Archives for March 2011

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group

Straight-for-pay: Performativity and sexuality on Seancody.com • Todd Harper, Ohio University • Popular gay porn website Seancody.com centers around a particular draw: the attraction of watching straight men perform gay sex acts. Drawing on performativity literature — particularly Escoffier’s (2003) discussion of gay-for-pay in porn work — this research examines the content on Seancody.com in the context of sexuality performance. The analysis suggests that Seancody’s content produces a potentially damaging rhetoric where the heterosexual male body is the focus of sexual power, rather than the gay male body.

The Politics of Visibility: Negotiations of Femininity and Sexuality on “The L-Word” Rebecca • Kern, Manhattan College • The visibility of sexual identities is far more than political; it defines subcultural groups and promotes cultural validation. This paper examines issues of sexual visibility and representation of queer-identified women on The L-Word, and the negotiation of these representations in reference to L-Word viewers’ sexual own identifications. In the end, construction of these identities continue to uphold the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy, and privilege norms appropriate to each side of the dichotomy.

An analysis of factors affecting attitudes toward same-sex marriage: Do the media matter? • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Gary Hicks, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville • Using a recent survey of more than 5,000 American consumers, this study examines connections between attitudes toward same-sex marriage and media consumption. A positive attitude is predicted by being liberal and less religious, supporting gender and racial equality, willing to try anything once, considering TV the primary form of entertainment, watching political talk shows, and reading blogs. The theoretical/methodological contributions and real world implications of these findings are discussed.

But Are We Free (to Be You and Me)? Meanings of citizenship in gay tourism advertising • Byron Lee, Temple University • In 2003, the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation released a new advertising campaign targeting the LGBT community. This paper will consider the advertisements of the Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay campaign, questioning how non-heterosexuality is represented; first in terms of the symbols and images that convey non-heterosexuality, and second, in consideration of how gay tourism campaigns position queer individuals as citizens in the US.

<< 2009 Abstracts

Entertainment Studies Interest Group

From Shakespeare to Disney: An Explication of Coleridge’s Suspension of Disbelief for Hollywood Musicals • Kelly Barrows, Syracuse University • While the term “suspension of disbelief” is commonly used and understood when explaining how audiences are able to negotiate implausible scenarios in fictional media, the theory lacks a comprehensive view of how the willing suspension of disbelief has been used.

What’s Entertainment? Notes Toward a Definition • Stephen Bates, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Anthony Ferri, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • This paper attempts to define “entertainment.” It considers the definitions of two related fields, leisure studies and popular culture; the definitions of entertainment used in law and regulation; and different scholars’ approaches to defining entertainment. It posits a set of criteria that can be used to determine what constitutes entertainment, including general passivity or spectatorship; communication; external stimuli that are principally auditory, visual, or both; pleasure; audience; and freedom.

Predictors of Attractiveness: The Role of Entertainment and Sports Media, Self-Discrepancy, and Sociocultural Attitudes in College Students’ Perceptions of Beauty in Women • Kim Bissell, University of Alabama • The objective of this project was to identify themes, patterns and predictors related to attractiveness ideals and appearance norms among a sample of men and women in the U.S. The sociocultural theoretical model has the strongest empirical support for understanding body image disturbance and appearance anxiety (Heinberg, 1996; Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, Tantleff-Dunn, 1999), by presenting to women through media representations the current societal standard for image and appearance.

Examining Humor in 30 Rock from Four Perspectives: Bergson, Frye, Freud, and Bakhtin • Lauren Bratslavsky, University of Oregon • The sitcom has long been a staple of network television, however, the sitcom has had a noticeable decline. The new sitcoms feature more parody and satire than before, particularly NBC’s 30 Rock. Using four approaches to humor, this paper draws on relevant examples to illustrate the theories of Henri Bergson, Northrop Frye, Sigmund Freud, and Mikhail Bakhtin.

Quarterbacks, engineers, and wingmen: Stereotypically male linguistic and semiotic content in “The Pick-Up Artist • Melissa Crosby, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University; Jennifer Billinson, The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University • This textual analysis examines the use of linguistic and semiotic content in the first season of the VH1 reality television show “The Pick-Up Artist.” We have created a framework for this study by building upon existing literature in the areas of gender communication, cultural studies, intertextuality relating to hyper-masculine popular culture icons, and semiotic theory.

Let’s Talk Soaps: An Exploratory Uses and Gratifications Study of Soap Opera Websites and Message Boards • Maria Fontenot, Texas Tech University • This exploratory study examines the motives of individuals who visit soap opera websites, and read and post on soap opera message boards from the uses and gratifications perspective. An online survey was posted on message boards of the three broadcast networks and the cable network SoapNet. Results revealed that entertainment and information seeking as the most popular motives for visiting soap opera website, reading soap message boards, and posting on such boards.

Enjoyment of Sad Endings: The Contributions of Empathy to the Eudaimonic Appreciation of Drama • Tom German, Muskingum College • This study explored emotional processes in the enjoyment of drama by way of negative affect. A 2 (CONTEXT: Present, Absent) x 2 (ENDING: Happy, Sad) fully factorial between-individual design was employed to test the effects of empathy toward protagonist and viewers’ affective states on entertainment of a dramatic television program. Results showed that the empathy interacted with ending type, resulting in sad endings being more entertaining than previous theory would predict.

Upper-Class Women Reading Celebrity News: Audience Reception Study on Celebrity News Viewed Through the Lends of Class • Gwendolyn Heasley, University of Missouri -Columbia • This research attempts to understand the reception of celebrity news magazines among upper class women in the U.S. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify cultural repertoires about the consumption and use of celebrity news. These repertoires are compared to ones found in Joke Hermes (1995) study on British tabloid readers. Qualitative research methods provide the framework for this study and in-depth interviews were conducted in order to collect detailed data.

Rhetorical Visions of Health: A Fantasy-Theme Analysis of Celebrity Articles • Amanda Hinnant, University of Missouri; Elizabeth Hendrickson, University of Tennessee • This research focuses on celebrity health stories in magazines, using fantasy-theme analysis to evaluate messages about health behavior and attitudes. The analysis compares stories about celebrities who have cancer with those about celebrities with health problems perceived as caused by overindulgence (addiction, obesity). The fantasy themes reveal messages about morality, privilege, access, authority, and authenticity. Overall, celebrity health messages could serve to establish moral communities that sanction or penalize health behaviors through their normative influence.

Positive Benefits: An Exploratory Study of Crime Drama Viewership and Sexual Assault Prevention • Stacey Hust, Washington State University; Emily Marett, Washington State University; Hua Chang, Washington State University; Ming Lei, Washington State University; Chunbo “Richard” Ren, Murrow College of Communication; Anna McNab, Washington State University; Paula Adams, Washington State University • This study examines the effects of exposure to crime dramas on rejection of rape myths and attitudes and confidence levels related to sexual assault prevention behaviors. College students’ exposure to crime dramas, acceptance of rape myths and behavioral intentions for consent, bystander intervention, and victim empowerment were collected. This exploratory study provides evidence of positive effects of exposure to crime drama programming and suggests the need for further research in the area.

The Effect of Negative Persuasive Message on Communicator Credibility and Behavioral Intention: The Moderating Role of Group Identification • Mikyoung Kim, Michigan State University; Tom Isaacson, Michigan State University • This study investigated the effect of negative messages on communicator credibility and counter-arguing intention with the moderating role of group identity. We found when people have strong group identity, those with a negative in-group message were more likely to disbelieve the communicator than were those with a negative out-group message. Contrarily, there was no difference between the two messages in communicator credibility among people with weak group identity.

I play, therefore, I am persuaded • Nam Young Kim, Louisiana State University; Yongick Jeong, LSU; Meghan Sanders, LSU • This study examined the potential for game controller platform and co-playing to affect game player’s presence and their perceived effectiveness of in-game advertising. The relationship between players’ psychological outcomes during a game and in-game advertising memory has been studied, yet few studies have focused on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

“OK. If it’s for the family.”: Production and representation of family in Maya & Miguel • Emily S. Kinsky, Pepperdine University • This qualitative study is informed by cultural studies and seeks to examine the production and representation of family within one particular television program, Maya & Miguel (Forte, 2004), using the circuit of culture (du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay, and Negus, 1997). Production was examined through in-depth interviews with personnel connected to Scholastic Media, while representation was examined through a textual analysis of 12 episodes of Maya & Miguel.

Truthiness of Fake News: Individuals’ viewing characteristics of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report • Jennifer Kowalewski, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daxton Stewart, Texas Christian University; Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • Scholars have investigated how individuals have tuned in to soft news programs for political information; but, not a lot of research has investigated how viewing characteristics influence what programs individuals tune to for that information. Using survey research, this paper examines how viewing characteristics influence the viewing of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Both shows have become increasingly popular over time, especially for younger viewers who tune more to Comedy Central than CNN.

The effects of individual differences on the enjoyment of morally ambiguous characters • K. Maja Krakowiak, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs • The present study tests how the individual difference factors of ambiguity tolerance (AT) and need for cognition (NFC) affect responses to purely good, purely bad, and morally ambiguous character types. Findings reveal that both AT and NFC affect enjoyment of content featuring different character types. This study thus reinforces the importance of individual differences in affecting media responses.

The Impacts of Intrinsic Motivation and Gender Difference on Video Game Genre Usage: A Multiple Group Comparison Approach • Doohwang Lee, University of Alabama; Jung Kyu Kim, University of Alabama; Robert LaRose, Michigan State University • By integrating Deci and Ryan’s (1985) theory of intrinsic motivation and Csikszentmihalyi’s (1975) theory of flow experience, this study sought to investigate the causal linkage among optimal balance of video game player’s perceived skill and challenge, flow experience, intrinsic motivation and video game genre usage. The results showed that the different types of video game usage were directly influenced by players’ intrinsic motivations, which were also reinforced by players’ flow experiences of enjoyment.

Veronica Mars: A modern-day teenager strolling the dark streets of film noir • Kathryn Lookadoo, Trinity University • This paper examines the teen-detective television show Veronica Mars and its connection to film noir. Film noir’s adaption to television has recently gained notice. The different medium and its constraints morph film noir into a form that retains certain genre characteristics while abandoning others to survive on television. This textual analysis of the pilot episode reveals how Veronica Mars exhibits classic film noir characteristics of past, loss, morality, and alienation while adapting them for television.

“They’re like my family”: An analysis of alternative families in “Friends” • Lisa Marshall, Muskingum College • This research analyzes alternative family structures and friendship rituals in all 10 seasons of Friends. The project offers a textual analysis of the entire series and demonstrates the disregard for blood ties and the construction of alternative families within the group of friends. The Friends narrative contained the idea that biological families are no longer prevalent or important to the characters’ lives. This research found that these six people formed their own kind of family.

Fast Pace, Smart Show?: An Analysis of Educational Quality and Pacing in Children’s Television Programming • Cynthia Nichols, The University of Alabama; Creshema Murray, The University of Alabama • Little research has examined the relationship between the pace and educational quality of children’s programming. The following study uses a systematic content analysis of 100 top-rated U.S. children’s television programs to explore the relationships between these two variables.

Celebrity Persuasion in the Political Arena: A Study of Message Effects on Voter Opinion • Cynthia Nichols, The University of Alabama; Carly McKenzie, The University of Alabama • Prior to the 2008 election, more than 200 participants from a large southern university participated in a study examining the impact of celebrities on voter opinion. Two different formats of the same message were used to determine if message type and content have an impact on voter opinion. Participants viewed two different videos of statements made by Barack Obama. The first video simply showed Obama making a speech.

Do “Sad” People Like “Sad” Entertainment? • Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State University; Julia Woolley, Penn State University; Anthony Limperos, Penn State University; Daniel Tamul, Penn State University; Keunmin Bae, Penn State University; Marlena Freeman, Penn State University • In addition to consuming entertainment for pleasure (hedonistic motivations), individuals may also consume entertainment to experience meaningfulness (eudaimonic motivations). Consequently, extant research suggesting that “sad individuals enjoy sad entertainment” may be better interpreted as illustrating that the meaningful affective states heighten preferences for poignant, dramatic entertainment. In support, this research shows that eudaimonic motivations mediate the relationship between “meaningful” affective states (e.g., contemplative) and interest in entertainment that elicits “meaningful” responses (e.g., inspired, compassionate).

Annie Wilson Wears Versace: The representation of high school females’ socioeconomic class on current fictional television series • Bene Petty, Trinity University • It is important to identify particular ideals, if any, that female youth are exposed to on television. This paper considers how high school females are portrayed in terms of socioeconomic class on fictional television series. Categories such as clothing, home environments, relationships, and behaviors were studied in relation to contemporary female television characters. This study examines 10 shows airing on The CW, ABC Family, Nickelodeon, and The Disney Channel during the fall 2008 television season.

Protecting Children’s Privacy on the Internet: COPPA Compliance on Children’s Websites • Erin Ryan, The University of Alabama; Carly McKenzie, The University of Alabama • Since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was passed, websites must follow specific guidelines regarding collection and dissemination of information from children under 13. This content analysis of 165 children’s websites investigated COPPA compliance. Results indicated most websites adhered to privacy policy content requirements, yet many did not follow policy positioning rules. Educational and entertainment websites were less likely than specialty sites to properly position policies, and several sites collected information without stating proper protections.

The Heat is On: The Effects of Temperature on Presence and the Gaming Experience • Ashleigh Shelton, University of Minnesota • This study examines the potential for the contextual element of room temperature to affect presence-related outcomes of video game exposure. Interactivity in the form of natural mapping, High-Definition TV, and surround sound has been advocated as possible contributors to presence experiences, yet no studies to date have investigated the impact of temperature, particularly as it applies to video games.

Swamps, Snakes and Storms: The Negative Portrayal of Louisiana in Film • Danny Shipka, Louisiana State University • Louisiana has long been a popular spot for filmmakers to weave their artistic tapestries. With its unique culture, evocative landscapes as well historical importance to the US, the state and its people have been the subject of intense scrutiny by the entertainment media. Almost without exception, the depiction of Louisiana in these films has been overridingly negative proliferating stereotypes.

The One with All the Heteronormativity: Lesbian Images in Friends • D. Renee Smith, University of Tennessee • Broadcasts networks tout their progressiveness and diversity in presenting lesbian images. In many instances these characterizations result in a heteronormative view of a lesbian world. A patriarchal voice greatly influences the actions of lesbian characters through the use of narrative scripting and specific production techniques. Wardrobe and casting heterosexualize and thus de-politicize lesbian characters. This study uses episodes from the popular situation comedy, Friends, to illustrate the heterosexual hegemony tightly controlling the broadcast television narrative.

Rhymes for sale? A Content Analysis to Determine the Frequency of Use and Implementation Methods of Brand Mentions in Hip Hop Lyrics • Jang Ho Moon, University of Texas at Austin; Kevin Thomas, The University of Texas at Austin; Min Woo Kwon, The University of Texas at Austin; Ryan Turner, The University of Texas at Austin • Hip hop music contains lyrics that are very conversational and can be utilized like forms of marketing communication. However, unlike publicly known forms of marketing communication, products mentioned in hip hop music are free of promotional stigma.

Theorizing Parasocial Interactions Based on Character Authenticity: The Development of a Media Figure Typology • Mina Tsay, University of Kentucky; Mitchael Schwartz, University of Kentucky • The relationships viewers develop with media figures have received substantial attention in the scholarship of entertainment. The present research proposes a four-level PSI typology, theoretically based on authenticity of media figures across the dimensions of depiction (live action vs. animated), story (fiction vs. non-fiction), form (human vs. non-human), and traits (super vs. normal).

Striking the Brand: The Political Economy of TLC’s Miami Ink • Kristine Weglarz, University of Minnesota—Twin Cities • The plethora of reality television available to audiences invites an examination of the role and representation of labor in producing the television series. This paper examines the reality television series Miami Ink and looks at the role of labor as theorized by Christopher Martin in creating the conditions for commodities to have magical, transformative and healing properties.

<< 2009 Abstracts

Community Journalism Interest Group

Reasserting Radio: An Exploratory Survey of Staff and Volunteers At U.S. Community Radio Stations • Dean Graber, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin • Non-commercial “community radio stations” operated by citizens in more than 200 U.S. communities engage listeners in the public sphere, but little empirical data has been collected about U.S. community broadcasters. Through a nationwide Web-based survey, this study found that volunteers and paid staff at U.S. community radio stations participate primarily because of programming freedom, non-commercial principles, and to share music and knowledge with audiences. Most participants predicted community radio’s importance will grow in the future.

Community journalism and community history: A call for stories of the storytellers • Janice Hume, University of Georgia • The historical importance of community journalism in American life — while acknowledged anecdotally — has not been fully demonstrated. This bibliographic essay surveys the histories of community journalism, and calls for more complete and varied research into the relationship between local news and the construction and maintenance of communities.

Community News Editors as Citizens: Individual Level Predictors of Social Capital and Community Engagement • Seungahn Nah, University of Kentucky; Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky • Relying on social capital theory, this study examines the extent to which community news editors build social capital and engage in community activities. Data were collected using a statewide, Web-based survey in a southeastern state.

Journalism’s role in bridging fragmented community: The case of college sports communities • Chang Wan Woo, The University of Alabama; Wilson Lowrey, The University of Alabama; Jung Kyu Kim, University of Alabama; Hyuksoo Kim, The University of Alabama; Hyonjin Ahn, Universityof Alabama • Sports can be a source of social cohesion within a sports community; at the same time, it can obstruct the social bridging process in communities with diverse sports identities. Community journalism can play an integral role in bridging diverse community groups by listening widely to the community, helping to set an agenda, and by facilitating community interaction. This study examines how college sports as community institutions, shape local news media’s efforts to build community.

Community Newspapers and Their Use of Newspaper Design Technology • Jennifer Wood Adams, Auburn University • This nationwide study provides benchmark data on the use of newspaper design technology at community newspapers. The study reports the perceptions and attitudes of community newspaper managers toward implementing desktop publishing software into their newsrooms and if the managers think there is a preference in the newspaper industry for journalists to know a particular application. Differences between daily and weekly community newspapers are compared.

<< 2009 Abstracts

Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group

What’s Journalism Got to Do with It? Political Blogs and Bloggers • Tom Bakker, University of Amsterdam; Klaus Schoenbach, University of Amsterdam; Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam • This article reviews studies on political blogging. While citizen journalism advocates had high hopes that blogs would lead to more diverse and broader coverage, produced by all types of citizens, data shows that political bloggers resemble traditional journalists (white educated males) and that bloggers do little original reporting and mainly publish opinion based on news by mainstream media. More systematical empirical research is needed to assess the journalistic contribution of political bloggers.

New Media’s Contribution to Presidential Debates • Pamela Brubaker, The Pennsylvania State University • Web 2.0 technologies add a new dimension to political campaigns whereby citizens can view and listen to political messages and well as produce and distribute the messages themselves. This study examines the debate questions aired during the Republican and Democratic CNN/YouTube presidential primary debates, whereby citizens had the opportunity to submit video questions through the video sharing website YouTube.

Reporting By the People: A Case Study of Citizen Journalism During the 2008 Election • Rebecca Coates-Nee, San Diego State University, JMS; K. Tim Wulfemeyer, San Diego State University, School of Journalism and Media Studies; David Dozier, San Diego State University, School of Journalism and Media Studies • This case study examined a year-long, citizen-journalist project that focused on the 2008 presidential campaign. Six bloggers were recruited, trained, and contributed weekly posts to a group blog hosted on a public radio/television station’s Web site. In this study, participant observation, interviews, and project reports were used. Findings indicate that managing blogger motivation is key, training bloggers is important, and bridging the gap between professional journalists and citizen bloggers is difficult.

How Citizen Journalists Conceive of and Practice Community in One Midwestern City • Cathy DeShano, University of Wisconson-Madison; Sue Robinson, University of Wisconson-Madison • This research examines how citizen journalists in one city conceive of and engage in communities, drawing from theories about social capital, public sphere, communicative integration, and community to consider the implications of virtual contribution for democratic governance.

Interacting is Believing?: Examining bottom-up credibility of blogs among politically interested Internet users • Daekyung Kim, Idaho State University • This study examines how politically interested Internet users perceive blogs as credible sources of news and information. More specifically, this study aims to identify a new possible factor that has an impact on blog credibility assessment in the collaborative nature of digital media circumstances. It was found that blog credibility was predicted by the interaction between blog reliance and online news activity. Implications of the findings were discussed for future research.

The Blogger as Journalist • Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University School of Journalism • This is a secondary analysis of Pew Internet data from a 2006 survey of bloggers. The bloggers were analayzed by cohorts, with particular attention to those who view their blogs as journalism. Using journalistic standards such as fact-checking and source attribution correlated significantly with levels of audience attention reported by those bloggers. This finding tempers enthusiasm about journalistic characteristics of bloggers as a whole that stem from the failure to distinguish between types of bloggers.

Frequency Of Links To Primary Source Material In The Hyperlinking Patterns Of Political Blogs • Mark Leccese, Emerson College • Political bloggers claim to be a crucial source of information in American elections and public policy debates, usurping the role of mainstream media. This study coded more than 2,000 hypertext links on the World Wide Web on six widely-read political blogs during seven consecutive days in January 2008. It found that fewer than about 15% of hyperlinks directed readers to primary sources.

“Anyone can know:” Citizen journalism and the interpretive community of the mainstream press in a Mid-Western city • Sue Robinson, University of Wisconson-Madison; Cathy DeShano, University of Wisconson-Madison • Online citizen writers are forming a loose community that is alternatively collaborating or at war with journalists’ own interpretive community. Interviews with bloggers and professional journalists revealed convergences and tensions within these communities according to framing values of socially responsible missions, access to information, entitlement to knowledge and informal notions of professionalism.

Sustaining Hyperlocal Media and Citizen Journalism: In Search of Funding Models • David Kurpius, Louisiana State University; Emily Metzgar, Indiana University; Karen Rowley, Louisiana State University • As traditional media operations struggle to find their footing in a world of rapidly evolving interactive technology and economic turmoil, media innovators are exploring new ways to identify, collect, and disseminate information. One innovation that is attracting attention is the development of hyperlocal media.

The Future of News? A Study of Citizen Journalism and Journalists • Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi; Mary Lou Sheffer, University of Southern Mississippi • A survey of citizen journalists was conducted to assess what, if any, impact they are having on traditional news values such as balanced reporting, double checking facts and ethical reporting. Citizen journalists at three different news/sports sites took part in the study.

Is Blogging Journalism? Analyzing the Blogosphere’s Perspective • Michael Sheehy, University of Cincinnati; Hong Ji, The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism • This content analysis identifies bloggers’ perceptions of the relationship between blogging and journalism through framing theory. The study found bloggers generally do not perceive blogging as journalism, even though many see a connection between the two. The study also found growing blogger sentiment that blogging is journalism, that bloggers identify work processes as best characterizing the similarities or differences between blogging and journalism, and that bloggers typically rely on other blog sites as sources.

Discourse in The Malaysian Sociopolitical Blogosphere Amidst Racial Politics • Jun-E Tan, Nanyang Technological University; Indrajit Banerjee, Nanyang Technological University • ‘The Chinese are only squatting here’, remarked Ahmad Ismail, a Malaysian politician during a political rally in August 2008, drawing flak from numerous parties within the multicultural country. This paper examines the sentiments at the grassroots level in the Malaysian sociopolitical blogosphere after the incident by performing content analysis on 10 prominent blogs.

Sniffing Out Sleeping Dogs: Web 2.0 and Reconceptualizing the Public Sphere and Guard-dog Media • Ryan Thomas, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University; Mary Grace Antony, Washington State University • In this paper, we synthesize literature on the media’s role in the public sphere with work on the agenda-setting and guard-dog functions of mass media. We argue that citizen journalism has reinvigorated notions of the public sphere while posing significant challenges to agenda-setting and guard-dog theories. We highlight the Oscar Grant shooting on New Years Day, 2009 and the subsequent response as a lens through which the emancipatory potential of citizen journalism can be realized.

Online and Offline Citizen Journalism News: Which do our Young Adults Believe in? • Charlene Wee, National University of Singapore; Julian Lin, National University of Singapore • This study compares perceived credibility of online and offline citizen journalism news, with controls placed on the news stories, authors and publisher. A survey of over 300 young adults — deemed to be more familiar and frequent in their consumption of online and citizen journalism news — indicates that contrary to beliefs that newspapers are increasingly made redundant by the Internet, readers see offline news versions as being more credible. The findings contribute to research and practice.

Practicing Place: Sharing, Collaboration, and Collective Action in an Online Urban Forum • Patrick Wehner, University of Pennsylvania; Dana M. Walker, University of Michigan • Increasingly, research is demonstrating how internet-enabled technologies are not separate from, but actually embedded in, our everyday and localized practices. If the internet is becoming “more local,” as some scholars have claimed, how can we understand the role of citizen-produced information, news, and discussion within the media landscape of news and information about the city?

<< 2009 Abstracts

Commission on the Status of Women

False Rape and Media Frenzy: Newspapers’ Framing of the Duke University Lacrosse Case • Barbara Barnett, University of Kansas • In 2006 three white members of the Duke University lacrosse team were charged with raping and sexually assaulting a black woman hired to dance at a team party. The case generated hundreds of news stories, and the charges ultimately proved to be false. This qualitative analysis examines how U.S. journalists framed the story and suggests they focused on the legal twists and turns in the case, rather than the larger issue of rape.

Behind the Scenes of Women’s Broadcast Ownership • Carolyn Byerly, Howard University • Recent research shows that women’s ownership of broadcast stations — FM and AM radio, and television — has dropped to the single digits in this era of deregulation and the media conglomeration that has resulted. This paper contributes to an understanding of women’s relationship to media structures by reporting the qualitative portion of a larger study on women broadcast ownership in the United States.

Patients’ Privacy and the Internet: Where Abortion Rights and the First Amendment Overlap • Deborah Carver, University of Minnesota • On September 3, 2008, Jezebel.com reported that a web site, AbortionTracker.com, claims to have a database of the personal information of women who have had abortions since the 1940s. This paper explores what legal remedies patients currently would have to remove their information from the database and discusses a feminist treatment of the First Amendment, arguing that the web site’s database should not be protected.

Does Gender Influence Students’ Evaluations of College Professors? A Qualitative Content Analysis of RateMyProfessors.com • Mackenzie Cato, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • RateMyProfessors.com, a rapidly growing online destination for students, now boasts more than 6.6 million user-generated ratings of more than 900,000 college professors. Students use the site’s free services to plan their class schedules and rate professors they have taken in the past. Does a professor’s gender play a dominant role in students’ evaluations? The purpose of this study is to qualitatively analyze students’ evaluative postings of college professors on the Web site RateMyProfessor.com.

A Descriptive Analysis of NBC’s Primetime Coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics • Charles A. Tuggle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Kelly Davis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study examines NBC’s United States broadcast coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games for gender equality and compares that coverage to previous years. Olympic coverage is particularly important to female athletes because many receive little media attention beyond Olympic competition. The study found that, while female participation in the Olympics has increased, NBC coverage of women’s events has not, and 97% of airtime devoted to women’s events was confined to six “socially acceptable” sports.

The Feminism of Bernarr Macfadden: Physical Culture and the Empowerment of Women • Kathleen Endres, University of Akron • This paper looks at the feminism of publisher/editor Berrnarr Macfadden as presented on the pages of Physical Culture magazine during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Two phases were identified. During the first decade, Macfadden focused on health feminism. During the second decade, Macfadden’s feminism had extended to embrace political, economic and legal equality for women.

Sports reporting and gender: Women journalists who broke the locker room barrier • Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas; Laura Matysiak, University of North Texas • This qualitative study examined the influences of female sportswriters who broke the locker room barrier in the 1970s and 1980s. Interviews with 12 women who were key members of sports media during this period showed that the women fought hard to gain access to athletes’ inner sanctum. Once they gained access, they endured harassment and embarrassment, but ultimately landed compelling stories from their subjects.

Gender Differences in Chinese Journalists’ J-blogs • Fangfang Gao, University of Florida; Renee Martin-Kratzer, University of Florida • The explosion of Internet users and j-bloggers in China makes Chinese j-blogs an area worthy of examination. This study focused on the differences in j-blogs written by male and female Chinese journalists. Topics, formats, reader comments, j-bloggers’ responses, hyperlinks, and multimedia features were examined to gain insight into gender influences on online journalism in China. The findings reveal that traditional social norms for gender influenced the content and format of j-blogs.

Riding the Wave: The Evolution of a Broadcast Feminist, Alison Owings, 1966-77 • Sarah Guthrie, Ohio University • Alison Owings was one of an important group of women in broadcast news, those who pushed for substantial changes in the way women were treated in broadcast and ultimately for changes in the way that women were covered in news. Not all women could be the “first” but there were many small stones in the shoes of the established, male hierarchy.

Susan Faludi’s Backlash: A Book’s Role in Building the Media Agenda for Coverage of Sexual Harassment in the Early ‘90s • Lynette Holman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study investigates the notion that a book’s publication may have influenced the media agenda, or at least built it around the topic of feminism, and more specifically, the issue of sexual harassment.

Television as a Societal-Level Influence on Rape Perceptions: The Cultivation of Rape Myths • LeeAnn Kahlor, University of Texas at Austin; Matthew Eastin, UT-Austin • Cultivation theory, feminist theory, and ecological models guided this study of television as a societal-level contributor to the acceptance of rape myths. Results from an online cross-sectional survey of 1064 U.S. adults (371 males, 693 females) confirmed a significant positive correlation between television viewing and rape myth acceptance. As predicted, this relationship was stronger for men.

“He leads with his head and she follows her heart”?: Maya & Miguel’s representation of gender • Emily S. Kinsky, Pepperdine University • Using qualitative methods, the children’s program Maya & Miguel, which airs on PBS in the United States, is analyzed for its depiction of gender using the circuit of culture (du Gay et al., 1997). Through a textual analysis of 12 episodes, the author examines the portrayal of characters and their gender. Some gender stereotypes are maintained (e.g., boys are more sports focused), while others are broken (e.g., Miguel is depicted as musical and artistic).

Look Who Is Talking: Candidates’ Self Presentation on Campaign Websites and Viability In 2006 U.S. Senate, House and Gubernatorial Races • Jayeon Lee, The Ohio State University; Kideuk Hyun, The University of Texas at Austin • This study applied Expectancy Violations Theory to the relationship between political candidates’ self-presentation on their campaign websites and electoral consequences in 2006 U.S. Senate, House and gubernatorial races. The results show that female candidates are more likely to emphasize male traits than their male counterparts, but there is no difference across males and female candidates in their emphasis of male versus female issues.

Sexism at any Altitude?: Stewardess Advertising and Second-Wave Feminist Protest • Katherine Lehman, Albright College • In 1960s-70s airline advertising, flight attendants appeared as prospective brides or swinging singles. While this advertising strategy reflected women’s limited work and social roles, I argue it had broader economic and political implications. Throughout this period, airlines used stewardesses’ perceived sexual availability as a marketing tool to navigate heightened competition. Feminist protests against stewardess images in the early 1970s helped change the tone of advertising, and sparked broader discussion of gender discrimination in the workplace.

Framing Saint Johanna: Media coverage of Iceland’s first female (and openly gay) Prime Minister • Dean Mundy, UNC Chapel Hill • On February 1, 2009, Johanna Sigurdardottir became Iceland’s first female (and the world’s first openly gay) prime minister. She inherited a collapsed government and economy, as well as a brief timeline to prove her abilities. Accordingly, Iceland’s unique international position represents a significant opportunity to understand how media frame the first female and first openly gay prime minister.

Feminist Discourse and “Real” Ideology in The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty • Dara Persis Murray, Rutgers University • This paper interrogates the representation of women and cooption of feminist discourse around the Western cultural notion of beauty in The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (CFRB). A semiotic analysis focuses on CFRB’s United States advertising. This textual investigation reveals that CFRB employs feminist signs to reference a key binary opposition in feminist politics – liberation and oppression – in the presentation of an ideology of “real beauty.”

The Self-Body Image: An Integrated Model of Body Image and Beauty Ideals • Temple Northup, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • While there has been no shortage of literature examining body image as well as beauty ideals, there has been relatively little that has tried to explore and explicate exactly what is meant by the terms body image or beauty ideal in mass communication research, and how those concepts are then related. Indeed, those terms are often used interchangeably.

Ms. Vice President: Media exposure and voter views on gender stereotypes and women in politics • Scott Parrott, The University of Alabama; Brett Harmon, The University of Alabama; Sarah Belanger, The University of Alabama; Sarah Beth Combs, The University of Alabama • This study surveyed 221 college students about their political ideology, media use and views on gender and women in politics in the wake of the 2008 presidential election, which included women vying for the two highest posts in American government. Informed by media priming and gender gap in policy preferences theories, the study found a relationship between media exposure and respondent views on women in politics and gender roles in society.

Women leaders in public relations: A qualitative analysis • Katie Place, University of Maryland • “Women leaders in public relations: A qualitative analysis” examines what factors women public relations leaders believe affect their success and how women public relations leaders perform leadership. Literature regarding feminist theory of public relations and women, leadership and public relations framed the study. A qualitative method was used to conduct semi-structured face-to-face interviews with women public relations executives, vice presidents and senior managers on the East Coast.

Fifty Years Later: Mid-Career Women of Color Against the Glass Ceiling in Communications Organizations • Donnalyn Pompper, Temple University • Little scholarly attention has focused on the interplay of age, ethnicity and gender dimensions among working women challenging the organizational glass ceiling. For the current study, 36 midlife-aged women of color working in mediated message industries were invited to discuss how — as beneficiaries of socio-political movements and legislation spanning nearly five decades — they negotiate organizational hierarchies and balance public and private work spheres.

Run Faster, Train Harder, Look Sexier? Examining the Pressure Female Athletes Feel to be Sexy • Lauren Reichart, University of Alabama • One hundred and sixty female athletes from five Division I universities in the southeastern and northeastern United States were surveyed to determine if sexualized and glamorized media frames of elite athletes resulted in a negative social comparison by collegiate athletes, and if greater exposure to such media frames resulted in more acceptance of those media frames.

Restricting or liberating? Female journalists’ experiences of managerial competencies in traditionally male-dominated Nepali newsrooms – an exploratory study • Elanie Steyn, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma; Kathryn Jenson White, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma • Organizations worldwide recognize people as their most important resource. However, many countries struggle to acknowledge women as leaders, creating significant imbalances. Reasons contributing to this are male-dominated management environments, religious and cultural barriers. This study qualitatively explores female journalists’ experiences of management in traditionally male-dominated Nepali media environments. It highlights gaps between the importance and implementation of three managerial competencies in these newsrooms, which currently restrict Nepali women’s professional roles.

The Candidates’ Wives : Newspaper Coverage of Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election • Jenna Swan, Denison University • The 2008 Presidential race offered an opportunity to challenge the mold of the “preferred” First Ladies, constructed in news as embodying model American femininity. News stereotypes of African American women tend to run counter to the normative “ideal” of First Ladies. A content analysis of 166 newspaper articles found that Cindy McCain more closely meets expectations of “ideal First Ladies”, suggesting the presence of a racialized gender norm bias.

“I don’t feel like I’m up against a wall of men!”: Negotiating difference, identity and the glass ceiling in sports information • Erin Whiteside, The Pennsylvania State University; Marie Hardin, Penn State • This research explores how women in college sports public relations, commonly called sports information, cope with their minority status and the related notion of a glass ceiling at their workplace. It follows the work of Wrigley (2002), who argues that women in public relations use several strategies to cope with existence of a glass ceiling, together which form a concept she calls “negotiated resignation.” We explore this concept through conversations with women sports information directors and theorize about the implications of those characterizations.

More than just a pretty face?: Framing analysis of women and women journalists in Columbia Journalism Review, 1961-1991 • Amber Willard Hinsley, University of Texas-Austin • Women in American society are defined through the media, and journalists are powerful in selecting how women are framed. By studying a prominent trade publication, we discover how journalists may “learn” which frames to use when writing about women in general and in the journalism profession. Columbia Journalism Review was analyzed over thirty years, and three dominant themes emerged – women and female journalists as invisible figures, as wives and mothers, and as victims of discrimination.

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