Nigerian music videos objectify and define beauty for Nigerian women. The contents of 100 music videos with a love/romance theme were analyzed. The study found that Nigerian music videos defined beautiful women as thin/skinny, light-skinned and smiling. Several videos also featured white women as the ideal. The paper also discusses the impact of such messages on a country where women had the world’s highest rates for skin bleaching in 2012.

Framing Blame in Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Attribution in News Stories about Sexual Assault on College Campuses • Ashlie Andrew; Cassandra Alexopoulos • The current study is a quantitative content analysis examining media coverage of sexual assault on US college campuses. In particular, we focus on the language that journalists employ to tell these stories and assign attribution of sexual assault to the people involved. Drawing on two different theoretical perspectives, Attribution Theory and Media Framing, we analyze how frequently the language in news stories on sexual assault implicitly assign attribution (or minimize attribution) to either the victim or perpetrator in sexual assault cases.

The Social Dimensions of Political Participation • Soo Young Bae • This study investigates the social dimensions of political engagement, and explores the underlying mechanism of the relationship between social media use and political participation. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, this study reveals the growing significance of the source factor in the online information environment, and tests whether varying levels of trust that individuals have toward the information source can meaningfully relate to their engagement in politics.

The Role of Media Use and Family Media Use in Children’s Eating Behaviors, Food Preferences, and Health Literacy • Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama; Kim Baker, University of Alabama; Xueying Zhang; Kailey E. Bissell, The University of the South (Sewanee); Sarah Pember, University of Alabama; Yiyi Yang, University of Alabama; Samantha Phillips, University of Alabama • The relationship between the individual and social factors that might predict a child’s health behaviors specific to food consumption and eating is quite complex. A growing body of literature suggests that external factors such as media use, use of media while eating, and the home eating environment certainly could predict factors such as a child’s preference for specific food, nutritional knowledge, and even the ability to identify food products in food advertisements. Using a survey of children in 2nd and 3rd grade, this study examined questions about how much or if general media use, media use while eating, and familial media use during mealtimes related to a child’s general understanding of health specific to nutritional knowledge, food preferences, understanding of food advertising, and self-perception. Results indicate that media use by each child and by the parent—in general and in the context of eating—were related to lower scores on the nutritional knowledge scale, a stronger preference for unhealthy foods, an inability to correctly identify food products in food advertisements, and self-perceptions. Further results indicate that children’s ability to correctly identify food products in food advertisements was especially low, especially in children who reported spending more time with different types of media. These and other findings are discussed.

Assimilation or Consternation? U.S. Latinos’ Perceptions of Trust in Relation to Media and Other Factors • Ginger Blackstone, Harding University; Amy Jo Coffey, University of Florida • Among the U.S. Latino community, even documented workers are nervous about the future. What role might Internet news exposure, television news exposure, newspaper exposure, radio news exposure, age, whether one was born in the U.S., or–if not—length of time spent in the U.S. be relevant to feelings of trust in the government, trust in others, and U.S. immigration policies? How do Latinos’ feelings in these areas compare to non-Latinos? Using the most recent American National Election Survey data available, the authors conducted a series of regressions and other statistical tests in search of answers. It was found that Latino respondents were more likely than non-Latinos to trust that the U.S. government will do the right thing. Television news exposure was a positive factor. Non-Latino respondents were more likely than Latino respondents to trust others. Internet news exposure, radio news exposure, and newspaper exposure were positive factors, while television news exposure was a negative factor. Trust in the government did not correlate with trust in others for Latino respondents; however, it did for non-Latinos but the effect was weak. Regarding U.S. immigration policy, difference between Latino respondents and non-Latinos were significant; however, a majority of both groups indicated support for an immigration policy that allowed undocumented workers to remain in the U.S. under certain (non-specified) conditions. Internet news exposure and radio news exposure were factors in some comparisons. Overall, no clear patterns were found; however, the findings correspond to the literature and provide an opportunity for future research.

Toxic Peers in Online Support Groups for Suicidal Teens: Moderators Reducing Toxic Disinhibition Effects • Nicholas Boehm, Colorado State University; Jamie Switzer, Colorado State University • This paper describes the results of a study that examined if moderated online peer support groups for suicidal teens differ compared to non-moderated online peer support groups for suicidal teens in terms of the frequency of pro-suicide response and the frequency of uncivil and impolite response given by peers. Findings suggest pro-suicide, uncivil, and impolite responses are significantly more likely to occur in the non-moderated peer support group, as explained by the online disinhibition effect.

Exploring Third-Person Perception and Social Media • John Chapin, Penn State • Findings from a study of middle school and high school students (N = 1604) suggest most adolescents are using some form of social media, with texting, Instagram, and Snapchat currently the most popular. Most (67%) have some experience with cyberbullying, with 23% saying they have been victims of cyberbullying and 7% acknowledging they have cyberbullied others. Despite the heavy use of social media and experiences with cyberbullying, participants exhibited third-person perception, believing others are more influenced than they are by negative posts on social media. Third-person perception was predicted by optimistic bias, social media use, age, and experience with various forms of bullying. Third-person perception may provide a useful framework for understanding how adolescents use social media and how they are affected by it.

“Defensive Effect”: Uncivil Disagreement Upsets Me, So I Want to Speak Out Politically • Gina Chen • This study proposed and tested a mediation model called the “defensive effect” to explain the influence of uncivil disagreement online comments on emotions and intention to participate politically. An experiment (N = 953) showed uncivil disagreement – but not civil disagreement – triggered a chain reaction of first boosting negative emotion and then indirectly increasing intention to participate politically, mediated through that emotion burst. Findings are discussed in relation to affective intelligence theory.

Facts, Alternative Facts, and Politics: A Case Study of How a Concept Entered Mainstream and Social Media Discourse • Moonhee Cho, University of Tennessee; Giselle Auger, Rhode Island College; Sally McMillan, University of Tennessee • Adopting agenda setting as a theoretical framework, this study explored how the term ‘alternative facts’ was covered by both mainstream and social media. The authors used Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio and WordStat to analyze 58,383 total posts. The study follows the development of news story and examines some similarities and differences in top words and phrases used by mainstream and social media. The term ‘alternative facts’ had negative valence in both media types.

Television, emotion, and social integration: Testing the effect of media event with the 2017 US Presidential Inauguration • Xi Cui, College of Charleston; Qian Xu, Elon University • This study empirically tests the social integration effect of media event and its psychological mechanism in the context of the live broadcast of the 2017 US Presidential Inauguration. A national sample (N=420) was drawn to investigate the relationships among television viewing of the live broadcast, viewers’ emotion, and their perceived social solidarity measured by perceived entitativity. In general, viewing the inauguration live on television positively predicted viewers’ emotion. Emotion also interacted with viewers’ national identity fusion to influence perceived entitativity. A significant indirect effect of television viewing on perceived entitativity through emotion was discovered. The same effects were found among non-Trump voters. For Trump voters, television viewing did not have any significant influence on any variable. Through these findings, this study shed light on the psychological mechanisms of media event’s social integration effect at the individual level, explicated the visceral nature of social identification related to media event, and argued for the relevance of this mass media genre in contemporary media environment and social zeitgeist.

New media, new ways of getting informed? Examining public affairs knowledge acquisition by young people in China • Di Cui; Fang Wu • This study examined acquisition of public affairs knowledge as an effect of media use and interpersonal discussion in China, where there is a fast transforming media environment. This study examined public affairs knowledge in both mainstream and alternative forms. Findings showed that attention to traditional sources, exposure to new media sources and face-to-face discussion were correlated with public affairs knowledge. Use of new media sources was correlated with alternative public affairs knowledge. Implications were discussed.

Multi-Platform News Use and Political Participation across Age Groups • Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Matthew Barnidge, University of Vienna; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna • News consumption in today’s media environment is increasingly characterized by multi-platform news; people now consume news across several multi-media devices. Relying on a nationally representative survey from the U.S., this study develops an index of multi-platform news use, and tests its effects on age-group differences in the way people participate in politics. Results show that Millennials are more likely to rely on multi-platforms for news, which is positively related to alternative modes of public engagement.

Read All About It: The Politicization of “Fake News” on Twitter • John Brummette; Marcia DiStaso, University of Florida; MICHAIL VAFEIADIS, Auburn University; Marcus Messner, Virginia Commonwealth University; Terry Flynn, McMaster University • This study explored the use of the term “fake news” in one of the top news sharing tools, Twitter. Using a social network analysis, characteristics of online networks that formed around discussions of “fake news” was examined. Through a systematic analysis of the members of those networks and their messages, this study found that “fake news” is a very politicized term where current conversations are overshadowing logical and important discussions of the term.

News, Entertainment, or Both? Exploring Audience Perceptions of Media Genre in a Hybrid Media Environment • Stephanie Edgerly, Northwestern; Emily Vraga, George Mason University • This study uses two experimental designs to examine how audiences make genre assessments when encountering media content that blends elements of news and entertainment. In Study 1, we explore how audiences characterize three different versions of a fictitious political talk show program. In Study 2, we consider whether audience perceptions of ‘news-ness’ are influenced by shifts in headline angle and source attribution. The implications of audience definitions of news and its social function are discussed.

A new generation of satire consumers? A socialization approach to youth exposure to news satire • Stephanie Edgerly, Northwestern • This study explores how adolescents—at the doorstep of adulthood—are developing the exposure habit of news satire exposure. Using national survey data consisting of U.S. youth and one associated parent, the paper specifically examines: 1) the prevalence of youth exposure to news satire across a range of media devices and compared to other forms of news, and 2) the socialization factors—parents, school curriculum, and peers—that predict news satire use among today’s youth.

Socially-shared children coming of age: Third-person effect, parental privacy stewardship, and parent monitoring • Betsy Emmons, Samford University; Nia Johnson, Samford University; Lee Farquhar, Samford University • There have been multiple discussions about Facebook’s privacy policies; discourse about parental privacy stewardship has been minimal. As the first generation of socially-shared children become social media users, the collision of privacy with what has already been shared by parents occurs. This study, grounded in third-person effect, asked parents about stewardship of their children’s privacy, and whether other parents were observant. Results affirmed third-person effect for both social media monitoring and privacy among parents.

Journalists primed: How professional identity affects moral decision making • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Erin Schauster • Utilizing identity priming, this study examines whether professional journalists apply ethics differently when primed with occupationally identity. This between-subjects experiment (N=171) administered both conditions the Defining Issues Test, a much-used instrument that measures moral development. The results show identity priming does not affect how journalists apply ethics. The study also found that journalists are potentially far less ethical than they were 13 years ago. These results are interpreted through the lens of social identity theory.

Hydraulic Fracturing on U.S. Cable News • Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University; Oluseyi Adegbola, Mr.; Jennifer Huemmer • Hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, is a drilling technique that accesses previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves. Although the process could aid U.S. energy independence, it is controversial and public opinion is divided. Guided by agenda-setting and framing, this study content analyses news coverage of fracking (N = 461) across cable networks (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC). Results show issues discussed and sources used vary ideologically, but all networks failed to provide factual information about the process.

Self-Presentation Strategies’ Effect on Facebook Users’ Subjective Well-being Depending on Self-Esteem Level • Wonseok (Eric) Jang, Texas Tech University; Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Janice Cho, Texas Tech University • The current study examined the consequences of different types of self-presentation strategies on Facebook users’ subjective well-being, depending on their level of self-esteem. The results indicated that people with low self-esteem became happier after updating their Facebook status using strategic self-presentation rather than true self-presentation. Meanwhile, people with high self-esteem exhibited similar levels of happiness after updating Facebook using both strategic and true self-presentation.

“Aging…The Great Challenge of This Century”: A Theory-Based Analysis of Retirement Communities’ Websites • Hong Ji; Anne Cooper • By 2040, the large over-65 population will change “religion…work…everything” according to an expert on aging. CCRCs are one health care/housing option for the final years of life. This study of 108 CCRC websites found a self-actualized photo population –smiling, wining/dining, and engaged in various fulfilling pursuits. The disconnect with reality — more males, minorities and healthy people than actually live at CCRCs — has implications for source credibility and the image of ideal aging.

The Role of Social Capital in the United States’s Country Brand • Jong Woo Jun, Dankook University; Jung Ryum Kim, City of Busan; Dong Whan Lee, Dankook University • This study explores antecedents and consequences of social capital. Using Korean college students as research samples, survey research was implemented measuring U.S. media consumptions such as TV drama, Hollywood movies, POP music, advertising, and magazine. As results, American media consumptions influenced social capital elements such as interpersonal trust, institutional trust, network, and norms. Also, interpersonal trust, network, and norms influenced attitudes toward the United States which in turn lead to strong beliefs about the United States. This study extended the usability of social capital to country branding settings, and could provide significant managerial implications to academicians and practitioners.

In the Crosshairs: The Tucson Shooting and the News Framing of Responsibility • Matthew Telleen, Elizabethtown College; Jack Karlis, Georgia College; Sei-Hill Kim • This research adds to the framing literature with a content analysis of media coverage following the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Analyzing 535 items from the month after the shooting, it was determined that coverage of the Tucson shooting focused more heavily on societal issues like political rhetoric than on individual issues like mental illness It was also discovered that coverage varied from medium to medium and along political associations.

Tweeting the Election: Comparative Uses of Twitter by Trump and Clinton in the 2016 Election • Flora Khoo, Regent University; William Brown, Regent University • “Social media are increasingly becoming important means of political communication and essential to implementing an effective national election campaign. The present study evaluates the use of Twitter by presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Results indicate substantial framing differences in the tweets released by the two candidates. These differences are discussed along with implications for future research on the use of Twitter for political campaigns.

The Role of Reanctance Proneness in the Manifestation of Psychological Reactance against Newspaper Editorial • HYUNJUNG KIM • This study investigated the role of trait reactance proneness in the affective and cognitive reactance processes in the context of organ donation in South Korea. A web-based survey experiment using a sample of South Korean residents was conducted. Findings demonstrate that an editorial advocating organ donation from ideologically incongruent media is perceived as more biased than the same editorial from other media. The perceived bias is linked to perceived threat to freedom, which, in turn, is related to affective reactance, leading to unfavorable attitudes toward organ donation, particularly for high trait-reactant individuals. These findings suggest that trait reactance proneness may moderate a psychological reactance process in which affective and cognitive processes of reactance operate separately.

Pride versus Guilt: The Interplay between Emotional Appeals and Self-Construal Levels in Organ Donation Messages • Sining Kong; Jung Won Chun; Sriram Kalyanaraman • Existing research on organ donation has generally focused on message types but ignored how individual differences—and possible underlying mechanisms—affect the effectiveness of organ donation messages. To explore these issues, we conducted a 2 (type of appeal: pride vs guilt) X 2 (self construal: independent vs interdependent) between-subjects factorial experiment to examine how different self-construal levels affect emotional appeals in organ donation messages. The results revealed that regardless of self-construal levels, autonomy mediated the relationship between emotion and attitudes toward organ donation. Also, pride appeal messages generated more autonomy than guilt appeal messages, leading to more positive attitude toward organ donation. Furthermore, after controlling for autonomy, those participants primed with an independent self-construal preferred pride appeal messages more than they did guilt appeal messages. These findings offer important theoretical and applied implications and provide a robust avenue for future research.

“Feminazis,” “libtards,” “snowflakes,” and “racists”: Trolling and the Spiral of Silence • Victoria LaPoe; Candi Carter Olson, Utah State University • Using a mixed methods Qualtrics survey of 338 Twitter and Facebook users, the authors explore the impact that the 2016 election had on people’s political posts both before and after the election and whether or not people actually experienced harassment and threats during the election cycle. This article argues that the internet constitutes a digital public sphere. If trolling causes people—particularly women, LGBTQIA community members, and people who identify with a disability—to censor themselves because they feel their opinion is in the minority or that they will be attacked for stating their ideas, then it would follow that trolling is changing our public sphere, which is affecting our political conversations in a profound way.

Coverage of Physician-Assisted Death: Framing of Brittany Maynard • Sean Baker; Kimberly Lauffer • In 2014, Brittany Maynard, 29, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, moved from California to Oregon, one of only three U.S. states with legal physician-assisted death, so she could determine when she would die. This paper examines how mainstream U.S. media framed Brittany Maynard’s choice to use physician aid in dying, arguing that although frames initially focused on the event, they transformed into thematic coverage of issues underlying her choice.

Do Political Participation and Use of Information Sources Differ by Age? • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; An-Pang Lu; Yitsen Chiu, National Chengchi University • Most studies on the connection between offline and online political participation either focused on young citizens or treated age as a continuous variable. Many of them also used a limited local sample. This survey study employed a national sample to examine the effects of age and information sources on offline and online political participation. The relationship between age and offline/online participation does not appear to be linear, which has important implications for future studies.

Discussing HPV Vaccination: Ego-centric social networks and perceived norms among young men • Wan Chi Leung, University of Canterbury • This study examined the role of social norms in influencing young men’s support for the HPV vaccination. A survey of 656 young adult males in the United States indicated that the perceived injunctive norm was more powerful in predicting support for the HPV vaccination for males than the perceived descriptive norm. The average tie strength in their ego-centric discussion networks for sexual matters, and the heterogeneity of the discussants significantly predict the injunctive norm.

The effects of message desirability and first-person perception of anti-panhandling campaigns on prosocial behaviors • Joon Soo Lim, Syracuse University; Jiyoung Lee • The current research examined the third-person effect (TPE) of anti-panhandling campaign messages. It tested both perceptual and behavioral hypotheses of the TPE. A survey was administered to 660 participants recruited from Mechanical Turk’s Master Workers. The results demonstrate the robustness of third-person perceptions for persuasive campaign messages. We also learned that the magnitudes of TPP for anti-panhandling campaign messages could be moderated by message desirability. Analyzing the behavioral component of TPE, the current study adds empirical evidence that presumed influence of positive social campaign on oneself can make the audience engage in prosocial behaviors as well as promotional behaviors.

The third person effect on Twitter: How partisans view Donald Trump’s campaign messages • Aimee Meader, Winthrop University; Matthew Hayes, Winthrop University; Scott Huffmon, Winthrop University • A telephone poll of Southern respondents in the United States tested the third person effect by comparing partisan perceptions about Donald Trump’s tweets during the 2016 presidential election. Results show that the third person effect was strong for Democrats who viewed the tweets as unfavorable, but diminished for Republicans who viewed the tweets as favorable. Additionally, Republicans’ estimation of media influence on themselves was comparable to Democrats’ perceptions, but estimations of Democrats varied by Party.

‘Where are the children?’: The framing of adoption in national news coverage from 2014 through 2016 • Cynthia Morton; Summer Shelton, University of Florida • Pilot research explored three specific questions: 1) what frames are represented in print news stories about adoption?; 2) which frames are most prevalent in their representation?; and, 3) what implications can be made about the effect of combination of the news frames and their frequency on audience perceptions? A qualitative content analysis was conducted. The findings suggest that print news’s coverage of the child adoption issue leans toward legal/legality and child welfare/work frames. Implications on adoption perceptions and the potential impact on individuals influenced by adoption are discussed.

Exemplification of Child Abduction in U.S. News Media: Testing Media Effects on Parental Perceptions and Assessment of Risk • Jane Weatherred, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina • Despite decades of research, public misperceptions persist about the threat of child abductions in the U.S. Because prior research reveals that parental perceptions of child abduction are mediated by news coverage, this study offers one of the only experimental designs that found links between media coverage and parental perceptions of child abductions, advancing the literature on exemplification theory. This study advances our understanding of how media coverage can impact public perceptions of crime.

Sharing Values vs. Valuing Shares: A Communication Model a Social-Financial Capital • Paige Odegard; Thomas Gallegos; Chris DeRosier, Colorado State University; Jennifer Folsom, Colorado State University; Elizabeth Tilak, Colorado State University; Nicholas Boehm, Colorado State University; Chelsea Eddington, Colorado State University; Cindy Christen, Colorado State University • Emphasizing the shift in priority placed on social, financial, and professional capital in an era of technological growth, this paper proposes the Communication Model of Social-Financial Capital (CMSFC). The paper discusses the effects of innate and acquired identities, and values on preference for social, financial, and professional capital, which in turn affect preference for social media platforms. Finally, the paper discusses how the model is applicable in realistic settings and suggests next steps for empirical validation.

Understanding antecedents of civic engagement in the age of social media: from the perspective of efficacy beliefs • Siyoung Chung; KyuJin Shim; Soojin Kim, Singapore Management University • This study examines three efficacy beliefs— political self-efficacy, political collective efficacy and knowledge sharing efficacy—as antecedents of social media use and civic engagement. Employing more than one thousand samples in Singapore, we empirically test (a) a conceptual framework that can provide an understanding of the relationship between the three types of efficacy and civic engagement and (b) the underlying mechanism through which the three types of efficacy beliefs affect civic engagement via social media. The findings suggest that the current civic engagement is characterized by excessive use of social media. Also, the study implicates knowledge sharing efficacy was found to play an important role in mediating the relationships between social media and political self-efficacy, political collective efficacy, respectively.

Online Surveillance’s Effect on Support for Other Extraordinary Measures to Prevent Terrorism • Elizabeth Stoycheff; Kunto Wibowo, Wayne State University; Juan Liu, Wayne State University; Kai Xu, Wayne State University • The U.S. National Security Agency argues that online mass surveillance has played a pivotal role in preventing acts of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11. But journalists and academics have decried the practice, arguing that the implementation of such extraordinary provisions may lead to a slippery slope. As the first study to investigate empirically the relationship between online surveillance and support for other extraordinary measures to prevent terrorism, we find that perceptions of government monitoring lead to increased support for hawkish foreign policy through value-conflict associations in memory that prompt a suppression of others’ online and offline civil liberties, including rights to free speech and a fair trial. Implications for the privacy-security debate are discussed.

Audiences’ Acts of Authentication: A Conceptual Framework • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Richard Ling, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Oscar Westlund; Andrew Duffy, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Debbie Goh, Nanyang Technological University Singapore • Through an analysis of relevant literature and open-ended survey responses from 2,501 Singaporeans, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to understand how individuals authenticate the information they encounter on social media. In broad strokes, we find that individuals rely on both their own judgment of the source and the message, and when this does not adequately provide a definitive answer, they turn to external resources to authenticate news items.

Committed participation or flashes of action? Bursts of attention to climate change on Twitter • Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University; Luping Wang, Cornell University • We explore participation in bursts of attention to the climate issue on Twitter over a period of five years. Climate advocacy organizations are increasingly focused on mobilizations of issue publics as a route to pressure policy makers. A large Twitter data set shows that attention to climate on Twitter has been growing over time. However, we find little evidence of a “movement” on Twitter: there are few users who participate in online mobilizations over time.

Is the Tweet Mightier than the Quote? Testing the Relative Contribution of Crowd and Journalist Produced Exemplars on Exemplification Effects • Frank Waddell, University of Florida • What happens when journalist selected quotes conflict with the sentiment of online comments? An experiment (N = 276) was conducted to answer this question using a 3 (quote valence: positive vs. negative vs. no quote control) x 3 (comment valence: positive vs. negative vs. no comment control) design. Results revealed that online comments only affect news evaluations in the presence of positive rather than negative quotes. Implications for exemplification theory and online news are discussed.

Ideological Objectivity or Violated Expectations? Testing the Effects of Machine Attribution on News Evaluation • Frank Waddell, University of Florida • Automation now serves an unprecedented role in the production of news. Many readers possess high expectations of these “robot journalists” as objective and error free. However, does news attributed to machines actually meet these expectations? A one-factor experiment (human source vs. machine source) was conducted to answer this question. News attributed to robots was evaluated less positively than news attributed to humans. Attribution effects were invariant between individuals scoring low and high in anthropomorphic tendency.

Express Yourself during the Election Season: Study on Effects of Seeing Disagreement in Facebook News Feeds • Meredith Wang, Washington State University; Porismita Borah; Samuel Rhodes • The 2016 election was characterized by intense polarization and acrimony not only on the debate stage and television airwaves, but also on social media. Using panel data collected during 2016 U.S. Presidential election from a national sample of young adults, current study tests how opinion climate on social media affect ones’ political expression and participation. Result shows disagreement on Facebook encourages young adults to express themselves and further participate in politics. Implications are discussed.

Won’t you be my (Facebook) neighbor? Community communication effects and neighborhood social networks • Brendan Watson, Michigan State University • This paper examines the effect of neighborhood social context, specifically the degree of racial pluralism, on the number of residents who use Facebook to connect with their local neighborhood association to follow issues affecting their community. Analysis is based on a new “community communication effects” approach, replacing the city-wide analysis of prior studies with an analysis of neighborhood data more likely to influence users of newer, participatory communication platforms. Results suggest more complicated, non-linear effects than theorized by the existing literature. Some degree of neighborhood heterogeneity is necessary to create interest in neighborhood issues and spur mediated as opposed to interpersonal communication among neighbors. But too much heterogeneity is associated with a decline in following neighborhood associations on Facebook. The paper identifies where that tipping point occurs and discusses practical and theoretical implications.

The needle and the damage done: Framing the heroin epidemic in the Cincinnati Enquirer • Erin Willis, University of Colorado – Boulder; Chad Painter, University of Dayton • This case study focuses on the Cincinnati Enquirer’s coverage of the heroin epidemic. The Enquirer started the first heroin beat in 2015, and it could serve as a model for other news organizations. Reporters used combinations of episodic, thematic, public health, and crime and law enforcement frames in their coverage. These news frames are discussed in terms of how individualism-collectivism, geographic location, available resources, and social determinants inform journalistic and societal discussions of the heroin epidemic in terms of solutions instead of responsibility or blame.

Suicide and the Media: How Depictions Shape our Understanding of Why People Die by Suicide • Joyce Wolburg, Marquette University; Shiyu Yang; Daniel Erickson; Allysa Michaelsen • The contagion effect of the media upon suicide is well documented, given that suicide rates tend to increase following heavy news coverage of a death by suicide. However, much less is known about the influence that the media has upon attitudes and beliefs about suicide, particularly our understanding of why people choose to die by suicide and our tendency to lay blame for suicidal acts. Using text analysis, this study identifies and describes seven reoccurring themes across the entertainment media—in both drama and comedy—that address the reasons people die by suicide. Further analysis demonstrates how blame is assigned. Conclusions are drawn regarding the overall social impact, especially on the surviving friends, family, therapists, etc.

MOELLER STUDENT COMPETITION
How U.S. Newspapers Frame Animal Rights Issue: A Content Analysis of News Coverage in U.S. • Minhee Choi; Nanlan Zhang • Analyzing newspaper articles, this study explores how American newspapers have framed the issue of animal rights. Results indicate that news stories were more likely to present animal rights as a legal and policy issue, rather than a political and an economic issue, talking primarily about illegality of animal mistreatment and radicalized animal rights activists. Based upon the notion of frame building, this study also examines some factors that may influence the media’s selective use of frames.

Moeller Student Competition • Framing the Taxpaying-Democratization Link: Evidence from Cross-National Newspaper Data • Volha Kananovich • This study explores the relationship between the nature of the political regime and the framing of the construct of a taxpayer in the national press. Based on a computer-assisted analysis of articles from 87 newspapers in 51 countries, it demonstrates that the less democratic a country is, the more likely it is for the press to frame a taxpayer as a subordinate to the state, by discussing taxpaying in enforcement rather than public spending terms.

Moeller Student Competition • Who is Responsible for Low-Fertility in South Korea? • Won-ki Moon, University of South Carolina; Joon Kim, University of South Carolina, Columbia • This study investigated how South Korean newspapers have presented low fertility, specifically focusing on how newspapers attribute responsibility to society or individuals. Through a content analysis of South Korean newspapers (N = 499), we found that the newspapers were focusing heavily on societal-level causes and solutions when talking about low fertility. Among potential causes of and solutions for low fertility, insufficient government aids and financial incentives were mentioned most often.

STUDENT COMPETITION
Online Conversations during an Emergent Health Threat: A Thematic Analysis of Tweets during Zika Virus Outbreak • Alexander Moe, Texas Tech University; Julie Gerdes, Texas Tech University; Joseph Provencher, Texas Tech University; Efren Gomez, Texas Tech University • “Days after the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of Zika in Brazil a global emergency on February 2, 2016, United States President Barack Obama responded by requesting over $1.8 billion in Zika research and prevention funds from Congress. This event put the under-researched disease on the radar of American citizens. The present study examines a set of over 70,000 public Tweets during the days surrounding Obama’s request to understand how Twitter users in the States made sense of the emerging infectious disease.

Understanding why American Christians are intolerant toward Muslims: Christian nationalism and partisan media selection • Kwansik Mun • This paper seeks to explain the formation of political intolerance by reviewing theoretical arguments on Christian nationalism and selective exposure theories. Our analysis confirms the significant relationship between Christian nationalism and ideological news selection, and the mediated effect of ideological news media on both perceived threats and political intolerance toward Muslims.

The “Primed” Third-Person Effect of Racial Minority Portrayals in Media • Jiyoun Suk, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study explores how priming of different levels of media effects (either strong or weak) influences the third-person effect of media portrayals of African Americans. Through an online posttest-only control group experiment, results show that priming strong media effects heightened perceived media effects on in-group and out-group others, but not on the self. Also, it was the perceptions of in-group others, after reading the strong media effects message, that led support for media literacy education.

Beyond Passive Audience Members: Online Public Opinions in Transitional Society • yafei Zhang, The University of Iowa; Chuqing Dong • This study examined audience members’ online comments of a popular TV news program featuring controversial social issues in the contemporary Chinese society. Findings suggested that audience members expressed more negative comments, substantial cognitive recognition, and constructive suggestions towards the government, elite class, and media. The pluralistic and legitimate public opinions expanded the literature on online public discourse in transitional societies. Audience members as citizens in the formation of public spheres were also discussed.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Cultural and Critical Studies 2017 Abstracts

Judging the Masses: The Hutchins Commission on the Press, the New York Intellectuals on Mass Culture • Stephen Bates, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • To qualify as an intellectual, according to Edmund Wilson, one must be “dissatisfied with the goods that the mass media are putting out.” This paper dissects and compares two prominent midcentury critiques of the mass media that have rarely been considered together: the critique of the news media by Robert Maynard Hutchins and the Commission on Freedom of the Press, and the critique of mass culture by Dwight Macdonald and other New York intellectuals.

Detecting Black: Urban African American Noir • Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma • A critical and cultural perspective leads to the notion that Film Noir’s sense of location is tied to urban spaces. The context of post-WW II cities, depicted as an expressionist play of revealing light and disguising shadow, defines the cultural universe for these stories of crime and conflict. However less attention has been paid to the notion of race in relation to noir, though the varieties of stories that are discussed under noir (and neo-noir) include significant treatments of African American characters in these urban contexts. The relationship between cities and black culture(s), therefore, offers an opportunity to explore American cities at the intersection of race and the concerns of noir. A deeper noir context is presented in the Los Angeles of Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), the Hughes Brothers’ neo-noir Brooklyn in the film Dead Presidents (1995), and the adaptation of a Chester Himes story in the “Tang” episode of the anthology pilot Cosmic Slop (1994), by Warrington and Reginald Hudlin. In these examples the noir setting is increasingly constrained, the urban landscapes, through racially inflected noir terms, are a shrinking labyrinth. The uncomfortable politics of race that are just beneath the surface of noir are brought to the forefront. Where mainstream (i.e., racially transparent) noir finds threats in how the system is perverted by evil men and femme fatales, by shifting attention to attitudes about race, these evil actions are matched by injustices and evil in the epistemology of ignorance in the systems themselves.

Athleticism or racism?: Identity formation of the (racialized) dual-threat quarterback through football recruiting websites. • Travis R. Bell, University of South Florida • This study uses racial formation theory to explain how football recruiting websites oppress high school quarterbacks of color through the “dual-threat” code word. Analysis of 125 top-rated quarterbacks from 2012-2016 is explicated as a sporting racial project. Inequality is embedded in the coded difference between predominately white “pro-style” quarterbacks and “dual-threats.” Racialization of the quarterback position reduces upward mobility and serves as a site of new struggle for quarterbacks of color to overcome as teenagers.

Faith and Reason: A Cultural Discourse Analysis of the Black & Blue Facebook Pages • Mary Angela Bock, University of Texas at Austin; Ever Figueroa, University of Texas at Austin • Highly publicized deaths of Black men during police encounters have inspired a renewed civil rights movement originating with a Twitter hashtag, “Black Lives Matter.” Supporters of the law enforcement community quickly countered with an intervention of their own, using the slogan, “Blue Lives Matter.” This project compared the discourses of their respective Facebook groups using Symbolic Convergence Theory. It found that the two groups’ symbol systems are homologous with America’s historic secular tension.

Deconstructing the communication researcher through the culture-centered approach • Abigail Borron, University of Georgia • The culture-centered approach (CCA) model, as a research methodology, critically examines the contested intersections among culture, structure, and agency, specifically as it relates to marginalized communities. This paper examines how CCA challenged the researcher to personally evaluate ethical and academic responsibility, recognize marginalizing practices on behalf of the dominant paradigm, and integrate elements of CCA into course design and student mentorship regarding future journalism and communication careers and scholarly work.

Differential Climate: Blacks and Whites in Super Bowl Commercials, 1989-2014 • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina; Ernest Wiggins, University of South Carolina; Phillip Jeter • A content analysis of Super Bowl commercials from 1989 to 2014 finds that Blacks as primary characters exceed their proportion in U. S. population. However, they appear much more frequently in background roles and are associated with less prestigious products more than with higher-status products, which is consistent with the presence of Blacks in other TV commercials and findings of a climate of difference in commentary about Black athletes and White athletes during sporting events

“Trust me. I am not a racist”: Whiteness, Media and Millennials • chris campbell, u. of southern miss. • This paper examines “whiteness,” a contemporary form of racism identified by Critical Race Theorists, in media created by and/or designed for the Millennial generation. Partially through a textual analysis of white comedian-actress Amy Shumer’s peculiar take-off on superstar Beyonce’s “Transformation” video, the paper argues that even politically progressive Millennial media reflect similarities to racially problematic media produced by previous generations — especially the notion of post-racialism. The paper raises the possibility that post-racial whiteness will continue to haunt media texts and delay yet another generation of Americans from arriving at a more sophisticated understanding of racism and its impact on our culture.

“We’re nothing but the walking dead in Flint”: Framing and Social Pathology in News Coverage of the Flint Water Crisis • Michael Clay Carey, Samford; Jim Lichtenwalter, Georgia • This framing study uses news coverage of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis to examine representation of social pathology. Ettema and Peer wrote that the use of a “language of social pathology to describe lower-income urban neighborhoods” has led Americans to “understand those communities entirely in terms of their problems” (1996, p. 835). Urban pathology frames discussed in this study suggest a lack of agency among residents and may distract from broader questions of environmental justice.

Navigating Alma’s gang culture: Exploring testimono, identity and violence through an interactive documentary • Heather McIntosh; Kalen Churcher, Wilkes University • Testimonios bring oppressed voices to the masses, motivating them toward political engagement. Alma: A Tale of Violence is an interactive documentary that draws on this tradition. It tells the story of a Guatemalan woman who joined a gang and struggled with marianismo expectations within gang culture machismo. This paper argues that while Alma provides expansive information unavailable in other mediated testimonio forms, it offers a limited experience in terms of audience participation and interactivity.

Of “Tomatoes” and Men: A Continuing Analysis of Gender in Music Radio Formats • David Crider, SUNY Oswego • The 2015 radio controversy “SaladGate” revealed a lack of female music artists gaining airplay. This study expands a previous gender analysis of music radio into a longitudinal study. A content analysis of 192 stations revealed that airplay is increasing for females; however, it is mostly limited to the Top-40 format. The results suggest the existence of a gender order (Connell, 1987) in music radio, one that works hand-in-hand with the music industry to exclude women.

Considering the Corrective Action of Universities in Diversity Crises: A Critical Comparative Approach • George Daniels, The University of Alabama • Using both the theory of image restoration discourse and critical race theory, this study takes a critical comparative examination of the university responses to diversity crises in 2015 at The University of Missouri, The University of Oklahoma, and The University of Alabama. All three institutions took “corrective action” by appointing a “diversity czar” and a committee or council to investigate concerns of students protests.

Preserving the Cultural Memory with Tweets? A Critical Perspective On Digital Archiving, Agency and Symbolic Partnerships at the Library of Congress • Elisabeth Fondren, Louisiana State University – Manship School of Mass Communication; Meghan Menard-McCune, LSU • In recent years, the Library of Congress has announced plans to archive vast collections of digital communication, including the social media tool Twitter. A textual analysis of white papers and press briefings show the Library is trying to make born-digital media accessible by increasingly partnering with private vendors. This study attempts to narrow the gap in understanding why cultural organizations have an interest in preserving social media as part of our collective memory.

A Seven-Letter Word for Leaving People Out: E L I T I S M in The New York Times Crossword • Shane Graber • This study examines the discourse that The New York Times crossword puzzle uses to define, protect, and exclusively communicate with the culture elite, a privileged group of people who tend to be wealthy, male, and white. Using a critical discourse analysis to study clues and answers, findings show that puzzles in the world’s most important newspaper skew favorably toward the culture elite and often portray marginalized groups such as women, people of color, and the poor negatively—or ignore them altogether.

When Local is National: Analysis of Interacting Journalistic Communities in Coverage of Sea Level Rise • Robert Gutsche Jr, Florida International University; Moses Shumow, Florida International University • This study examines the interaction of journalistic communities from local and national levels by examining moments when local issue for local audiences was thrust onto a national stage by national press for wider audiences. Through this analysis, we argue that local press positioned themselves as authorities on local issue, ultimately positioning national press as “outsiders” so as to reaffirm local news boundaries, a process we refer to as boundary intersection.

Silly Meets Serious: Discursive Integration and the Stewart/Colbert Era • Amanda Martin, University of Tennessee; Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee; Barbara Kaye, University of Tennessee • This paper traces political satire on U. S. television. Using the theory of discursive integration, the paper examines the satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and the scholarship about their respective programs, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Discursive integration explained well the look and sound, as well as societal function, of such programs. Each blurs lines between news and entertainment, and helps audiences decode meanings from the hubris often in the news.

Remote Control: Producing the Active Object • Matthew Corn; Kristen Heflin, Kennesaw State University • This study argues that remote control is not merely a human capability or feature of a device, but a type of human/device relation and agency with deep roots in broader attempts at control from a distance. This study discusses the concept of active objects and provides an historical account of the emergence of remote control as the means of producing active objects, thus revealing the insufficiency of Enlightenment/empiricist divisions between acting humans and acted-upon objects.

Social Identity Theory as the Backbone of Sports Media Research • Nicholas Hirshon, William Paterson University • The impacts of group memberships on self-image can be examined through social identity theory and the concepts of BIRGing (basking in reflected glory) and CORFing (cutting off reflected failure). Given the interaction between sports media narratives and identity variables, this paper charts the simultaneous developments of social identity theory and BIRGing and CORFing and examines how social identity can serve as the theoretical backbone for sports media scholarship.

Challenging the Narrative: The Colin Kaepernick National Anthem Protest in Mainstream and Alternative Media • David Wolfgang, Colorado State University; Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri • In 2016, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, stirring debates in the media over appropriate methods of protest. This study used textual analysis to compare mainstream and black press coverage of Kaepernick’s protest and also analyzed forums on black press websites. The findings show how mainstream media focused on a protest narrative, while the black press struggled to promote racial uplift and to use forums for productive discourse.

National Security Culture: Gender, Race and Class in the Production of Imperial Citizenship • Deepa Kumar, Journalism and Media Studies, Rutgers University • This paper is about how national security culture sets out, in raced, gendered, and classed terms, to prepare the American public to take up their role as citizens of empire. The cultural imagination of national security, I argue, is shaped both by the national security state and the media industry. Drawing on archival material, I offer a contextual/historical analysis of key national security visual texts in two periods—the early Cold War era and the Obama phase of the War on Terror. A comparative analysis of the two periods shows that while Cold War practices inform the War on Terror, there are also discontinuities. A key difference is the inclusion of women and people of color within War on Terror imperial citizenship, inflected by the logic of a neoliberal form of feminism and multiculturalism. I argue that inclusion is not positive and urge scholars to combine an intersectional analysis of identity with a structural critique of neoliberal imperialism.

Searching for Citizen Engagement and City Hall: 200 Municipal Homepages and Their Rhetorical Outreach to Audiences • Jacqueline Lambiase, TCU • U.S. cities rely on their websites to enhance citizen engagement, and digital government portals have been promoted for decades as gateways to participatory democracy. This study, through rhetorical and qualitative content analyses, focuses on 200 municipal homepages and the ways they address audiences and invite participation. The findings reveal very few cities have: platforms for interactive discussions; representations of citizen activities; or ways to call citizens into being for the important work of shared governance.

California Newspapers’ Framing of the End-of-Life Option Act • Kimberly Lauffer; Sean Baker; Audrey Quinn • In 2014, Brittany Maynard, 29, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, moved from California to Oregon, one of only three U.S. states with legal physician-assisted death, so she could determine when she would die. Three months after her Nov. 1, 2014, death, California lawmakers introduced SB 128, the End-of-Life Option Act, to permit aid in dying in California. This paper uses qualitative methods to examine how California newspapers framed the End-of-Life Option Act.

When Cognition Engages Culture and Vice Versa: Conflict-Driven Media Events from Strategy to Ritual • Limin Liang • Amidst the recent turn towards power and conflict in media ritual studies, this article proposes a new media events typology building on Dayan and Katz’s (1992) classic functionalist model. Events are categorized according to how a society manages internal and external conflicts in ritualized/ritual-like ways, and at both formal and substantive levels. This leads to four scenarios: rationalized conflict, ritualized trauma, perpetuated conflict and transformed conflict, all of which can be subsumed under Victor Turner’s useful concept of “social drama”. Further, to bridge ritual and cognitive framing studies, the article compares the two fields’ central frames for studying social conflict – “social drama” vs. “social problem” – and their mechanisms of achieving effect, namely, salience-making and resonance-crafting. The article tries to move beyond the “media events vs. daily news” binary to study communication along a continuum from strategy to ritual.

Re-imagining Communities in Flux, in Cyberspace and beyond Nationalism: Community and Identity in Macau • Zhongxuan LIN • Based on four years of participant observation on 37 Macau Facebook communities and 12 in-depth interviews, this paper inquires the research question that how Macau Internet users resist legitimizing identity, reclaim resistance identity and restructure project identity thereby constructing re-imagined communities in cyberspace. This inquiry proposes a possible identity-focused approach for future community studies, especially studying re-imagined communities in flux, in cyberspace and beyond nationalism.

Clustering and Video Content Creators: Democratization at Work • Nadav Lipkin • Much has been written on the democratizing potential of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, but scholarship generally disregards professional independent video content creators. This article explores these content creators through the concept of clustering that suggests firms and workers benefit from co-location. Using a case study of video content creators, this study suggests these workers are less positively affected by clustering due to political-economic conditions and the digital nature of production.

“Kinda Like Making Coffee”: Exploring Twitter as a Legitimate Journalistic Form • Zhaoxi Liu, Trinity University; Dan Berkowitz, U of Iowa • Through an eight-week field research, the study provides an in-depth inquiry into journalists’ use of Twitter and what it means to their craft, foregrounding the issue of artifact boundary while exploring its deeper meaning from a cultural point of view. The study found journalists had contradicting views on the issue of artifact boundary, and faced contradictions and uncertainties regarding what Twitter meant for their craft. The paper also discusses the finding’s implications for democracy.

Editorial Influence Beyond Trending Topics: Facebook’s Algorithmic Censorship and Bearing Witness Problems • Jessica Maddox, University of Georgia • In 2016, Facebook found itself at the intersection of a controversy surrounding media ethics and censorship when it removed Nick Ut’s famous “Terror of War” photo for violating its community standards policy regarding child nudity. The social media giant defended its decision by decreeing its image scanning algorithms had functioned correctly in policing the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. This contentious situation highlights many nebulous issues presently facing social media platforms, and in order to assess some of the dominant forms made available from press coverage of this issue, I conducted a textual analysis of the top ten international newspapers with the highest web rankings. This research shows that one, blurred boundaries of media, communication, and content are even more tenuous when considering social media, technology companies, and algorithms; two, that with great media power comes great media responsibility that Facebook does not seem to be living up to; and finally, that a fundamental flaw with algorithms, writ large, lies in their inability to bear witness to human suffering, as exemplified by international news coverage of the censorship of “Terror of War.” By regulating all human duties to computers, individuals absolve themselves over moral duties and compasses, thus presenting a perplexing ethical issue in the digital age.

Intellect and Journalism in Shared Space: Social Control in the Academic-Media Nexus • Michael McDevitt • This paper highlights interactions of journalists and academics as deserving more scrutiny with respect to both media sociology and normative theory on the circulation of ideas. Three sources of social control that impinge on the academic-media nexus are examined. A final section contemplates the implications of risk-aversive communication in higher education for public perceptions of intellect and its contributions to policy and politics.

Blending with Beckham: New Masculinity in Men’s Magazine Advertising in India • Suman Mishra • This study examines the representation of the “new man” in men’s lifestyle magazine advertising in India. Using textual analysis, the study explains how certain kinds of western masculine ideals and body aesthetics are being adopted and reworked into advertising to appeal and facilitate consumption among middle and upper class Indian men. The hybrid construction of masculinity shows a complex interplay between the global and the local which overall acts to homogenize the male body and masculine ideal while simultaneously creating a class and racial hierarchy in the glocal arena.

Digital Diaspora and Ethnic Identity Negotiation: An Examination of Ethnic Discourse about 2014 Sewol Ferry Disaster at a Korean-American Digital Diaspora • Chang Sup Park • This study examines how the members of a Korean-American online diaspora perceived a homeland disaster which took 304 lives and to what extent their perceptions relate to ethnic identity. To this end, it analyzes 1,000 comments posted in MissyUSA, the biggest online community for Korean Americans. This study also interviews 70 users of the ethnic online community. The findings demonstrate that the diasporic discourse about the disaster was fraught with discrete emotions, particularly guilt, anger, and shame among others. While guilt and anger contributed to reminding Korean Americans of their ethnic identity, shame has resulted in the disturbance of the ethnic identity of some Korean Americans. This study advances the ethnic identity negotiation theory by illuminating the nuanced interconnection between online ethnic communication, emotions, and ethnic identity.

Non-Representational News: An Intervention Against Pseudo-Events • Perry Parks • This paper introduces a journalistic intervention into routinized political “pseudo-events” that can lull reporters and citizens into stultified complacency about public affairs while facilitating highly disciplined politicians’ cynical messaging. The intervention draws on non-representational theory, a style of research that aims to disrupt automatic routines and encourage people to recognize possibilities for change from moment to moment. The paper details the author’s coverage of a routine political rally from a perspective untethered to normalized journalistic or political cues of importance, to generate affective and possibly unpredictable responses to the content.

Is Marriage a Must? Hegemonic Femininity and the Portrayal of “Leftover Women” in Chinese Television Drama • Anqi Peng • “Leftover women” is a Chinese expression referring to unmarried women over 30s who have high education and income levels. Through a textual analysis of the “leftover women” representation in the television drama We Get Married, this study explores how the wrestling of tradition and modernity exerting a great impact on the construction of the femininity of “leftover women.”

Every American Life: Understanding Serial as True Crime • Ian Punnett, Ohio Northern University • Serial (2014), a podcast in 12 episodes on the digital platform of the popular NPR radio show, This American Life, reached the 5 million downloads mark faster than any podcast in history. Although a few scholars identified the podcast as part of the true crime literary convention Neither the producers nor the host ever referred to Serial as true crime. Using textual criticism, this analysis proves that it was.

Journalist-Student Collaborations: Striking Newspaper Workers and University Students Publish the Peterborough Free Press, 1968-1969 • Errol Salamon • Building on the concept of alternative journalism, this paper presents the Peterborough Free Press as a case study of a strike-born newspaper that was published by striking Peterborough Examiner newsworkers and Ontario university students from 1968 to 1969. Drawing on labor union documents and newspapers reports, this paper critically examines how this alliance collaboratively launched the Free Press to fill a gap in local news coverage, competing with and providing an alternative to the Examiner.

“You better work, bitch!”: Disciplining the feminine consumer prototype in Britney Spears’s “Work Bitch” • Miles Sari, Washington State University • Using Baudrillard’s theory of consumption as a theoretical framework, in addition to support from Horkheimer & Adorno, Foucault, and Bartky, this paper examines how Britney Spears’s 2013 music video “Work Bitch” articulates a violent capitalist narrative of consumption. Specifically, the author argues that the clip advocates for a collective submission to the sadistic, social discipline of the female consumer body as a means of accessing the social and material luxuries of the bourgeoisie.

Color, Caste, and the Public Sphere: A study of black journalists who joined television networks from 1994-2014 • Indira Somani, Howard University; Natalie Hopkinson, Howard University • “Grounded in critical and cultural studies this study examined the attitudes and experiences of a group of Post-Civil Rights black journalists who face some of the same newsroom issues their predecessors faced, despite what was recommended in the Kerner Report in 1968.

Through in-depth interviews, the researchers uncovered the organizational and cultural practices of 23 black journalists aged 23-42 working in television network newsrooms, such as NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox. The participants included executives, anchors, reporters, producers, associate producers and assignment editors, who reveal how anti-black cultural norms are re-enforced by mentors, colleagues as well as superiors. Participants talked about culture, hair, skin color, grooming, and African American Identity and how conforming to white hegemonic norms were necessary for career advancement. This study also examined the degree to which color and caste continue to influence both the private workplace and the public sphere.”

Sights, Sounds and Stories of the Indian Diaspora: A New Browning of American Journalism • Radhika Parameswaran; Roshni Verghese • Using the concept of cultural citizenship, this paper explores the recent growth and visibility of the Indian diaspora in American journalism. We first begin with an analysis of the South Asian Journalists Association to understand the collective mobilization of this ethno-racial professional community. Gathering publicly available data on Indian Americans in journalism, we then present a numerical portrait of this minority community’s affiliations with journalism. Finally, we scrutinize the profiles of a select group of prominent diasporic Indian journalists to chart the professional terrain they occupy. In the end, we argue that Indian Americans may be a small minority, but they are poised to become a workforce whose creative and managerial labor will make a difference to journalism.

The securitization presidency: Evaluation, exception and the irreplaceable nation in campaign discourse • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • This discourse analysis uses securitization theory to examine the maintenance of the Other in the discourse of the 2016 US presidential campaign and the early stages of the Trump presidency. The taken-for-grantedness of American exceptionalism, combined with the general orientation of the press toward narratives of power, explains the maintenance of identity through the construction of Iran, Islam and the spectre of “political correctness” as existential threats. This paper advances the understanding of the specific mechanisms by which “security” is invoked; securitization is a fundamentally political move, though its goal is to move an issue like Iran beyond the realm of political debate and into the realm of security.

SNL and the Gendered Election: The Funny Thing About Liking Him and Hating Her • Wendy Weinhold, Coastal Carolina University; Alison Fisher Bodkin • Feminist theories of comedy guide this analysis of journalism in the New York Times and Washington Post dedicated to Saturday Night Live’s 2016 election coverage. The analysis reveals how SNL’s election sketches and news about them focused on the candidates’ celebrity, appeal, and style in lieu of substantive critique of their positions, policies, or platforms. The personality-based comedy and resulting news emphasized gender stereotypes and missed an opportunity to put real-life political drama in perspective.

Emotional News, Emotional Counterpublic: Unraveling the Mediated Construction of Fear in the Chinese Diasporic Community Online • Sheng Zou • Examining a popular news blog targeting Chinese diaspora living in the United States, this paper explores how emotionally-oriented digital news production sustains the Chinese diasporic community online as an emotional counterpublic sphere. This paper argues that the mediated construction of fear as a predominant emotion holds civic potentials, for it bridges the political life and everyday life, and connects a potentially more engaged diasporic counterpublic with the dominant public sphere of the receiving society.

2017 ABSTRACTS