Archives for May 2019

From Employers’ Perspective: The Relationship Between Internship Performance and Employment Intention in Communication Context • Fei Fan, Hong Kong Baptist University • Fresh university graduates, today, face more severe competition in job market compared with those at old days as the number of university graduates keep boosting. For instance, the number of fresh university graduates hit a new historic record, reaching 7.65 million in 2016 in China. To ensure fresh graduates effectively improve their competitive advantage in employment industry, educational institutions in China, particularly Hong Kong, design compulsory courses about internship to ask students to put knowledge and skills learnt in class into practical actions. Media- and communication-related programs or majors have no exception on this. Facing the popularity and increasing importance of internship, many scholars pay attention to internship-related studies. However, few studies have been done on how internship affects employers’ recruitment intention in discipline-specific areas of marketing, advertising and public relations. To fill in this literature gap, this quantitative study was conducted to explore direct work supervisors’ mindset. Altogether 44 responses from student interns’ direct supervisors were collected during 2016 and 2017. The results postulated that perceived interns’ personal quality determined supervisors’ judgement about student interns’ overall internship performance, which later would play a determining role to help employers screen out qualified job candidates and offer job positions to university graduates with better perceived internship performance. In this continuous causal relationship, professional competence was a bridge, mediating the relationship between personal quality and overall internship performance.

Welcome to the Big Leagues: Exploring Rookie Sports Broadcasters’ Adjustment to New Careers • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • The purpose of this study is to understand how effectively sports journalism programs and internship experiences are preparing graduates for careers in local TV sportscasting. This study also examines how local sports broadcasters are adjusting to the profession. Results demonstrate the value of a sports journalism education and sports media internship when graduates are attempting to land their first jobs in a local television sports department. However, despite the value shown, many local sports broadcasters, while enjoying it, are still having a difficult time in their first few years on the job.

Intercultural competencies needed for evolving media professions: Educating the next generation of globally minded communicators • Pablo Mino, UNC-Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, UNC Chapel Hill • This study investigated which global competencies are sought after in college students applying for internships and jobs that are international in scope. A survey of 40 global communicators and subsequent interviews revealed that respect for other cultures, listening/observation skills, and understanding others’ worldviews were highly valued. It was also recommended that college graduates have experience traveling abroad and a global network of contacts to enhance their job prospects. Implications for updating college curricula are explored.

< 2019 Abstracts

Consumers’ Response to Metaphoric Communication of Genetic Modification Technology • Ali Abbasi • Metaphoric communications have been at the heart of the anti-GMO movement for decades. But can they be used to promote GM technology? In this article, we explore different metaphoric messaging strategies that can improve consumers’ perceptions of genetic modification. We test the effectiveness of framing GM technology as either progress or protection, with manmade or natural metaphor sources and with different levels of verbal explanation to determine the best consumer response toward the advertisements.

The Commodification of the Presidency: The Role of Mass Media • Ahmad Alshehab, Arizona State University • Relying on the critical paradigm, the Frankfurt school of thought, and Guy Debord’s concept of media spectacle, this paper examines the consequences of transforming the U.S. presidential election into a commodity to be sold by the media and consumed by the public. The paper addresses several questions, including how the U.S. presidential election was transformed into a commodity for entertainment, what factors contribute to this transformation, and what are the possible consequences and suggested solutions.

Political personalization and gender: 2015 Nigerian presidential candidates on Twitter • Olushola Aromona, University of Kansas • Political personalization has become important to the study of political communication. Particularly, given the possibility of making individualized and personalized messages on Twitter, understanding how political players feature their personal stories in their political messages on Twitter is imperative. In this paper, the tweeting behaviors of presidential candidates in a developing non-western democracy was examined. A content analysis revealed that Nigerian presidential candidates in the 2015 general election highlighted personal stories in campaign message, and male and female candidates differ in the personal topics used, albeit not in stereotypic ways.

“A Woman’s View-point and a Man’s Pen-point”: The Continued Struggle for Gender Equity in Journalism • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While women writers have indeed made strides in the journalism industry, there are still enormous barriers to equity. Although women are indeed assimilating into newsrooms, the standards by which equity is measured are still male-centric. Through a close reading of existing literature, this paper will explore how women have attempted to create “a room of their own,” showing that those spaces are either unavailable to many women due to economic constraints, or become exploited for profit through verticals or the “first person industrial complex.”

Grab your bags: Exploring destination branding through Instagram • Jaisalyn Santiago; America Edwards, University of Central Florida; Michelle Senter, University of Central Florida; Katherine Pursglove, University of Central Florida; My Bui, University of Centrall Florida • This study explores how destination branding on Instagram (advertising either France versus Japan location and solo versus group travel type) impacts the age cohort of 18 to 24, in terms of message attitude, travel intentions, and destination attractiveness. Authors examine destination branding focused on Japan versus France and solo versus group travel. First, authors discuss Instagram as a communication tool and its role in destination branding, how destination branding has a role in attitude conceptualization and the Theory of Planned Behavior, and finally how these concepts align to influence travel motivations and behaviors of the 18 to 24 aged cohort. Then, authors describe how they employed an experiment to test the dependent variables, following by a meaningful discussion of what the results mean.

Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility Efforts in Corporations: A Content Analysis of Amazon’s and Walmart’s Websites • Tugce Ertem-Eray, University of Oregon • This study analyzes how Amazon and Walmart, two of the largest global companies, present the balance among their economic, social, and environmental activities and communicate their CSR efforts via their corporate websites. Findings indicate that expectations and pressures from the public may help trigger companies to report their CSR efforts. In addition, this study also indicates that the TBL concept does not fully explain each companies’ global CSR efforts.

Imported Medical TV Dramas and the Chinese Practice of Constructing Medical Professionalism • Hua FAN • This study explores how the Chinese healthcare professionals’ viewing of imported medical TV dramas can be embedded in their construction of medical professionalism. Specifically, the consumption of imported medical TV drama can spiritually motivate people to pursue a medical career, help healthcare professionals construct, confirm and reinforce the ideal version of medical professionalism, offer them an escape from the heavy workload, and provide resistance to the breaches of the ideal professionalism in actual medical bureaucracies. Protection & Pornography:  A comparative content analysis of pornographic films for the presence of safe sex before and after the California Condom Law • Kyla Garrett Wagner • Legislation mandating pornography actors wear condoms during film production gave reason to believe condom use in pornography has increased. To empirically test this hypothesis and assess safe sex depiction in pornography, a content analysis of 24 adult films produced four years before and four years after the law was completed. A total of 137 sexual scenes were coded, and identified 452 sexual acts and 42 safe sex depictions; 27 depictions before the law and 15 depictions after the law. Unexpectedly, findings revealed more condom use before the law and no significant change in safe sex depictions over time. But additional analyses determined condom use was never rejected or endorsed by the actors; condoms were most common in scenes that depicted mixed-sex sex acts, recreational sex, and sex where there was no relationship between the actors; and that condom use was production company-dependent. Altogether, the hypotheses failed but novel findings of condom use in pornography emerged. The closing discussion offers insight on the condom law and its impact on pornography.

The Impacts of Social Media Use, Interest in News, and News Media Literacy on Detecting Fake News • Emily Gibbens • This study tested social media experience, interest in news, and media literacy to understand the characteristics needed to identify fake news. Participants were given examples of real, fabricated, and satire news to test if they could understand the difference and identify each one. The findings indicated that interest in news, media literacy, and education have a positive relationship with identifying fake news. Social media experience did not have an effect on the identification of fake news like hypothesized. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Media strategy analysis of the “new star” in 2019 Thai Election: linguistic perspective • Yuqi Guo • The parliamentary election of Thailand took place on March 24th 2019. The Future Forward Party, which was founded one year ago by the billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, performed very competitive leaving many traditional parties behind. This paper analyzes the media strategy of this party based on a linguistic theory: stance. According the discourse analysis and media corpus data, the party’s strategy involves many stance-taking conditions. These strategies have contributed to the popularity of Future Forward Party.

Thinking about real-world friends: Attachment theory as a framework for explaining self-presentation on social media • Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina; Michael Layer • This study used attachment theory to understand how social media users’ attachment styles influenced their behavior online on either their inner or other directed self-presentation behaviors. Our findings show high-anxiety individuals tend to be receptive to their real-world friends’ feedback on social media. These findings imply real-world friends may be the key factor to explain users’ behavioral patterns of social media use.

CSR Communication on Twitter: How Influential Are Socially Responsible Companies Communicating CSR Issues on Twitter • Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • Whether companies could reap benefits from their CSR activities are contingent on various stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate CSR performances. Thus, the effectiveness of corporate communication regarding CSR is significant. Grounded in the four models of public relations and literature in CSR communication strategies, this study analyzed ten socially responsible companies CSR communication on Twitter. Meanwhile, this study created new formulas to calculate the influential score of CSR communication on Twitter. The results showed that the broadcasting approach was the most applied communication strategy on Twitter overall. The findings may imply that previous studies and the four models of public relations underestimated the power of one-way communication. Surprisingly, generally talking about CSR such as sharing a company’s CSR ranking was the most influential CSR topic on Twitter, which effectively generated stakeholders’ emotional response, retweeting, and mentioning behaviors. However, the socially responsible ranking was not correlated with the effectiveness of corporate CSR communication on Twitter. The results of this study provided both theoretical and practical implications.

Who is Writing About What? A Content Analysis of Science News in The New York Times and the Washington Post • Joshua Jordan, University of Minnesota • To examine how science is communicated to the public via the press, this content analysis examined science news and journalists at The New York Times and the Washington Post. This study found that female science journalists outnumbered male journalists, and journalists with postsecondary degrees outnumbered those with postgraduate degrees. Regarding framing of science news, episodic occurred more often than thematic. The results offer insights into who is writing science news and how it is framed.

Cost-free at all Costs? – A Review of Drivers of Paying Intent and Willingness to Pay for Digital Journalism • Daniel Kunkel; Nicola Kleer • The advertising-based revenue model for journalism is severely challenged due to the effects of digitization. Providers of journalistic content have therefore put increasing emphasis on paid content strategies in recent years. This paper provides a literature review of factors that contribute to consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and paying intent (PI) for digital journalistic content. We identify 18 variables that influence WTP and PI. Due to inconsistent measurements in the literature, however, the results remain ambiguous.

The Role of Immersion and Involvement in Persuasive Games • Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Maral Abdollahi • This study seeks to improve the conceptualizations of involvement and immersion. We identified three distinct dimensions of involvement and immersion in the context of a persuasive game play and its playback. The study shows a significant difference between students playing the game and watching its playback for three dimensions of immersion. We also show the effect of different dimensions of involvement and immersion on attitude and behavioral intention.

Otherization in News: A Qualitative Analysis of Brussels and Lahore Terror Attacks • V. Michelle Michael • This study qualitatively compares how CNN approached the coverage of the terrorist attacks in Belgium and Pakistan. In order to understand any otherization messages in the initial coverage, this paper analyzes the first video story of each event’s coverage in depth. The analysis undertaken in this paper is two-fold: a visual analysis of the moving images used in the video stories and discourse analysis to excavate meaning from accompanying text and language. This mixed-method study uses both semiotics and syntax analysis to explore how similar terrorism events concerning two different social groups (in-group and out-group) are portrayed differently.

Opinion Leaders as Persuasion Agents: Integration of Persuasion Knowledge Into the Theory of Opinion Leadership • Alexander Mueller, University of Saskatchewan • In the healthcare industry, it is a common practice for manufacturers to attempt to persuade customers through opinion leaders (OL) in their specialty. This conceptual paper addresses this challenge by examining the combination and linkage of OL and persuasion agents (PA). OL and PA theories are re-conceptualized in a newly developed Persuasive Opinion Leadership Model. The model´s theoretical relevance is discussed and provides a new perspective on opinion leadership in marketing. Future research is proposed.

On Kichiku as Film and Television Subculture and Its Influences in China • Yu King NG • This paper focuses on the core issues of Kichiku, and refines them into the definition and style characteristics of Kichiku, relationship between the Kichiku as a subculture and China’s mainstream culture, and its influence, which are analyzed separately so as to connect them together. This paper also sorts out the process of meaning shift of the word Kichiku, and change is also a process in which the Kichiku culture gradually comes into being and develops.

A President, a sportsman and a rhetorical vision • Varaidzo Nyamandi, Regent University • The racial, political and social poles in a divided America require solutions towards unity. Presidents Nelson Mandela’s communication of a rhetorical vision to a divided South Africa in 1995 becomes relevant today, as a suggestion of how rhetoric may provide unity. This study explores Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to explore the creation of a worldview shared by South Africans, once separated along racial lines. The symbolic convergence theory is used to explain the meaning of the rhetorical vision of President Mandela.  He communicates the vision through his recital of the Victorian era poem “Invictus”, as dramatized in the motion picture Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). The study contributes to the growing body of literature on the use of persuasion, from the perspective of the diverse audience, who chain out the vision, as dramatized in Invictus (Eastwood, 2009).   Scholars note that contemporary rhetoric understands the personal nature of creating, receiving and sharing messages and exploring meanings with others. In the pursuit of this general endeavor, this study specifically suggests a way of interpreting shared meaning connecting people of diverse cultures, backgrounds, political views into a new worldview.

An Economic Analysis of the New York Times 1970s Daily Sections • Samantha Peko, Ohio University • In the 1970s, The New York Times Company was in a state of financial decline. The paper instituted a series of changes. Most notably, inserting into the folds of each weekday’s paper a new consumer section (food, home décor, sports, the arts, and science). The sections created a trend that newspapers around the country followed. This paper examines how investors reacted to the idea by looking at changes in the stock price using archival stock market data.

TV Anchors and Reporters use of Emotional Labor: Professional Control Over Personal Health Disclosures Online • Kirstin Pellizzaro, Arizona State University • Using the theoretical lens of emotional labor, this study performs a qualitative content analysis of 24 TV broadcast journalists’ disclosures of personal health-related issues on their professional social media pages – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Findings indicate that emotional labor was negotiated and learned journalistic skills were employed in various ways, indicating control over content. These findings raise concerns that these controlled narratives can influence an audience understanding of health-related issues.

Mental Health Satisfaction and Social Interactions • Jessica Roark, Ohio University • With online health activities becoming more popular, the opportunities to discuss mental health and share information have increased. A secondary analysis of data from the Pew Research Center examined the effects of social interaction on perceived help obtained from health information gathered online. This study looked specifically at respondents interested in mental health. Findings indicate that there are relationships between perceived help gained from online health information, participation in online health and social media activities.

Future Prospects of Female Journalists in Bangladesh • Md Nurus Safa, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • The study found that, female journalist facing many barriers like family pressure, Society problem, pay-allowances and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and even lack of workplace. Now days they are protecting and talking outside if face any discrimination with them.  It is possible to survive if the passion, professionalism, and love have on this profession. Day by day increasing the female participation in a significant change has come into the social attitude which represent by women’s advancement in journalism sector of Bangladesh.

Bullying in the Digital Age: Difficulties and Dilemmas Regarding Cyberbullying • Chun Shao, Arizona State University • Various media technologies have developed rapidly, which have fundamentally altered the traditional communication patterns. However, as portrayed in various media, an unfortunate aspect of the use of technologies is the increasing occurrence of cyberbullying. This paper aims to explore cyberbullying, focusing on its harm on teenagers and legislative responses to this problem. Through investigating emotional and physical harm of cyberbullying, this study illustrates how far John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle has progressed not only since Mill’s era but also in the digital age.

The impact of Social Media on Tourism Marketing: Analyzing Young Consumers’ Travel Behavior • Farzana Sharmin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Tourism marketing and promotional strategies are changing from the last few decades. Consumers’ have a more dynamic relationship with social media technology, which is tapping into new tourism marketing dimensions. This study examines the role of social media technology as a utilization trait in shaping young consumers’ travel behavior based on the theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research has largely focused on social media acceptance and usage performance of consumers’ during the travel planning phase. The convenience random sample method used to collect data from prime tourist places of Shanghai (China) and instrument developed support on previous research to test hypotheses. The results of structural analyses revealed that respondents’ attitude towards the use of social media affected by technology self-efficiency. In addition, perceived behavioral control has a partial influence towards the attitude of respondents’. Thus the respondents’ mostly prefer social media in pre-travel phase and during travel. Finally, the managerial implications for tourism marketers are presented with a focus on how to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing in targeting groups.

Reacting Against Climate Change Denial: Role of Anger and Anxiety in the Backfire Effects of Censoring Climate Change • Ran Tao, UW-Madison • Since climate change became one of the national agenda in the 1980s, political divide and contention over climate change issues have been seen in the U.S. The reflexivity forces, particularly environmentalism, advocate for an active response to climate change, whereas the anti-reflexivity forces undermined efforts of environmentalism by delegitimizing climate change and preventing progress in climate change policies. Such anti-reflexivity is witnessed as the Trump administration censored and manipulated climate change information online. However, the public’s reaction toward the information control stayed unclear. Applying the psychological reactance theory, this study argues that citizens will react against information control on climate change issues by the government through negative emotions. When citizens receive a high volume of threat message that informed them of information control on climate change from the government, they will feel more anger, which leads to more intention to view the repressed information, learn more about climate change, share climate change information with friends, families, and the public, regardless of their political ideology and pre-exited climate change attitude. The results have implications for advancing reactance theory and understanding citizens’ reactance against governmental information control on climate change.

Participatory Journalism in China: An Extended Newsroom and Power, Network, State • Luxuan Wang, New York University • By analyzing different producers’ identities and posts, this paper explores how participatory journalism differs from traditional media and how organizational structure influences framings in China’s context. Generally, the elite community dominated the discourse of participatory journalism on social media, producing a different framing from that of Chinese traditional news agencies. This paper examined the “extended newsroom” of participatory journalism in Chinese context involving dispositions of capitals, heterogeneous network of human-nonhuman interactions, and the state’s manifestation.

Hacker groups and social movements: A systematic review of literature • Yiping Xia, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Hackers are groups of people with a common concern with information technologies and a shared set of fundamental beliefs, such as the protection of privacy and freedom of information. While there are numerous studies about how social movements and technology intersect, there has been relatively less social movement scholarship devoted to hackers that push for social change via technological means, or make technology the central issue of their agenda. By systematically examining the extant literature using McAdam et al’s (1996) framework, this paper aims to map our current knowledge about hacking/hackers as social movement players, and to generate discussions about future research directions for scholars of interest.

Linkages among Individual Values, Attitudes, and Political Actions: A Cross-Cultural Study • Leping You, University of Florida • Communicating values is crucial to motivating people to be engaged in political/social actions globally. While many studies have examined how cultures influence individuals’ attitudes toward social issues and their intentions of participating in civic actions, research exploring civic engagement in comparison with individualistic and collectivistic cultures on the individual level is relatively scarce. Drawing on Schwartz’s theory of values, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationships among individual values, attitudes toward human rights such as equal pay, and political action behavior. The results of this study revealed that people in Asian cultures were found to value both personal-focus and social-focus values more highly than people in America. In addition, personal-focus values were negatively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay, while social-focus values such as universalism-nature and universalism-society were positively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay. The political environment is suggested as a potential moderator in predicting people’s political activism behavior from behavioral intentions.

The impact of Next Media Animation framing on university students’ attitudes towards, perception of, and participation in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong • Runping Zhu, University of Western Australia; Chesca Ka Po Wong • The most significant social protest in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 was the 2014 Umbrella Movement seeking democratic processes for the appointment of the Region’s chief executive. This study examines how the framing of the police, government, and opponents of the protests in the Next Media Animation news videos prepared by Apple Daily, an important Hong Kong newspaper, influenced university students’ attitudes, perceptions, and political behavior in terms of the Umbrella Movement events. The findings from a qualitative content-analysis and a quantitative survey (N=212) showed that students viewing negative images of the police, government and anti-protestors framed by the Next Media Animation formed unfavorable attitudes towards the three parties and were consequently more likely than non-viewers to participate in the Movement. The study extends the previous work on audience responses to news framing by demonstrating how animated news frames may, by manipulation of the story facts and enhancing the presentation with emotive music and commentary, prompt stronger audience reactions than those created by other news frames. The finding raises the possibility of misuse of technology by animation practitioners and the risk of exploitation of animated media to promote the ideologies supported by media owners.

< 2019 Abstracts

‘Live Fast, Die Young’: Programming Strategies of the Phonograph, FOX, and CBS • Anna Aupperle • Everything old is new again on broadcast television, or so it seems. When comparing the programming strategies of broadcast networks, it is imperative to look back to history to see how other media have sold similar content to audiences. This paper compares the programming of the phonograph at the height of its popularity and case studies of three Fox and CBS programs, in an effort to rectify these differing content strategies.

Expecting Victory due to TV or Identity?: Examining media consumption, social identification, and fan expectations • Natalie Brown-Devlin, The University of Texas at Austin; Michael Devlin, Texas State University • This study used a nationwide, purposive sample to simultaneously examine how media consumption and levels of team identification contribute to the formation of fan expectations. Guided by both cultivation theory and social identification theory as an underpinning, this study utilized a survey of 310 highly-identified fans of two teams competing in the NCAA College Football Championship game. Participants reported their media consumption habits, level of team identity, and expectations for the game outcome. Results determined the extent to which sports media consumption contributes to the formation of sport fans’ expectations regarding their preferred team’s performance, and then, examined the extent to which team identification (using the SSIS) contributed to either mediating or moderating the effects of expectations after media consumption.

Binge Watching: Motivations, Demographics, and Television Program Genres • Jiyoung Cha, San Francisco State University; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Binge watching is a notable phenomenon that is changing the production, distribution, and consumption of television programs. Building upon the uses and gratification theory, this study seeks to better understand binge-watching behaviors. A national survey of U.S. adults identified motivations that predict the frequency of binge watching, the amount of time spent binge watching and the quantity of binge watching episodes. It also uncovered the demographic characteristics and genre consumption patterns of frequent binge viewers.

Teaching Diversity through Satire Literacy • Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University; Kiah Bennett • Several studies reveal that satire is popular among young audiences, making it a potential didactic tool for in-classroom discussions; however, satire criticized for making jokes that only resonate with those already familiar with the topic (Flanagan, 2017). The current work describes best practices for using satire in the classroom to discuss issues of representation and diversity in media by presenting rhetorical and pedagogical tactics that provide students insight into issues of marginalization with respect to class, gender, and race.

Potterheads: A Cultural Overview • Danielle Deavours, The University of Alabama • All humans have patterns of behavior, thought, and actions that are learned from outside influences, and these aspects make up our cultural identities. Culture can be defined as “learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people” (Martin & Nakayama, 2017). People learn about the world by selecting, evaluating, and organizing various stimuli from the external environment and then creating their perception of self and worldviews. Media is one of these external stimuli by which humans build personal worldviews, and research shows that certain media have great influence over the development of self-perception and other behavioral predictors (Agha, 2010; Ionoaia, 2009). One instance of an influential media is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Arguably one of the most successful book series in history, Harry Potter is a world-wide phenomena that has helped shape the worldviews of millions of readers and fans. The influence of the series is so great that researchers have begun referring to Harry Potter fans as members of a singular culture, known as Potterheads. This paper addresses some of the cultural aspects of Harry Potter fans, including pop culture, language, symbols, games, and arts. The author will also explore Harry Potter fan culture’s viewpoints on nerd versus mainstream identity, relationships, politics, prejudice, gender, philanthropy, and collectivism.

It’s Obviously Funny to be a Meme: Using Memes for Political Entertainment & Observation • Bingbing Zhang, Texas Tech University; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University • Memes are cultural units that transmit among online users. Appearing as jokes, memes are a popular form of expression and appear to serve a greater role in the formation and spread of public opinion, changing the way citizens engage with politics. Driven by uses and gratifications theory, this work examines users’ motivations for viewing, sharing, and creating political memes. A nationwide survey (N = 1,000) of Facebook users identified unique gratifications obtained from political meme use. Results show the use of politically-related memes is a nuanced behavior strategically done to fulfill needs for political entertainment and observation. Specifically, individuals with high political trust, who think of themselves as being humorous, and frequently share or create memes used them to observe politics in action. Alternatively, those who prefer to observe humorous circumstances and frequently share and view memes, without engaging in creation, used politically-related memes for entertainment. Practical and theoretical implications regarding use of memes for engagement and effects are discussed.

Out of the Shadows: Female Representation in Shadow of the Tomb Raider • Jordin Howell, University of Memphis • A textual analysis of Shadow of the Tomb Raider provides insight on the current level of female representation within the video game community. Calls for equal representation peaked during the #GamerGate controversy; the present research concludes this game is a direct answer to that call. Findings show that Shadow of the Tomb Raider presents Lara Croft as a feminist role model who has been transformed into a three-dimensional character. The research also highlights that, while it is important to find areas lacking in representation, it is also important to note when it is done right.

“Slutty ambitious monsters”: The cultivation of female journalists in pop culture • Kelsey Husnick, Wayne State University • Negative, inaccurate portrayals of female journalists have persisted in movies, television shows and other cultural artifacts for decades and little change has been made in the movie and television industry. This paper uses cultivation theory and news processes as a basis for analyzing HBO’s Sharp Objects, which features female journalist as protagonist. Findings include plot elements and themes supporting and pushing back on traditional journalistic scripts.

Looking through the selfie: An analysis of Snapchat Filter/Lens Use in the Context of Objectification Theory and Uses and Gratifications • Angelina Cruz, University of Central Florida; Amanda Brown, University of Central Florida; Elise Legrout, University of Central Florida; Edward Matthew Coyle, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • Highly visual social media like Snapchat have become a mainstays in modern culture, particularly among young people. These services offer filters and lenses that people use to alter their visual messages. However, little is known about why young people use lenses and filters and what the potential effects might be. This study examines the relationship between college students’ use of Snapchat’s silly and beauty lenses and their association with self-objectification and self-esteem. College students responded to an online survey including measures of social media use, motives for using lenses, as well as feelings of self-objectification and self-esteem. Results revealed that three motives accounted for lens and filter use: entertainment/pass time, beautification, and impression management. There was no connection between Snapchat filter and lens use and participant’s tendency toward self-objectification but there was a correlation between Snapchat use and self-esteem. Participant’s sex as well as the entertainment/pass time and beautification motives were the only predictors of their use of Snapchat’s familiar filters/lenses.

Immersion Matters: Trait Empathy, Presence, and Enjoyment in Cinematic Virtual Reality Experience • Zexin “Marsha” Ma, Oakland University • Cinematic virtual reality (CVR), in the format of 360° sphere videos, has gained an increasing popularity over the past few years. As CVR can be viewed in different media platforms that differ in immersion, it is important to understand the impact of immersion on viewers’ psychological experience. This study investigates the role of immersion and its interactive effects with trait empathy on CVR viewers’ spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment. A sample of 112 young adults were randomly assigned to watch a CVR film either in mobile phone-based VR headsets (high immersion) or tablets (low immersion). Results indicated that viewers experienced greater spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment when the film was viewed in high (vs. low) immersion. Spatial presence and social presence were also found to jointly mediate the effect of immersion on enjoyment. Furthermore, trait empathy interacted with immersion to influence social presence. Contrary to our expectation, we found that social presence was more strongly influenced by immersion among individuals low (vs. high) in trait empathy. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Hostile Media Bias and Third-Person Effect in Film and Television: A Study of Diversity • Michele Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Abstract: The issue of diversity and stereotyping in film and television has become a politicized, hotly contested topic in discussions of pop culture. In this paper, I use portrayals and audience perceptions of race, gender, sexual orientation, body type, and class to investigate the idea that hostile media bias and third-person effect apply to entertainment media in addition to news. Survey results (n=317) indicate that audiences believe film and television to be more diverse than they actually are. A positive sentiment toward diversity in film and television predicted the perception that creators exclude people from marginalized groups in their productions. Furthermore, when asked if stereotypical portrayals contributed the marginalization of minorities, audiences displayed third-person effect perceptions, believing that others could buy into stereotypes but they do not.

Misogyny and Erotic Pleasure in Bollywood’s ‘Item Numbers’ • Suman Mishra • “Item numbers” are controversial song and dance sequences that have gained popularity in Bollywood cinema in the last two decades. In this study, item numbers produced between 2000-2018 in Bollywood films are analyzed, a period which saw rapid growth in item numbers. Thematic analysis of item number videos shows a trend towards increased sexual objectification of women, along with several other sub-themes such as use of Eurocentric models. The transformation of Bollywood’s song and dances from sensual depictions into an “erotic spectacle” is discussed in the context of globalization and misogyny. Elements of erotic spectacles are noted.

DudeBros Could Love Lady Shows: Gender Expectations, Enjoyment, and Willingness to Recommend Television Among Males • Renee Mitson, University of Minnesota; Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Jonathan Anderson; Maral Abdollahi • This research quantifies gendered beliefs, enjoyment, and willingness to recommend television programs expected to be viewed by the opposite gender. We surveyed 350 heterosexual males, and measured gendered beliefs, expected audience gender of popular television programs, enjoyment of shows, and social recommendations. Results found gendered beliefs are not an obstacle for enjoyment or willingness to recommend television shows, but expected audience gender is, and enjoyment and recommendations decreased when participants expected shows were watched by women.

‘Fight the Power’: Themes of Racial Tension in Different Rap Music Eras – A Content Analysis • Dante Mozie, University of South Carolina • Rap music has served as a platform for many artists over the years to tackle issues that affect the African American community, from racial profiling and police misconduct to criticizing government leaders and societal woes. A content analysis of the Billboard Hot Rap Song charts in two different eras for the genre, 1989-1999 and 2008-2018, was conducted to examine the frequency of rap artists mentioning the police in their songs, how often artists criticize racism and oppressive institutions, such as the government, and how often rappers offer advice or self-reflection in their songs. Results found that most artists preferred to discuss themselves, love, sex, drugs, wealth, and other topics besides the police or social and racial topics. However, a small connection was found between the tone of artists (“angry”) and those who tackled racial profiling in their songs, an encouraging sign of support for the African-American Offending Theory, which is discussed and used in this study.

Coming out of the Celebrity Closet: LGBTQ and Authentic Mediated Confessions • Nathian Rodriguez, San Diego State University; Mary Liz Brooks • The current study’s goal is to examine how LGBTQ celebrities frame their coming out messages, with specific attention to mediated platforms, between 2013 and 2018. In addition, the study examined what identities were most salient in those celebrities who did come out. The analysis revealed themes of promoting marriage equality, representation to LGBTQ youth, specific cause-related issues, response to violence, representation in media, celebratory timing, authenticity and honesty, and reputation management. A majority of the celebrities were primarily actors and actresses, athletes, and musicians. The analysis also revealed that more than 62% of the celebrities were male, White, and between the ages of 21 and 35 years-old. Most came out on social media.

Gendered #selfie? An analysis of Selfies, Face-ism, and Sexual Self-Identification on Instagram • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University; Cynthia Nichols, US Department of State • Decades of research on face-ism in traditional media report women are more likely to be pictured from a more distant perspective than men, and users of social networks are mirroring this presentation. This analysis used the face-ism index to determine facial prominence of 621 Instagram users who did and did not self-identify as #gay or #lesbian. The analysis revealed users who sexually self-identified did not follow the hetero-normative face-ism trends seen in traditional, gendered media.

Corporate Affirmations of the True Self and Mutual Self Help: Transmedia Rhetorics of Marvel Rising • Burton St. John, University of Colorado – Boulder; J. Richard Stevens, University of Colorado – Boulder • In 2018, Disney launched a Marvel Rising transmedia campaign introducing a line of female superhero dolls and supporting media narratives with Marvel Comics and Hasbro. Utilizing textual and industry analysis, we find that the concentration of ownership and the need to attract a new clientele surprisingly resulted in a “commercialized feminism” text, one that thematically supports Disney’s pro-social messaging agenda, linking its products to what it perceives as the preferred social identity for its audience.

Just One More Episode: Binge-Watching Poetics and Big Data in Non-Linear Television Portals • Ryan Stoldt • In 2013, Netflix declared binge-watching “the new normal” in a press release. Binge-watching, or watching two or more episodes of a television series in one sitting, emerged as a popular way of consuming television as an increasing number of internet-distributed television services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime offered consumers access to a library of content to watch on their own time. This paper offers the concept of binge-watching poetics to describe the technological and narrative poetic devices employed by internet-distributed television services to encourage audiences to continue consuming television. I argue that the seasonal release strategies, algorithmic flows between episodes, and the narrative devices within shows all serve as binge-watching poetics. The employment of binge-watching poetics functions as a socio-historic extension of many previous televisual production practices to keep audiences returning but serves a different economic purpose for the television companies. Through the encouragement of continual consumption in binge-watching poetics, internet-distributed television services gather data on consumption practices. This data production allows the businesses to continually reemploy the audiences’ productive behavior for the businesses’ own economic interest by informing programming decisions and selling advertisements. Thus, this paper argues that the Foucauldian power knowledge created through audience consumption continues to allow the television industry to recreate its own existence, although the power knowledge is employed in slightly different ways from the linear television broadcasting industry.

Shakin’ the Delta: The Evolution and Misrepresentation of Hill Country Blues in Print Journalism • GREENBERRY TAYLOR, University of Florida • R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are two of the most prolific Hill Country bluesmen from northeast Mississippi. For most of the 20th century, however, music journalists mislabeled their music as Delta blues. This historical study examines magazine and newspaper articles from 1985 to 2002 on Burnside and Kimbrough, while also incorporating oral histories and in-depth interviews, in order to understand the evolution of Hill Country coverage on its rise to mainstream success.

Facing the Music: Analyzing the Depiction and Objectification of Women in American Music Journalism • Kelsey Whipple; Renita Coleman • This content analysis finds significant objectification of female musicians in major music publications during 2016. The stories, predominantly about male artists and by male authors, were more likely to discuss female musicians’ appearance and relationships, and used more sexualized and emotional language. Female writers were just as likely to objectify women musicians. We expand objectification theory with the concept of “vicarious self-objectification,” capturing how women have internalized the sexualized identities and then objectify other women.

Explore horror movie genre preference with miniMAM: An exploratory study in Taiwan • Yu-Lun Wu; Hsiu-Ping Yueh • Media has become the main resource of contemporary entertainment, and people usually approach it for something positive. In between, frightening entertainment has long been an interesting issue in media study. Followed by the tradition of intensity-based models, the study attempted to explore the correlation between media preference, behavior, and individual differences. Since Motivation Activation Measure (MAM) has been an emerging and reliable indicator of biologically based individual difference, the study conducted correlational approach to examine the short version MAM (miniMAM) in correlation with horror preference and watching frequency. Gender was also verified in further analysis. The data were collected from a total of 160 participants. The results showed that the horror movie genre preference is positive correlating to horror movie watching frequency, and ASA scores has positive correlation with horror movie genre preference, especially the more intensive genres, and males performed higher preference in specific genres than females. Nevertheless, due to the limitation of the study, cultural issue and research design needed more consideration in the future study.

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It’s Who You Know: Twitter, Media Trust, and Local News • Ivy Ashe, University of Texas at Austin; Ryan Wallace, University of Texas, Austin; Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin • Using results from a national survey, this study employs the theoretical lens of reciprocal journalism to examine correspondence between Twitter engagement with journalists and levels of general media trust. We find that Twitter users who engage in reciprocal actions with journalists, such as follows and interactions (likes, retweets, replies) have higher trust levels than other online users. We also find a significant relationship between trust levels and the journalist’s geographic base (local or national).

African-American Online Newspapers’ Coverage of Policy Debate  on the Affordable Care Act in 2017 • Masudul Biswas, Loyola University Maryland; Nam Young Kim, Sam Houston State University • Using content analysis, this study examined the coverage on the repeal and replace efforts of Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2017 in three African-American online newspapers – Afro.Com, AtlantaBlackStar.Com and PhillyTrib.com. Top three news frames across the news coverage by these online newspapers reflected political contention and political maneuverings around the ACA and potential policy implications of the Republicans’ proposed bills to replace the ACA. Except in the use of politically-focused conflict frame, there was no significant difference in the use of four other news frames among these African-American news outlets that dwelt on policy implications (i.e., consequence frame), positive aspects of the ACA and policy recommendations to improve it (i.e., solutions frame), political maneuverings around repealing and protecting the ACA (i.e., strategy frame), and attribution of responsibility for potential consequences of a new health care law (i.e., responsibility frame).

A sense of community at NPR member stations and its influence on giving • Joseph Kasko, Winthrop University • This research is composed of 20 in-depth, qualitative interviews with managers at public radio stations across the U.S. to examine if listeners perceive that they are part of a community and how that feeling might influence giving. The findings suggest public radio managers believe their listeners view themselves as part of a media community of supporters. Most of the managers also expressed that a sense of community contributed to the decision to support the station financially.

‘Life Is Harder:” The Perceived Impact of a Newspaper Closure on a Community • Nick Mathews • This study presents findings from 18 in-depth interviews with residents of a recent news desert and offers a systematic qualitative investigation of the perceived impact of a newspaper’s closure on community members’ everyday lives and, just as important, their sense of community. This case study, using the psychological theory of sense of community as its theoretical framework, shows a noticeable negative effect on community members’ sense of community, with participants missing celebrated gatherings, suffering from an increased sensation of isolation and diminished pride in the community. In addition, without newspaper reporters stationed in the county, residents function as reporters themselves, laboring to obtain information. Overall, these findings present a picture of life in Caroline County, Virginia, following the Caroline Progress’ closure after 99 years of service to the county.

VR as Community News Solution – Connecting communities, helping audiences trust community journalists more with immersive technology • Aaron Atkins, Graduate Student Interest Group; Hans Meyer, Ohio University; Samantha Peko, Ohio University • One of the compelling aspects of 360-degree virtual reality news content, research suggests, is that it engages many of the hallmarks of community journalism, namely geographic community, online community, cultural identity, and community-oriented information needs. Yet community news organizations remain reluctant to use it. This experiment compared a non-linear, interactive VR news experience about a small town in West Virginia facing environmental challenges with a traditional print news story and examined the effects the story type had on learning, enjoyment, credibility, and sense of community. It found that VR can enhance the overall credibility a participant assigned to the media and the sense of community they feel, especially for women over men. While it did not find VR had a significant impact on story credibility, perceptions of media bias, and learning, it provide suggestions for further study of these concepts. Overall, it suggests that VR could be an alternative for community news organizations looking to foster greater connections with communities outside of main readership areas.

Signal Interruption in Baldwin City: Filling a Communication Vacuum in a Small-Town ‘News Desert’ • Steve Smethers, Kansas State University; Samuel Mwangi, Kansas State University; Bonnie Bressers • This study examines newspaper loss in a small Kansas college town and its impact on social and economic information flow. Focus-group research with community leaders recounts the realities of newspaper loss and how resultant alternative social media and other digital platforms were used to communicate with specific audiences, creating peer communication networks that failed to get general information to the community at large. Confusion over new media adaptation supports predictions of the channel expansion theory that familiarity with platforms is a predictor of its adoption and use, a hindering factor in reaching older populations.

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Plastics and Polar Bears: Measuring Environmental Framing Effects on Perceived Distance and Sense of Motivation • Danielle Quichocho; Kathleen I. Alaimo, U of Colorado • A critical form of communication for environmental NGOs is the use of photographs to inform and advocate. Therefore, the way in which those images are framed has broad implications for the NGO and the public. This study examines the effect of psychological distance frames upon motivation to help the environment by conducting a survey of college students (n=52). Findings indicate that while distance is salient for all images, a sense of urgency is not.

Video Convergence:  Factors Affecting Photojournalists’ Satisfaction and Adoption • Christopher Assaf, University of Texas at Austin • A survey of visual journalists (N=132) shooting online video finds that factors affecting photojournalists satisfaction and perceptions of quality are related to training and experience. As the convergence of still and video continues at media outlets after more than ten years, overall, more than half of visual journalists surveyed are satisfied shooting online video. Survey respondents who had more video training had higher satisfaction with their video shooting and higher their perception of quality in their video shooting. However, when it comes to convergence, only 44% of respondent had combined still photography and video shooting on assignment at some or all the time — showing a low rate of video technology being adopted and combined with the still photography skillset. Of that, 55% showed dissatisfaction with shooting both stills and video. Findings are discussed in regard to diffusion of innovations theory.

A lion or a lone wolf? Developing a visual measure of archetypal personality for communication research • Jared Brickman, Carnegie Dartlet • The accurate measure of psychological predictors like personality is pivotal to communication research seeking to tailor messages or explain behaviors. Unfortunately, measuring personality is difficult due to desirability bias and lack of universality in understanding trait-based questionnaires. This research builds on literature that suggests visual measures, like icons or emojis, can eliminate some of this bias. Icons were developed for measuring archetypal personality and were tested with two surveys and dozens of real-world case studies.

Visualizing Candidates and Graphicating the News: Evidence from US Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1992-2012 • Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Othello Richards, Texas Tech University • The systematic subdivision and increasing graphication of television screen space has proceeded apace in the digital era with little systematic scrutiny despite its widespread application in newscasts locally, nationally, and internationally. The handful of studies that do exist suggest that graphication of broadcast news can aid in story comprehension but also distract from the traditional audiovisual content of news reporting. No analysis has yet considered the prevalence of television news graphics from a systematic, longitudinal perspective. In this paper we perform a visual content analysis of 20 years’ worth of presidential campaign coverage (1992 to 2012) to examine longitudinal trends in the use of graphication by the major broadcast networks since the rise of digital editing. In particular, we examine the use of boxes and split screens by the three main evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC, which despite experiencing declines in viewership during this period still maintained the largest television news audience during the study period. Beyond documenting a steady—and dramatic—increase in the use of graphication elements, the study finds that candidates are graphicated far more than journalists, although the gap is closing, and Republicans are more often put into boxes and split screens than Democrats. NBC uses these visual elements the most of any network. Trailing candidates are also put into boxes and split screens more than front-runners and candidates who are running in close races. Implications for candidate evaluations and informed citizenship, and the need for experimental studies to document graphication effects, are discussed.

Framing Me Too: A Visual Analysis of the Social Movement’s News Coverage on Twitter • Holly Cowart, Georgia Southern University • This content analysis examines how major U.S. news outlets represent the Me Too movement on Twitter. Using framing, it focuses on images of people in tweets as a form of visual communication. Nine news outlets’ Twitter accounts were sampled to identify relevant themes and explore their potential role in shaping society’s understanding of the movement. Findings include a greater visual emphasis on those accused of sexual misconduct than its victims and a reliance on celebrities.

The impact of imagery: Visual journalists’ assessment of the power of images • Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; Brent Walth, University of Oregon; Kaitlin Bane, University of Oregon • Academic debate exists regarding the actual power that images possess to create outcomes or journalistic “impact.” While there is a growing body of research on journalistic impact, it is a generally underexplored research area, and there are no known studies specifically bringing together journalistic impact research with photojournalism literature on the power of imagery. Through surveys with visual journalists, this research explores fundamental questions about journalists’ perceptions of, and experiences with, images and impact.

No, Memes No!  Digital Persuasion in the #MeToo Era • Shahira Fahmy; Omneya Ibrahim, American University in Cairo • This study bridges a gap in communication research by conducting an integrative framing analysis of Twitter memes based on the pathos, ethos and logos persuasion appeals. Specifically, this study examines both visual and textual information in the most popular memes of the #MeToo campaign. Results are based on a quantitative content analysis of the top 1,000 Me Too memes on Twitter during the week in which sexual misconduct allegations were made against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then nominee for the US Supreme Court justice. Findings reveal the role of different persuasion principles in online social movements. Results showed anti-#MeToo memes significantly focused more on the emotional appeal and less on the logos and ethos appeals than pro-#MeToo memes. Overall, the work contributes to the growing memes literature that empirically explores the integration between visual and verbal modalities in the contemporary digital media environment.

On the boundaries: Professional photojournalists navigating identity in an age of technological democratization • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Ross Taylor, U of Colorado; Kathleen I. Alaimo, U of Colorado • In the wake of an influx of interlopers populating photojournalism, this study utilizes in-depth interviews with 21 professional photojournalists to better understand how they construct their identity. With a framework of social identity theory, this research found photojournalists consider clear role conception, adherence to normative journalism ethics and organizational backing as key components of their in-group. They consider a loyalty to citizens second, a lack of professional processes, and advocacy key parts of the out-group.

Visualizing the finish line:  Exploring capstone courses in visual communications programs • Matthew Haught, University of Memphis; David Morris II, University of South Carolina Aiken • As the number of journalism and mass communications programs offering a visual communications focused program grows, the curriculum of programs should be examined. This study uses open-ended questionnaire responses with program coordinators and capstone instructors in journalism and mass communications-based visual communications programs. It finds that capstones include internships, ethics courses, campaigns courses, and advanced praxis courses. It concludes that the blend of theoretical and practical understanding and application is the overriding outcome for programs.

Night and day:  A visual diptych of hate and horror in Charlottesville • Susan Keith, Rutgers University; Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University • Two photographs from the Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017—Samuel Corum’s flame-lit image of marcher Peter Cvjetanovic and Ryan M. Kelly’s Pulitzer-winning image of the car attack that killed Heather Heyer—captured the American imagination. This paper examines the rhetorics of contrast, emotion and resonance embedded in the images and argues that they have the potential to become iconic images.

The Visual Effects of Electronic Cigarette Warning Statement Features on Harm Perceptions of E-cigarette among Young Adults • Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Jim Thrasher, University of South Carolina; Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Yoo Jin Cho, University of South Carolina • This study investigates young adults’ reactions to varying electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) warning statements. The results of a 3 (warning statement size: 30%, 50%, or 70% of magazine advertisement surface) by 2 (warning statement background: white or yellow) between-subject experiment (N = 320) with one nonfactorial control condition (advertisement with no warning statement) indicate that enlarged and yellow warning statements increased viewers’ perceived harm of e-cigarette use and in turn decreased their susceptibility to e-cigarette use.

Venus, Mars and the Sun: Gender Differences in the Persuasive Efficacy of GIFs with Positive and Negative Emotional Valence on Promoting Sunscreen Use • Bianca Ann Lee; Lena Cheng Yeng Lee; Tessa Su En Liang; Zandra Rui Yi Ang • This study explored the persuasive efficacy of Graphics Interchange Formats (GIFs) and gender’s moderating effect on visual format and emotional valence with a 2 (visual format) x 2 (emotional valence) x 3 (message repetition) mixed design. Key findings were: (a) men were more persuaded by animated GIFs, (b) valence had no significant effect on persuasion within animated GIFs, and (c) within negative valence, men were more persuaded by animated GIFs and women by static graphics.

You Are What You Post: The Interaction of Personality Traits and Visual Content on Instagram • Yuchen Liu • Drawing on the Big Five theory of personality, this study examined how personality traits influence the visual content theme that individuals post on Instagram as well as their posting behavior. An online questionnaire was conducted with 283 undergraduate students, followed by a visual content analysis with 1,000 Instagram posts. Although inconsistency exists between self-reported data and content analysis data, results revealed that personality traits predicted participants’ posting behavior the visual content theme that they post on Instagram. Scholarly and practical implications of this research were discussed in the context of growing visual content in both interpersonal and strategic communication and increasing availability of online social networking.

Journalism’s visual construction of place in environmental coverage • Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin; Ivy Ashe, University of Texas at Austin • This study builds on our understanding of how visual journalism is used with environmental reporting to create a sense of place and understanding in the audience. While most American photojournalism tends to favor close-up photos that include people, environmental coverage leans the opposite way— sweeping landscape photos depicting more of the earth and less of the people that inhabit it. Thus, a contradiction is presented to photojournalists attempting to create imagery to accompany environmental stories. Through a content analysis of wire and non-wire environmental photos on US newspaper front pages, our findings show support that person-focused feature imagery is being used more, though still mostly at an informational level.

U.S. front-pages: Visual news values in wire versus non-wire photographs • Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin; Tara Mortensen • The present study uses a sample of US daily front-pages to examine visual differences between wire and non-wire photography on front pages. The results show that the sample of wire images contain more people than non-wire images, were more emotional and more graphically-appealing, and were used as stand-alone art more frequently than non-wire images. Further, wire images were most-commonly implemented for topics about policy / politics and international relations, while non-wire images more commonly accompanied stories about ceremonies and festivals, as well as stories about the economy. Finally, higher-circulation newspapers in the sample used wire images more often than small-circulation newspapers.

Cost-efficient, Copious, and Not-So Credible? An examination of the credibility of staff and stock photography • Tara Mortensen; Brian McDermott, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Khadija Ejaz • This study addressed audience perceptions of the credibility of stock photography versus photographs taken by professional photojournalists. These audience perceptions were gauged using a newly-developed, reliable scale that measured the construct “photo credibility.” The results of the study suggest that people perceive the credibility of stock images as significantly lower than those taken by professional staff photographers. Professionally-shot, staff photographs were rated particularly high, and higher than stock images, in the variables of photojournalism professionalism, trust and accuracy. However, stock photographs were rated more credible in journalism professionalism, and there was no significant difference between the two groups within the area of completeness.

Photographs’ Role in Creating an Online Social Movement in Kuwait: A Case Study of Manshoor Blog Using Visual Frame Alignment Process • Noura Al-Duaijani; Tara Mortensen • This paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the role images can play in mobilizing online social movements’ values in conservative societies through the frame alignment process. The case study is of liberal Kuwaiti blog, Manshoor. The main frames used were the injustice frame, followed by the fear of personal suffering, the multiculturalism frame and the boundary frame. In addition to a traditional, qualitative analysis, three visual cues that are frequently used in semiotic analysis (social distance, contact, and point-of-view) are matched with traditional frames in order to visually, quantitatively code images. In this way, a reliable visual coding scheme for frame alignment analysis that makes use of cues was developed.

Race, Gender & Rationale: The Global Image in the Western Mind • Tara Pixley, Loyola Marymount University • This paper unpacks a content analysis of 15 years of photojournalism awarded by World Press Photo and Photographer of the Year International —the two most lauded photojournalism awards. Analyzing images in situ must account for both the subject pictured and the picture’s producer.  As such, the project’s foundational questions are: who takes these images that represent the height of photojournalism and the most publicized views of human experience? What ideas do they ultimately produce about the world’s most vulnerable people and places? The study finds photojournalists are primarily white, male and Western, while award-winning images are most often of black and brown bodies immured in chaos, defined by catastrophe. Central to my argument is that if photojournalism purports to tell the visual story of all humanity, the fact that we continue to view the world’s entirety primarily through this white, male, colonial perspective has frightening implications. Joining a very recent upswing of interest in how journalism lacks diversity and equity within its producers and production processes, this research is an integral addition to the existing canon of visual communication knowledge. As it interrogates existing visual communication practices, it also offers questions to apply in the journalism classroom that can steer the next generation of storytellers toward improved production practices.

Creepy babies and the phenomenon of data distraction • Abby Rinaldi, University of Iowa • This paper examines three data visualizations from three prominent news sites (The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Independent) to identify trends of visual interference which disrupt sense-making and communication of narrative within the stories they seek to tell. The paper groups these different kinds of obstruction under the term data distraction. Data distraction defines the ways in which visualization design can inhibit understanding and clash with the goals and norms of data journalism.

Key Trends Visualizing Green and CSR on Skin Care and Cosmetic Websites • Michelle Seelig, University of Miami; Ruoyu Sun, University of Miami; Sanchary Pal; Huixin Deng • Advertisers and marketers have long used power visual representations of the natural world as a conceptual strategy to sell a variety of goods and services. In the last decade or so, some research has started to emerge that found more companies providing details how their brand or product is made beneficial to protecting the environment. Literature also supports that green branding extends to the web aimed at consumers looking for brands and products aligned with their value system. We believe green themes and CSR important for online branding and informing consumers about their ecological stewardship. Drawing from the literature on green advertising, CSR, and visual framing, we explore the current state of environmental brand identification on skin care and cosmetic websites and the various elements used to frame greenness portraying a pro-environmental stewardship. Overall, findings show improvements including more substantive claims and CSR activities on websites, but for now, associative claims were still more prevalent framing brands green image and implying eco-friendly ideals.

Crowdsmashing: A content analysis of 
Brand New’s branding reviews and reader response • Robert Wertz, University of South Carolina • This study uses content analysis to examine the relationship between the presentation of new corporate visual identities and how people respond to them by evaluating one year of reviews on the design critique web site Brand New. Results indicate that several structural elements correlate with better reader response, while others seem to have no relationship.

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