Communication Theory & Methodology Division
Protesting Immigration: Attitude Congruency and the Behavioral Component of the Third-Person Perception • Julie Andsager and Josh Grimm, University of Iowa • This experiment examined the relationship between attitude congruency and third-person perceptions of influence of news media. It included the effects of this relationship on willingness to support protests, using immigration as a topic. Findings indicate that attitude-congruent news stories have strong perceived influence on individuals, but not on others. Individuals were supportive of attitude-congruent protests, but TPP and the news stories were unrelated to protest support. Traditional operationalization of the behavioral component is questioned.
Agenda-setting and Priming: The Public’s Evaluation of Presidential Hopefuls • Sang Y Bai, University of Texas-Austin • One of the primary purposes of this study is to examine the ways in which both media issue salience and political figures’ attributes in the news media influences public evaluation of political figures. By focusing on main issues in presidential elections and affective attributes of each presidential hopeful’s capability in terms of each of the main issues, this study attempts to further investigate the dynamics of priming effects.
Public Meetings in Entertainment Television Programming: Using Procedural Justice to Analyze Fictional Civic Participation • John Besley, University of South Carolina and Janie Diels, Alma College • Quantitative and qualitative analyses of entertainment television programs depicting public meetings demonstrate that, while citizens are often shown having substantial opportunity to affect local government decisions, authorities are often portrayed quite negatively. In particular, they are often shown as rude and in an obvious conflict of interest. The categories for this content analysis originate in social-psychological theories of justice, a body of research that offers potential utility to communication scholars.
Thwarted by Frames: Attributions of Poverty and Support for Public Policy •
Andrew R. Binder and Eulalia Puig-i-Abril, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines one of the central tenets of Tversky and Kahneman’s prospect theory, according to which the framing of potential outcomes in terms of gains versus losses results in shifts in policy preferences. Instead of using generalized policy options to which respondents will have no prior attachment, and focusing on the issue of poverty, we examine whether framing a social issue in terms of lives lost versus life saved affects responsiveness towards the issue.
When Observation Isn’t Enough: An Experiment Exposing a Moderation Effect • Vanessa Boudewyns, Ryan Paquin and Marco Yzer, University of Minnesota • The effectiveness of mass communication campaigns as a means of encouraging behavior change is greatly dependent upon how well those campaigns target the underlying factors that predict behavior. The current study uses an experimental design to demonstrate that a positive attitude will lead to behavioral intention only to the extent that people believe they are personally able to perform the behavior. Initial empirical support for the hypothesis is presented, as are recommendations for future research.
Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors Associated with U.S. Early Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Media • Jane Brown, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Correlates of use and subsequent sexual attitudes and behaviors related to use of sexually explicit content in magazines, movies and the Internet were examined in a diverse sample of early adolescents (Ave. age = 13.6 years; N = 967). Two-thirds (66%) of males and more than one-third (39%) of females had seen at least one form of sexually explicit media in the past year.
Whistling While You Work Might Hurt: An Experiment on the Effects of Music when Evaluating Job Applicants • Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • As consumption of music in the workplace increases, and as popular music becomes more explicit in violent and sexual themes, it is important to understand how prevalent musical themes influence listeners as they make work decisions. This experiment evaluates the ability popular music with a sexual, aggressive, or thoughtful theme to prime individuals, biasing their evaluations of job applicants toward the music theme.
Applicability of the Informational Utility Model for Radio News • Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The informational utility model proposes that information will appear more useful, and become more salient to individuals, if the information conveys increased magnitude, likelihood, and immediacy of consequences for the individual. This model has been tested primarily with online news using selective exposure as the outcome. This study tests applicability of the model to radio news using perceived attention and retention of information as outcomes. Story valence influenced effectiveness of the model for both outcomes.
Moderating Roles of Image and Issues Stories on Broadcast News Scene Order and Proportion Effects • Yun Jung Choi and Jong Hyuk Lee, Central Michigan University and SooYeon Hong, Syracuse University • The study examines how image and issues stories moderate the effects of scene order and scene proportion of broadcast news on viewers’ attitude formation. Both image and issue stories showed primacy and proportion effects. Candidate attributes discussed in early scenes and attributes discussed most frequently in a story determined the overall impression of the candidates. However, image stories showed stronger prominent primacy effects and proportion effects than issue stories.
The Mortality Muzzle: Effect of Death Thoughts on Support for Press Censorship • David Cuillier, University of Arizona and Blythe Duell and Jeffrey Joireman, Washington State University • This study introduces terror management theory to the communication field to potentially explain why public support for press censorship increases during times of strife, such as war or terrorist attacks. Findings from an experiment suggest that people who most value security demonstrate greater support for censorship when primed to think of death than similar security-minded participants in a control group.
The Importance of the Home Environment: Predicting Adolescent Political Communication Behaviors from Parental Communication Behaviors • William Eveland, Tiffany Thomson, Lindsay Hoffman and Myiah Hively, Ohio State University • Communication behaviors are an important aspect of the development of citizenship in young people, ultimately impacting political knowledge and participation. Moreover, communication behaviors have been found to be stable over time. Therefore, examining influences on such behaviors are of critical importance. This study examines three processes through which parents, in particular, influence child communication behaviors: transmission of communication behavior, active mediation, and family communication patterns.
The Path to War: A Second-Level Agenda-Building Analysis Examining the Relationship Among the Media, the Public and the President • Shahira Fahmy, Southern Illinois University, Tom Johnson, Texas Tech University, Juyan Zhang, Monmouth University and Wayne Wanta, University of Missouri • This study combines both the agenda building and the second-level agenda approaches. It proposes an expansion of agenda-building research by examining the interaction among the president, the media and the public for an event that was not considered an existing ‘real-world’ condition.
Covering the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Factors of News Treatment of Official Sources in Four Major U.S. Newspapers • Eric Freedman, Michigan State University • News treatment of official sources has tremendous impact on U.S. politics and policies because unequal treatment can lead to media bias that further complicates political agendas. Content-analyzing four major U.S. newspapers’ coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this study finds foreign policy and press access are strong predictors of source treatment. It raises questions of whether the press may destabilize peace and domestic politics by preferring one side’s sources over the rival’s sources, presenting biased coverage.
The Effects of Color Manipulation of a Political Advertisement on Candidate Perceptions • Nokon Heo, University of Central Arkansas • This study investigated the effect of a black-and-white manipulation of a negative political ad on candidate perceptions, memory, and voting intentions. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) was the primary theoretical mechanism used to generate main hypotheses. A total of 48 college students viewed a 20-minute long video containing a negative political video shown during a regular television program. Participants were also asked to rate their levels of political involvement.
Visual Processing of Banner Animation: A Test of Two Competing Theories – “Distinctiveness” and “Motion Effects” • Nokon Heo, University of Central Arkansas • This study investigated the effect of banner animation on search-reaction time for banner ads. The purpose of the experiment was to test two competing theories about banner animation effects: distinctiveness theory and motion effect theory. All participants (N = 31) in a 2 (Animation) x 2 (Banner Type) x 4 (Number of Animated Distractors) within-subjects factorial experiment were participated in a Web banner search task. Each subject completed a total of 72 trials.
Political Discussion, Efficacy and Engagement: A Moderating Effect • Myiah Hively, Ohio State University • This paper examines the effect of internal political efficacy as a moderator of the relationship between diverse discussion networks and political engagement. Eight hundred and forty-six participants completed an online survey that was collected from a national volunteer sample. Results indicate that there are positive effects on engagement for both dimensions of efficacy and participants’ discussion networks.
Predicting Children’s Political Efficacy, Cynicism, and Participation: The Influence of Parents, Media, and Knowledge • Myiah Hively, Lindsay Hoffman and Tiffany Thomson, Ohio State University • Understanding how youth learn about politics and what influences and shapes their attitudes-and later behaviors-has been a topic of interest to scholars since the 1960s. This study looks not only at a traditionally measured outcome of socialization-specifically, participation-but also examines beliefs that are important for future behavior: internal political efficacy and cynicism. Data were collected from 201 parent-child dyads in 2005 from a 2004 battleground state.
Blogosphere and Participatory Democracy: Hostile Media Perception, Information Selection, and Political Participation • Hyunseo Hwang, Kjerstin Thorson and Rich Cleland, University of Wisconsin-Madison and David Perlmutter, University of Kansas • What could be the possible behavioral outcomes of the hostile media perception? To answer this and other related questions, we explore the paths starting with alienation from mainstream news media leading toward political participation. The results consistently revealed that hostile media perception leads to decreased use of mainstream media while increasing the use of supportive political blogs. The results demonstrate that supportive blog use is positively associated to both online and offline political participation.
Revisiting the Gap: A Meta-Analytic Review of Knowledge Gap Research • Yoori Hwang, University of Minnesota and Se-Hoon Jeong, University of Pennsylvania • Using a meta-analytic procedure, this study reviewed past knowledge gap studies. Specifically, the average size of knowledge gap effects, changes in the gap over time, and the relative impacts of structural- and individual-level factors on knowledge gaps were assessed. In addition, potential moderators of knowledge gap effects were examined.
Pluralism and the Urban Context: How and When Does Community Matter? • Leo Jeffres, Edward Horowitz, Cheryl Bracken, Sukki Yoon and Guowei Jian, Cleveland State University • The structural pluralism model popularized by Tichenor and his colleagues says that that social structure influences how mass media operate in communities because they respond to how power is distributed in the social system, while the linear model says that the increasing size of a community’s population leads to more social differentiation and diversity and corresponding increases in subcultures with their own beliefs, customs, behaviors.
Pondering Media Messages, Talking to Others and Learning: Communication Processes and the Production of Scientific Knowledge • Eunkyung Kim and Dominique Brossard, University of Wisconsin-Madison • We examine how pondering media messages and talking to others during and after media exposure might impact different types of scientific knowledge. Based on national panel survey data, we show that cognitive involvement in the processing of news information during and after mass media exposure play a significant additive role in predicting three dimensions of scientific knowledge. The communication processing variables played a mediating role in linking science news use and issue-specific scientific knowledge.
Mode of Digital Identity: Confirmation Bias and Cognitive Busyness on Impression Formation under Text-based Versus Graphic-based Computer-Mediated Communication • Hokyung Kim, University of South Carolina • Theory suggests that when perceivers regard a target person as negative from a few observable characteristics, they form negative expectations about the target and respond to the target negatively based on their prior thoughts. Perceivers tend to confirm their negative expectations when they consider their target as a possible conversational partner, or when cognitively busy perceivers interact with the target in fact-to-face interaction.
Internet’s Influence on Traditional Media in the Contemporary Media Environment • Su Jung Kim, Northwestern University • This study investigated how traditional media use patterns have been affected by the Internet based on media substitution theory. Using cross-sectional survey data collected biannually from 2001 to 2005, this study analyzed indicators of time and functional displacement in a long-term perspective. The results showed that time displacement effect of the Internet has lessened and relationships between changes in traditional media use and age, education, level of television use were found.
Attribute Agenda Setting, Priming, and the Media’s Influence on How to Think about a Controversial Issue • Seihill Kim, Auburn University, Miejeong Han, Hanyang University and Doohun Choi, Auburn University • Using a controversial issue in South Korea, a government plan to relocate the administrative capital, this study examines attribute agenda setting, which refers to a close correspondence between salient issue attributes in the media and the agenda of attributes among the audience.
The New Logic of Collective Action in the Internet Age: The Impact of the Internet on the Transformation of Political Activism and Mobilization • Young Mie Kim and Seong-Jae Min, Ohio State University • This study revisits and revises Olson’s Logic of Collective Action in consideration of the growing adoption and uses of new communication technologies by interest groups in the U.S. By combining the telephone interview data of randomly sampled 209 public issue advocacy groups and labor unions with the groups’ organizational profiles data obtained from the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), this study examines how new communication technologies, especially the Internet, contribute to the changes in political activism and mobilization.
New and Legacy Media Use for Information and Entertainment 2000 and 2005: Displacement or Complementarity? • Damian Kostiuk, Margaret Duffy and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri-Columbia • This paper examines in a large U.S. sample how use of newspapers, television, Internet, magazines and radio for entertainment and information changed from 2000 to 2005. It tests the changes as reflected in three crucial demographic groups: no children/young; no children/mature; and has children (Cohen & Trahan, 2006).
Refining the Willingness to Censor Scale: Public Censorship Attitudes and Their Predictors • Jennifer Lambe, University of Delaware and Jason Reineke, Ohio State University • Research about censorship attitudes across disciplines shares the goal of predicting and modifying problematic attitudes. This paper reanalyzes existing data sets using Lambe’s Willingness to Censor scale (2002) to produce a more nuanced picture of the relationship between censorship attitudes and predictor variables including age, education, political ideology, political discussion and knowledge, and the big 3 personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion and openness. Results suggest these relationships are more complex than prior research has shown.
Interplay between Television, the Internet, and Interpersonal Health Communication in the Context of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors: Reinforcing or Substituting? • Chul-joo Lee, University of Pennsylvania • This study aimed to explore how media use for health information acquisition and interpersonal health communication interact in the context of healthy lifestyle behaviors. My results showed that the effects of television use and Internet use on healthy lifestyle behaviors were more enhanced among those who talked about health issues with their family and friends less frequently, which supports the substitution model. The theoretical implications of these findings for future research in this area were discussed.
Do Media Vary in Humanness? An Attempt to Explicate and Measure the Concept of Media Humanness • Hyung Min Lee, Kevin Wang and Brian Southwell, University of Minnesota • Based on the assumption that media technologies may retain a different level of human-like characteristics due to their respective technological attributes, we attempted to explicate and validate the concept of media humanness in this study. In the course of this process, we developed the measurement instrument for operationalizing the concept of media humanness and tested the reliability and validity of the measure with a multi-methods approach.
Effects of Online Community Participation on Real-Life Engagement: A Mediation Analysis • Jong Hyuk Lee, Yun Jung Choi, Central Michigan University and Sung-Un Yang, Syracuse University • This study examined the effect of online community participation on real-life community engagement. An online survey was conducted with 206 residents in New York and the data were analyzed by structural equation modeling and the Sobel’s mediation test. The study found that the overall Internet use has a negative impact on social capital of real-life communities but this influence turned out to be positive if mediated through online community participation.
Framing Policy Debates: Issue Dualism, Journalistic Frames, and Opinions on Controversial Policy Issues • Nam-Jin Lee, Douglas M. McLeod and Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines, on the basis of two framing experiments, how value and strategy frames shape the reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. The results suggest that framed messages failed to change issue opinions directly, but did alter the importance of considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments.
Knowledge Flows Dynamics of Core Communication Journals in 2005 • Sungjoon Lee and George Barnett, University of Buffalo • This paper examines the structure of knowledge flows using citation analysis based on 18 core journals within Communication for 2005. Unlike conventional ways of citation networks in the previous research done by Borgman and Reeves (1981) and Rice, Borgman, and Reeves (1989), the unit of analysis in this study is each (citing and cited) author’s membership in divisions/ interest groups in the International Communication Association (ICA).
Origins of Dutiful Voting and Defiant Activism: The Parent Path and the Peer Path to Adolescent Civic Identity • Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado • This study explores a fundamental question about political learning: Does formal education engender compliance or differentiation, and perhaps defiance, in identity formation? Results from a three-year panel study of adolescents and parents support a model in which schools prompt discussion in families and peer groups. Interpersonal influence in the two spheres share common steps but can be viewed as parallel staircases to divergent orientations, with families encouraging voting and peer groups fostering confrontational activism.
Political Socialization Upside Down: The Adolescent’s Contribution to Civic Parenting • Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado-Boulder and Spiro Kiousis, University of Florida • The study of political socialization is in many respects an attempt to understand how parents engender dispositions that are not overtly political but are transferable nonetheless to civic life. In challenging a presumption of accidental parenting, this paper proposes a model of developmental provocation to illustrate how adolescents contribute to purposeful parenting. Results confirm that adolescent discussion during an election campaign predicted civic parenting one year later despite controlling for political predispositions of parents.
Message-Induced Emotions, Faith in Intuition, and Persuasion • Xiaoli Nan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This research examines the effects of message-induced emotions on persuasion by investigating the influence of a message recipient’s emotional responses to a series of PSAs on his/her attitudes toward the advocated issues. Drawing upon the affect-as-information paradigm, recent developments in discrete emotions research, as well as Epstein’s cognitive-experiential self-theory, this research explores the overall impact of emotions on persuasion and how the strength of the emotional impact might be influenced by an individual’s faith in intuition.
The Influence of Liking for a Public Service Announcement on Issue Attitude • Xiaoli Nan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This research investigates the influence of an individual’s general liking for a public service announcement (PSA) on his/her attitude toward the advocated issue. Drawing upon the attitude toward the ad theory, this research argues that one’s liking for a PSA or, in other words, one’s attitude toward a PSA (APSA), exerts a significant positive impact on issue attitude and that the strength of this positive effect varies as a function of a variety of individual and situational factors.
An Analysis of Factors: How Candidate Image Affects Present Day Voters • Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch and Katharine Allen, Pennsylvania State University • With the growth of the media’s role in politics, candidate elections have moved from an issue-based process to a more image-based process such that more voting behavior now stems from superficial characteristics such as attractiveness than the candidate’s stance on an issue. This report investigates these image-based factors as predictors of voter preference for political candidates.
Incredible Media or Incredulous Audience: The Effects of Polarization and Partisanship on Media Credibility • Tayo Oyedeji, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study explores the effects of polarization and partisanship on audiences’ perceptions of media credibility. The results support the hypothesis that audience polarization contributes significantly to the media credibility crisis: religious, ideological, and geographical polarization explains 14.8% of the variance in media credibility. The HME was also confirmed for two of the three layers of polarization: religious and ideological partisans had statistically significant lower perceptions of media credibility than moderates.
An Individual Difference Approach to Understanding Communication Campaign Effects: Self-Monitoring, Perceived Message Effectiveness, and Perceived Media Influence • Hye-Jin Paek, University of Georgia • This study examines the self-monitoring tendency’s role in communication campaign effects. An analysis of survey data in a charity campaign context indicates that high self-monitors evaluate the charity campaign message more favorably than low self-monitors. In addition, perceived message effectiveness and perceived campaign influence are significantly associated with charitable behavior intention only among high self-monitors. The findings highlight the importance of understanding individual differences for more effective communication campaigns.
Effects of Photographs and Geographical Proximity: News Coverage of Paroling Serial Rapists • Chia-hsin Pan, Chinese Culture University • The present study investigated how people process Web-based sexual crime news of interest. Results revealed that geographical proximity of the issue caused greater panic than a distant one. Findings also showed participants using peripheral processes of news photos from a distant school. Specifically, a rapist’s photo from participants’ school would cause greater panic than a woman’s photo. On the contrary, a woman’s photo would cause greater panic than a rapist’s photo in the distant school.
Perceptions of Online Discussion Group Messages: Biasedness, Source Knowledgeability, Perceived Exposure and Influence • Sung-Yeon Park and Gi Woong Yun, Bowling Green State University • As online sources for information and opinions sprout rampantly on the Web and more and more people report the Web as their primary tool of social surveillance, the need to differentiate and understand various types of online sources is increasing as well. This study focused on online discussion group messages by examining audience perceptions of message biasedness, source knowledgeability, perceived exposure, and presumed influence on self and others.
Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Online Material and Sexual Uncertainty: Developing a Recipient-Generated Thought Model • Jochen Peter and Patti M. Valkenbuerg, University of Amsterdam • Analyzing a two-wave panel among 1,426 Dutch adolescents, we found that exposure to sexually explicit online material (SEOM) increased sexual uncertainty. In line with our recipient-generated thought model, perceived female objectification in SEOM mediated the effect of SEOM on sexual uncertainty. Attention during exposure and perceived realism of SEOM moderated this mediation process. If adolescents were attentive and perceived SEOM as realistic, the strongest effect of SEOM on sexual uncertainty via perceived female objectification occurred.
Cynicism Versus Skepticism in Citizens’ Attitudes Toward the Media and Political Decision Making • Bruce Pinkleton, Erica Weintraub Austin, Michelle Arganbright, Erin Bryant, Hua Chang, Francis Dalisay, Evan Epstein, Hanlong Fu, Erin Gallagher, Jay Hmielowski, Yevgeniya Solodovnikova and Ryan Thomas, Washington State University • Researchers conducted a telephone survey of randomly selected citizens 18 years of age or older in Washington state the week before the 2006 mid-term elections to study citizens’ attitudes toward news media and political decision making. Researchers examined the different roles of citizens’ cynicism-which, according to previous research results, reflects a closure to news and information about public affairs-versus their skepticism-which scholars suggest reflects a critical but open attitude toward news and information-in the political decision-making process.
“Corrective” Actions in the Public Sphere: How Perceptions of Media Effects Shape Online Behaviors • Hernando Rojas, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examine whether perceptions of media influence and perceptions of media hostility towards one’s views, predict taking “corrective” actions to ensure that one’s views are “heard” in the public sphere. Controlling for Internet use, political interest and efficacy this study provides evidence that both third-person perceptions and hostile media perceptions are consistently related with a series of online behaviors that seek to enrich public debate and “correct” potential biases in the public sphere.
The Effects of Moods on Processing of Competitive and Non-Competitive Ad Contexts • Sela Sar, Iowa State University • This study examined the effects of moods and ad contexts on memory. The data showed that positive moods triggered relational processing, whereas negative moods triggered item specific processing. The results also revealed that competitive ad contexts induced relational processing, whereas non-competitive ad contexts induced item specific processing. The processing styles that were induced by moods and ad contexts, in turns, influenced people’s recall, recognition, recall clustering and evaluations of ads.
Toward Improving the Validity and Reliability of Information Processing Measures in Surveys • Christian Schemer, Werner Wirth and Jeorg Matthes, University of Zurich • Measuring information processing strategies is of great value to the study of media effects in the field, but researchers have raised concerns about the reliability and validity of previous scales. Therefore, this paper addresses these concerns and makes a methodological contribution by developing a standardized scale for measuring heuristic and systematic information processing. Based on previous measures, we tested our scale in three independent surveys.
Media Effects on Deliberative Processing: Frames, Congruence and Emotion • Rosanne M. Scholl, Raymond J. Pingree, Melissa R. Gotlieb, Emily Vraga, Ming Wang and Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • An experiment found that news frames, message-attitude congruence, and negative emotions about issue opponents affect the nature and extent of political reasoning. Measures of differentiation, balance, and elaboration of reasons reveal results that support a number of underlying cognitive processes to explain reason giving. For instance, negative emotions moderate the effect of congruence on elaboration such that disconfirmation bias is at play for people with strong emotions, while spreading activation guides those with weak emotions.
Campaign Advertising Effects on Social, Political, and Media Trust: Short-term, Long-term, and Cumulative Models • Dhavan Shah, Melissa R. Gotlieb, Hyunseo Hwang, Nam-Jin Lee, Rosanne M. Scholl, Aaron Veenstra, Douglas M. McLeod, and Kenneth Goldstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Prior research predicts exposure to political advertisements will foster cynicism and mistrust. This study investigates effects of campaign ad volume and negativity on political, media, and interpersonal trust using a unique combination of panel survey data and individual-level ad exposure estimates. Notably, these data allow us to test short-term, long-term, and cumulative models of effects. Negative effects on political and social trust are observed for long-term and cumulative effects, suggesting new directions for research.
The Effect of Argument Typicality on Memory for Endorsement Messages • Joon Soo, Middle Tennessee State University • To investigate the role of schema in the audience’s remembering an endorsement message, this study tested the SC + T model of a schema theory. Results showed that recognition performance dropped over time more rapidly for atypical arguments than for typical arguments. There was also a typicality-by-time interaction on the confidence-of-recognition judgments for hit items. These findings resonate with the primary assumption of the SC + T model.
Mass Media’s Impact on Confidence in Political Institutions: The Moderating Role of Political Expectations • Daniela Spranger, University of Zurich • This paper focuses on mass media’s impact on citizens’ confidence in political institutions. Drawing on research within the field of political science that builds on the discrepancy theory from cognitive psychology, the paper argues that citizens’ expectations of how political institutions should work and the outcomes they should produce moderate mass media’s impact. Building on research of media framing effects on political attitudes an expectation-perception model of media effects is developed.
Uncertainty Framing in News Coverage of a Non-Conventional War Disaster • Kristen Swain, University of Kansas • This study explores relationships among factors that modulate uncertainty, including outrage rhetoric, speculation, conflicting reports, and risk comparisons. It presents a content analysis of 833 U.S. news stories about the anthrax attacks from AP, NPR, 272 newspapers, and four national television networks and a qualitative evaluation of 150 excerpts. More stories included outrage rhetoric than risk explanations.
The Structure of Knowledge and Dynamics of Scholarly Communication in Agenda-Setting Research: A Social Network Analysis Approach • Zixue Tai, University of Kentucky • By conducting a citation analysis of bibliographic references and a social network analysis of cocitation referencing in 55 mainstream journal publications in the area of agenda-setting research from 1996 to 2005, this paper is intended to identify current exemplary publications and authoritative works in the knowledge production and dissemination process and to examine the nature of knowledge-sharing networks among the community of scholars who contribute to the growth of common knowledge in the study of agenda setting.
Cognitive Processing During Web Searches: A Cognitive Control Approach • Chen-Chao Tao, National Chiao Tung University • This paper proposes a cognitive control model to understand cognitive processing during Web search. It argues that the number of relevant search results returned during a Web search will increase cognitive load, and the increase in cognitive load augments the processing of peripheral and irrelevant advertisements. Theoretically, this paper draws on working memory theory.
Discrete Emotional Responses to Physical and Social, Immediate and Future Threats in Anti-Substance Abuse Message • Rebecca Van de Vord and Yi-Chun Yvonnes Chen, Washington State University • The study purpose was to disentangle the type of threat (physical or social) from the time of the threat as occurring immediately or at sometime in the future in anti-substance abuse PSAs. Investigators attempted to link prior research based on a dimensional theory of emotion with research employing a discrete-emotions model.
The Internet and Democracy: A Critical Review of What We Know and How We Know • Kevin Wang and Tsan-Kuo Chang, University of Minnesota • This study explores what we know and how we know about the relationship between the Internet and democracy through a review of 40 journal articles that contain empirical data from 2000 to present. Using Hayakawa’s (1941) concept of ladder of abstraction, we outlined the multiple conceptual dimensions of Internet and democracy and applied this framework to treat each article as a narrative.
Integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior and Attitude Functions: Implications for Persuasive Campaign Design • Xiao Wang, Eastern Connecticut State University • This study argues that the integration of attitude functions in the theory of planned behavior can provide a more detailed theoretical explanation and a more precise practical guidance regarding behavioral prediction. Relying on a survey conducted on a sample of 549 undergraduate students, this research found that individuals’ intentions to participate in regular physical activity were predicted by their utilitarian and self-esteem maintenance attitudes, the effects of which were further moderated by individuals’ strength of self-monitoring and self-esteem.
The Impact of Media Relations on Charitable Giving: A Test of the Agenda Setting Theory • Richard Waters, University of Florida • Though many fundraisers believe that additional media coverage of their organizations’ issue would result in increased donations, there have been no empirical tests that demonstrate such a correlation. Using the agenda-setting theory of mass communication, research was conducted to test this belief using the media coverage of the December 2004 Asian tsunami and the charitable giving behavior to relief efforts as reported by the Center of Philanthropy and Indiana University.
A Value-Centered Approach to Social Communication Campaigns: Improving the Interpretive Ability of Attitudinal Models • Olaf Werder, University of New Mexico • This paper adopts the proposition that analyses focusing on values embedded in attitudinal models contribute to theory development. Specifically, the purpose of the present study was to explore what role values play in explaining recycling intentions. A telephone survey was conducted to test hypotheses whether the inclusion of values would increase the likelihood to better explain recycling intentions with the TPB model. The findings suggest that values can expand the applicability of those models.
Advancing Agenda-Setting Theory: A Comparison of the Relative Strength of the Two Levels of Agenda Setting, and Proposing New Contingent Conditions • Denis Wu, Louisiana State University and Renita Coleman, University of Texas-Austin • This study uses data from a survey and content analysis of the 2004 presidential election to advances agenda-setting theory by examining the relative strength of first- and second-level agenda-setting effects on the public. We find that the second-level of the candidates’ attributes exerts a stronger agenda-setting influence on the public than does the salience of issues, or the first level. Even more striking is the difference in effects sizes on voting intention.
Going Beyond Message Framing: Exploring the Relationship between Mood and Framing for Different Health Behaviors • Changmin Yan and Fuyuan Shen, Pennsylvania State University • Through a 2 (Mood: positive and negative) by 2 (Framing: gain and loss) by 2 (Types of health behavior: prevention and detection) mixed design experiment, this study extended current health message framing research by examining the relationship between mood and message framing for different health behaviors. In addition to a framing-behavior match, a similar fit with health behaviors was observed for mood in a mood by types of health behavior interaction.