Archives for May 2019

Pen and Dagger: America’s Journalist Spies in Soviet Russia, 1920-21 • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • The uneasy relationship between the American news media and American spy agencies can be traced to the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division that was created during World War I and subsequently dispatched agents to Russia immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. This paper explores three ways the organization used journalism to help gather information on Soviet Russia in 1920 and 1921: hiring American news reporters to work as agents, dispatching agents posing as reporters, and asking journalists to provide specific information. The three ways are illustrated in biographical sketches of Marguerite Harrison, a Baltimore Sun reporter who worked for the Army’s spy organization; Weston Estes, an agent who posed as a reporter and filmmaker; an Albert Boni, a publisher and newspaper reporter who agreed to obtain samples of counterfeit American money for MID’s office in Berlin.

Long Run: How Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on TV for 25 years • Alison Burns • This study explores the longevity of the longest-running children’s newsmagazine in television history, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. While there are scores of news and feature articles about the program and its host, there are few scholarly articles and books that even mention, let alone analyze the show, and no study to date about its history and longevity. Using historical methodology, including original interviews, primary source documents and videos of programs, this article examines how Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on the air for 25 years despite relatively low ratings and meager ad revenue for the network. This paper proposes that a confluence of forces kept the show running, including federal mandates for children’s educational programming, a steady commitment from network executives, an engaging and mission-oriented host who owned the show, high-profile guests and timely topics, and prestigious awards from the news industry.

“It is what I came for – to share in fear and suffering”: The Catholic Worker and the Civil Rights Movement • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While most of the public knows of Dorothy Day for her social work, pacifist activism, and writing, few are familiar her decades-long commitment to combatting racial injustice. This paper will utilize a close reading of Day’s personal papers, her own reporting in The Catholic Worker to show she did what many mainstream newspapers did not. Day invested in covering civil rights on a consistent basis through long-term relationships with southerners, frequent visits to communities of color, and self-reflection on their role in the struggle.

Johnny Neill’s Lonely Defense of Press Freedom in 1893 Texas • Ralph Frasca • Johnny Neill made a fateful decision when he learned his local city council banned a newspaper as a “public nuisance.” His decision landed the blind twenty-nine-year-old news dealer in prison. His lonely, principled stand for free expression paved the way for two landmark court decisions ensuring freedom of the press, including one of the most famous First Amendment cases in Supreme Court history.

“Highways to Hope”: Samuel L. Adams’ Investigation into Public Accommodations Compliance Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act • Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University; Keena Neal, Wayne State University; Jalisa Patrick • Samuel L. Adams, the grandson of a slave, covered the Civil Rights Movement as the St. Petersburg Times’ first Black journalist and the only Black reporter on the race beat in the early 1960s. This paper examines the mainstream reporting methods, prior Black press experience, and ethos of nonviolent civic life that he brought to a 4,300-mile road trip testing Southern compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and investigative series, “Highways to Hope.”

The Yom Kippur War as Reported in Milwaukee’s Newspapers • Timothy Roy Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • At the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle was a transmitter of news and helped to maintain the Jewish-American experience. Using James Carey’s concepts of communication, this study examines content published by the Chronicle and Milwaukee’s daily newspapers. The Chronicle worked across a transmission-ritual continuum—although close to the ritual side—while the transmission-oriented dailies gave little attention to its Jewish or Arab community members.

The Last Japanese WWII Holdout – Japanese & US Newspaper Coverage of Hiroo Onoda’s Thirty-Year War” • Daniel Haygood, Elon University • This research analyzes Japanese and American newspaper coverage to understand how the media shaped and framed an ongoing World War II narrative centered on Hiroo Onoda and his thirty-year holdout on Lubang Island in the Philippines. The goal is to understand the narratives built around Onoda’s story and how the perspectives are different between the print media of the two countries. The method used for this research was to review coverage by prominent newspapers in each country: Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and The Japan Times and United States’ Washington Post and the New York Times. The learning informs us that there were differences in how the Japanese and US newspapers covered Onoda’s holdout. The coverage also forced the country to ask hard questions about itself and its intensive drive for material wealth.

Summer of ’67: A Comparative Analysis of Coverage of the Detroit Race Riots • Brittany Jefferson, University of Georgia • The current study seeks to explore the different ways that three newspapers; The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press and The Michigan Chronicle, covered the Detroit riots of 1967 from their respective standpoints as national, local and African American centered publications. This study will use a thematic content analysis and the theoretical framework of framing to determine the differing perspective of each news outlet. This research serves to provide an historical example of the growing body of literature regarding protests coverage across media outlets.

Victorian Eyes: Examining Nineteenth-Century American Journalism Through Three Major English Travel Writers • Farooq Kperogi, Kennesaw State University • American newspapers and journalists—and the newspaper reading culture that American newspaper journalists inspired— were irresistible narrative magnets for many European, especially English, travelers who visited America in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the records of the impressions that registered in the minds of Europeans travelers to America about nineteenth-century American journalism were not always the products of unmediated empirical observations; they were shaped as much by the social and cultural predispositions of the writers as they were by veridical perceptions of the time. Although there is already robust literature on nineteenth-century American journalism, there are scarcely any scholarly explorations of the forms and substance of this period from the perspectives of travel writers. This paper contributes to the disciplinary conversation between journalism history, travel literature and literary journalism by providing perspectives on nineteenth-century Americans newspapers and journalists from the travel narratives of Victorian travel writers and exploring the reactions these narratives provoked in American newspapers of the time.

The “Cronkytization” of the News Presenter Role in the United Kingdom • Madeleine Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University • With increasing job demands in the 1990s, the British news presenter role underwent a transformation—a “Cronkytization”—as journalists were hired instead of actors/actresses. This case study examined the change, using boundary work and parasocial interaction. Boundaries were clearly redefined as journalists overtook the news presenter role. The role was elevated, becoming more visible for a stronger audience connection. The rotating presenter system was abolished, they were produced as teams, and personality was encouraged.

“Toward the benefit of the Allies”: Patriotism, Propaganda, and the Government-Press Relationship of the Great War • Meghan McCune • This study explores how American journalist Stanley Washburn operated as an instrument of government during the Great War. While the modern government-press relationship is often understood as an adversarial one, the experiences of Great War reporters illustrate a cooperative and friendly relationship that has not been adequately documented by scholars. This study suggests that a new “agency model” is necessary to fully understand the government-press relationship during the Great War and its impact on the modern press.

Regional Differences and the Associated Press: The Mason-Dixon Line in Journalism Standards • Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University • Following the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, the Associated Press found itself at the center of an ideological struggle in which southern, pro-segregation editors imposed their perceptions of objectivity, balance, and accuracy on the wire service. This analysis, which draws on correspondence between AP executives and southern members, demonstrates that unrelenting advocacy for news coverage that reflected southern views on race did in fact alter the wire service’s news values. Specifically, AP executives bent to pressure to cover racial discrimination in the North and to transmit stories that emphasized negative racial stereotypes of African Americans, portraying them as unfit for life in an integrated society.

Media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 • Hoa Nguyen, University of Maryland • The current study examines media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 within the power play between the two Communist brothers. This short war entailed controversial discourse way after its end. For both Chinese and Vietnamese history, this war is a gloomy chapter, and given the significance of casualties and political implications, the war was not given the media coverage it merited in either China or Vietnam. Due to attempts by both nations to cover up this war for fear of hurting bilateral relationships, the Sino-Vietnamese War, for the most part, has been written about by outsiders. Although journalism is considered the first draft of history, the paucity of first-hand media coverage has led to works on this war relying heavily on political analysis and assumptions. Now that more and more access is given to the journalism sources in both China and Vietnam, it is high time one looked at the war, its coverage, and its implications in a more thorough picture. The current study explores media coverage of the war from the following main sources: Nhan Dan newspaper and The New York Times. Subordinate sources include US embassy cables, interviews, books, and historical collections. This study analyzes the dual mute-unmute mode of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship as seen in coverage of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.

Tabloid Journalism and Right-Wing Populism: The New York Daily News in the Mid-20th Century • Matthew Pressman, Seton Hall University • The New York Daily News in the mid-20th century was the highest-circulation newspaper in American history (more than 2 million weekday, more than 4 million Sunday), but very little has been written about it. Drawing on seldom-used archival collections and the paper’s recently digitized backfile, this article examines the Daily News’ remarkable success and its controversial editorial positions, arguing that both were rooted in a desire to serve and fight for its core audience.

Neither Public Nor Private: Inventing PBS television, 1965- 1967 • Camille Reyes, Trinity University • Through textual analyses of archival material from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, as well as the Carnegie Commission report on educational television, the paper traces lost lessons from two public television systems abroad, as well as inconsistent rhetoric concerning diversity and audience construction. Despite the best of intentions for a system of public television independent from the constraints of advertising, American PBS was and is a strange hybrid—neither public, nor private.

Cultural Hegemony in New York Press Coverage of the 1969 Stonewall Riots • Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, Ohio University • This paper analyzes New York newspapers’ coverage of the June 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in New York City, particularly depictions of the people involved, using Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. A qualitative thematic analysis is used to examine articles from the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice in the two weeks after the initial Stonewall riots on June 28-29, 1969. The analysis aimed to reveal any underlying stereotypes of gay men and masculinity that may be perpetuated by the media in journalists’ descriptions of the people who confronted police that summer. These four newspapers would set the tone for coverage of the gay rights movement in other U.S. publications, as other queer people began calling for equal rights and more fair press coverage after the riots. This paper defines hegemony theory and traces press coverage of homosexuals from the World War II era until the 1960s. This is a significant study because there has not been an in-depth academic study about contemporary coverage and the effects of societal pressures on press coverage of Stonewall. This paper is also significant as the 50th anniversary of the riots approaches. Research concludes that the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice all contributed to maintaining a heterosexual, masculine power structure through their portrayals of the rioters, thus creating a separation between the patrons at Stonewall and the societal norms of the time.

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The ‘Michael’ Effect: Risk Perception and Behavioral Intentions through Varying Lenses • Cory Armstrong; Jue Hou, University of Alabama; Nathan Towery • The project was to examine individual responses to impending disasters in areas that were recently touched by Hurricane Michael. We employed two theoretical frameworks and developed an experiment testing how media messages surrounding an impending hypothetical hurricane were interpreted by residents and their influence on an individual’s risk perception and decision-making in the situation. With 567 respondents, analysis determined that the live video was most likely to motivate respondents to prepare activities for the storms.

When a Plan Comes Together: An Analysis of Assessment Plans from Accredtied US Broadcast Journalism Programs • Timothy Bajkiewicz, Virginia Commonwealth University; Katherine Nash, Virginia Commonwealth University • Assessment of learning outcomes is a challenging standard for broadcast journalism programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, accounting for half of all annual noncompliances. This study conducts the first content analysis on assessment plans from such programs, using a Council-approved guide. Findings show that while most plans include many recommended components, including every plan having direct learning measures, plans varied widely in component inclusion and assessment activities.

Women Broadcast Journalists and the Emotional Labor of Dealing with Harassment • Kaitlin Bane, University of Oregon; Seth Lewis • Harassment from organizational outsiders is an understudied phenomenon, despite its prevalence in many occupations, especially journalism. This paper explores the nature of harassment perpetrated by sources, strangers, and others against women broadcast journalists at U.S. local television stations. Through interviews, this study identifies four common types of harassment as well as how journalists manage their subsequent emotions, illustrating the emotional labor associated with harassment at a time of growing hostility toward the press.

The Effect of Corporate Media Ownership on Depth of Local Coverage and Issue Agendas • Justin Blankenship, Auburn University; Chris Vargo • Sinclair Broadcast Group owns over 170 different television stations in the US. It has received criticism for reducing the amount of local reporting and inserting a conservative bias into its news content. This study examined the effect of Sinclair ownership on news content by examining six Sinclair news websites. Results found an overall drop in news coverage, no significant change in local news, and some difference in issue agenda after Sinclair took over operation.

Local TV News and Audience Engagement in Social Media • Monica Chadha, Arizona State University; K. Hazel Kwon, Arizona State University; Jiun-Yi Tsai • This study explores factors that influence audience engagement with local TV news on Facebook. It compares Facebook pages of local stations to those of the national channels with which they are affiliated. Effects of news topics and content characteristics were examined on audience engagement metrics namely sharing, liking and commenting. Results suggest that local and nationwide news were different in terms of the critical information needs they serve, level of audience engagement, and content strategies.

Natural Disasters and Community Uses of Media and Information: How Hurricane Maria Impacted Puerto Ricans • Manuel Chavez, Michigan State University School of Journalism; Bruno Takahashi, Michigan State University; Luis Graciano, Michigan State University • This paper examines how Puerto Ricans experienced and confronted the total collapse of the communications infrastructure before, during and after Hurricane Maria. As they lost their power and communication systems, they scrambled to get news and information from whatever sources were available to protect their lives, properties and to learn about Maria’s impacts. Analog radio became the sole communication operating system to provide information and this study complements current research on news media during crisis.

Neutrality and Nonverbal Expression in Sandy Hook Coverage • Danielle Deavours, The University of Alabama • A key tenet of journalism is unbiased reporting. Especially during a national crisis, it can be challenging for reporters to keep their emotions and personal beliefs in line with this guideline. While live television reporters do their best to keep their verbal communication messages unbiased and unemotional, nonverbal behaviors are more difficult to control and conceal, especially during crises. Doris Graber’s (2002) stages of crisis coverage theory discusses the process that journalists use to communicate messages to viewers during national breaking news events. Graber’s work addresses the need to prevent bias in verbal messages and shows the unintentional impact of biased language during crisis coverage. However, Graber’s study does not address journalists’ nonverbal behavior and the potential impact it can have on the audience. They built upon Graber’s stages of crisis coverage theory in their 2006 study to determine whether nonverbal behaviors were prevalent during live broadcast coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Coleman and Wu (2006) found nonneutral nonverbal cues were widely present during reports, and the patterns of nonneutral nonverbal behaviors corresponded with Graber’s stages of crisis. However, Coleman and Wu stated additional researchers needed to replicate their methodology in other contexts to ensure the validity of their findings. This study replicates the work of Coleman and Wu’s work, that focused on the 9/11 attacks, and applies it to the December 14, 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Sinclair Effect: The effect of ‘must-read’ scripts on the perceptions of sincerity, credibility and parasocial relationships • Megan Duncan, Virginia Tech; Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee • Journalists promoting their product as authoritative and truthful is as old as American journalism itself. Research, though, provides little theoretical guidance to understand how audiences perceive these appeals for journalism when they are part of a corporate campaign. In an experiment (N=218), audiences report a higher perception of sincerity, credibility and parasocial relationships from a single local television station appeal for journalism than a compilation of the appeals. However, in neither version do they report a perceived ideological bias. The results have implications for how local television news can credibly promote their product and expand the Persuasion Knowledge Model to a journalism context.

Toward A New Conceptualization and Typology of Journalistic Competency: A Job Announcement Analysis of U.S. Broadcasting • Lei Guo; Yong Volz, University of Missouri • Journalistic competency is a constitutive element of professional values and practices in journalism. But what constitutes journalistic competency in today’s ever-changing media landscape? Existing literature lacks theoretical and empirical understandings of journalistic competency, especially in broadcasting. Drawing on Cheetham and Chivers’ competence model, we examine professional competencies as defined by broadcast media through a content analysis of 359 job announcements. Four dimensions of journalistic competency were explicated and empirically assessed: cognitive, functional, behavioral, and ethical competence.

Rescuing a legacy: The professionalization of local television digital news producing • Keren Henderson, Syracuse University • Warren Breed published ‘Social Control in the Newsroom’ when owning television stations was akin to owning money-printing machines. Times have changed. This case study asks whether today’s journalists can maintain professionalism while adopting market-driven digital routines. Analyzing six months of observations, in-depth interviews, and a survey of newsroom staff, this study explores the recent professionalization of local digital news producing currently unfolding across local television newsrooms in the United States.

Social Media News Production, Emotional Facebook Reactions, and the Politicization of the Opioid Epidemic • Danielle Kilgo; Jennifer Midberry • The 2017 federal decision to elevate the opioid epidemic to a national health emergency led to a significant uptick in media coverage. Considering the diversity of the news landscape and the developing professionalization of social media practices for media organizations, this research examined evaluating features of narrative coverage alongside user engagement numbers using the emotional reaction functions available on Facebook. Results indicate that Trump’s actions drove media coverage and angered audiences, triggering a blame game and an overall narrative emphasis on political movement rather than the effect on people and the realities of the emergency.

Consolation Strategies in Children’s Television News: A Longitudinal Content Analysis • Mariska Kleemans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Sanne Tamboer, Radboud University Nijmegen • Producers of news for children face a trade-off between fully informing children and not causing distress. To get more insight into the production of news for children, a longitudinal content analysis of the use of consolation strategies in children’s television news between 2000 and 2016 was conducted. This study focused on strategies used within the entire newscast (N = 408 programs), within items (N = 2,304 items), and within camera shots (N = 41,338 shots).

Severe allergies and price increases: Framing the 2016 EpiPen crisis and U.S. pharmaceutical pricing • Hayley Markovich • In 2016, Mylan Pharmaceuticals and EpiPen made news headlines due to a 600% price increase. This study of the EpiPen price increase utilized a framing analysis of three U.S. evening news programs’ coverage of the story from August 2016 until November 2018. Analysis revealed four frames: economic, attribution of responsibility, morality and human interest, and conflict and powerlessness. Pharmaceutical price increases were depicted as a societal level problem where government was expected to provide solutions.

You Can’t Handle the Lies!: How the Gamson Hypothesis Explains Third-person Perceptions of Being Fooled by Fake News • Taeyoung Lee, The University of Texas at Austin; Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin; Heloisa Sturm Wilkerson, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined third-person perception of fake news through the lens of the Gamson hypothesis, analyzing attitudes and behaviors associated with fake news. Data from a national survey (N = 902) indicates that Assureds and Subordinates who consume ultra-conservative media are more likely to share fake news, and Dissidents who consume social media are more likely to believe fake news is a threat to democracy. Implications for the current political landscape are discussed.

WeChat or We Set? Examining the Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects between WeChat Public Accounts, Party Newspaper and Metropolitan Newspapers in China • Yan Su, The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University • In an attempt to explore the intermedia agenda-setting effects between party newspaper, metropolitan newspapers, and WeChat public accounts in China, this study analyzes the issue agendas on all three platforms. Through analyzing the rank-orders and cross-lagged correlations, we found that negative associations have emerged between WeChat’s and party newspaper’s agendas, no cross-lagged impact was found between WeChat’s and party newspaper’s agendas, whereas positive reciprocal effects appeared between the party and metropolitan newspapers’ agendas.

Trial by Media?: Media Use, Fear of Crime, And Attitudes Toward Police • Brendan Watson, Michigan State University; Soo Young Shin, MSU • This study uses Chicago, a media-rich city, whose struggles with gang violence, as well as with police misconduct have been extensively covered by news media, to examine the cultivation effects of local news media use on residents’ fear of crime and attitudes toward police. Controlling for individual-level variables, including previous crime victimization and neighborhood-level context, a survey of Chicago residents found support for local TV news’ cultivation of residents’ fear of crime. Local TV news’ popularity as a source of local crime-related information and its cultivation effects are eclipsed by those of social media, Facebook specifically. Regarding attitudes toward police, we found that based on specific content features, such as sensationalism and reliance on single police sources, local news media can have positive effects on local residents’ perceptions of police. We found zero support for the “Blue Lives Matter” movement’s contention that media contribute to “anti-police” public opinions. Only local TV news had a negative effect on public perceptions of a specific officer whose shooting of a local black teenager was caught on tape. Implications for future academic studies of cultivation effects and for obviously politically-divisive policy discussions revolving around local criminal justice, including accountability for racial disparities in police’s use of force, are discussed.

From taped up to mic’d up: Exploring the experiences of former athletes and the meaning of athletic identity in sports media spaces • Allison Smith, University of New Mexico; Erin Whiteside, University of Tennessee • Drawing from the socio-cultural qualitative tradition, this research uses in-depth, long interviews to explore how former athletes working in sports media make sense of their athletic identity and how working in the industry shapes the transition process for athletes moving away from sport. Findings show that former athletes assign status to their athletic identity, which they perceive to aid them in doing better broadcasting and journalism work. Discussion focuses on the implications of those findings, with a particular focus on how discourses of athletic status may create hierarchies among women working in this male-dominated industry.

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When Art & Culture Becomes the Symbol of Resistance: An Analysis of Creative Protests During the Political Unrests of Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia • Rauf Arif, Texas Tech University • This paper is about the importance of creative arts in closed societies where freedom of information and speech is not an option. Using a critical discourse analysis, it highlights three case studies from Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia where artists used creative means and social media to mobilize people against their authoritarian regimes. By providing a thorough analysis of the cultural and historical contexts of the three cases, the paper concludes that during critical circumstances when traditional media are not free, creative arts have the ability to perform the role of an alternate media in the digital age.

Collaboration and Teaching about Liquid Media Literacy: New Challenges • Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma • This paper addresses two of the central concerns facing the advance of media and information literacy in an American context. First, the goals of media literacy proponents may not succeed in accomplishing what they set out to accomplish because of the complexity of the networked media environment. The first wave of media literacy was responding to propaganda in a mass media context. We live in a world of networks now. The second concern has to do with the relationship between media literacy and information literacy. This paper argues that both of these concerns can be addressed by a collaborative approach to media I argue that teaching should stress an alternation between, first, deep critical engagement with media texts and, second, initial evaluations of the veracity, position, and nature of a piece of content prior to critical engagement.

Manufacturing Truth: Epistemic Crisis in the Political Economy of Fake News • Jeffrey Blevins, University of Cincinnati • This study applies Herman and Chomsky’s famous political economic critique of the U.S. news media to the current realm of fake news, and shows that the growth and distribution of fake news on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential cycle, along with doublespeak about what is considered “fake news” had a detrimental impact on the institutional effectiveness of journalism, and exposed an epistemic flaw in the oft-cited “marketplace of ideas” metaphor used in First Amendment jurisprudence.

Dominant, Residual and Emergent: The Journalistic Performance within The Post • Matthew Blomberg, University of Kansas, USA • Given the increasing stresses on the practice of journalism, both internal and external, and challenges to public perceptions regarding the credibility of the institution, a need exists to better comprehend how the practice is understood and portrayed within other mediums. This study, through an examination of the 2017 Steven Spielberg film, The Post, analyzes the film as a cultural forum and discursive site to see what dominant, residual and emergent messages are on display.

Missing, or just Missed? Mediating Loss in the Missing Richard Simmons Podcast • Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina; Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz • This study critically examines the Missing Richard Simmons podcast to explore how producers and participants use media to define and process complex relationships with celebrity figures. Employing qualitative textual analysis, this research demonstrates how audiences mediate celebrity interactions and the potential role these relationships play within a marginalized and fragile community. This project qualitatively explores parasocial interactions to demonstrate the ways expressions of grief and loss are mediated by audiences when a celebrity “relationship” disappears.

A Fifty Year Evolution: A Content Analysis of Miss USA Pageant Questions • Lindsay Bouchacourt, The University of Texas at Austin • This study looks at the evolution of the interview questions of the Miss USA pageant from 1970 to 2018. Beauty pageant winners represent femininity and the ideal woman in American society, and the pageant questions can reflect society’s expectations for women. A qualitative content analysis was conducted, and the findings revealed eight prominent themes. The results show an evolution of the questions over 50 years, which suggest changing gender and social roles for women.

Colton, Coitus, and Comedy: Male Virginity as a Punch Line on The Bachelor • Andrea Briscoe • This study examines a successful reality television show – The Bachelor – and analyzes how it handled having its first male lead that is an outspoken virgin. Through a textual analysis, the television show’s episodes and advertisements are both examined, with a specific lens focusing on masculinity and virginity. The author showcases room for improvement regarding reality television’s narratives surrounding sex, particularly in light of the #MeToo movement.

Making common sense of the cyberlibertarian ideal: The journalistic consecration of John Perry Barlow • Michael Buozis, Temple University • This study critiques the way in which journalism and other media used John Perry Barlow, someone with little to no technical expertise, as an authoritative voice of the emerging Internet. By doing so, this research aims to better account for the ways in which Barlow’s vision of Internet freedom, a deeply problematic cyberlibertarian vision, became a sort of commonsense ideology of Internet discourses, marked by enthusiastic techno-utopianism and libertarian approaches to free speech and markets.

Visual Sovereignty: Six Questions Applied to an Indigenous Video Game • Susan Clotfelter, Colorado State University • The concept of visual sovereignty has been advanced by Indigenous scholars as a way to evaluate media creations, collections, museum exhibitions, and films, whether created by Indigenous or non-Indigenous people. How, then, to evaluate an Indigenous-created video game? This paper draws on the work of Jolene Rickard in photography and museum exhibitions; Michelle Raheja in film scholarship; but also critical explorations of recent Indigenous film and the actions and utterances of characters in those portrayals. It suggests six non-exhaustive questions that can be applied to “Never Alone,” an award-winning Alaska Native-created video game, as a starting point. Because the writer is non-Indigenous and non-Alaskan, these questions are only a beginning, but they chart a starting point for a research agenda, one that might prove useful for examining the contributions of future such Indigenous-created media, as well as future portrayals of Indigenous characters.

“Fake news” and the discursive construction of technology companies’ social power • Brian Creech, Temple University • This article takes up fake news as a kind of discursive object, and interrogates recent discourses about fake news in order to understand what they reveal about the social and cultural power wielded by Silicon Valley. In taking up social media platforms and technology companies as not just an industrial system, but a cultural regime partially constituted through discourse, this article argues discursive objects, like fake news, operate in ways that make technology companies’ social power sensible as a public concern. Using the tools of critical discourses analysis to analyze a broad corpus, this article shows how public commentary and debate has worked to construct fake news it as a socio-technical problem—a formulation that implicated technology company executives as morally responsible, but also created a means for articulating what role these companies should play in liberal democratic life. These discourses push against a corporate libertarian paradigm that has worked to insulate technology companies from broader political and cultural contest.

Making Race Relevant in Southern Political Reporting: A Critical Race Analysis of 2018-2019 Storylines • George Daniels • Using a purposive sample of 17 news media messages, this study employs critical race theory as a framework in a textual analysis of news reporting on political stories across the South. The 2018 gubernatorial elections in Georgia and Florida featured African American candidates while a Mississippi special U.S. Senate election featured an African American candidate. While none was successful, the news media played a central role in making race relevant. Then in 2019, the same news media made relevant in stories involving politicians in Blackface and attire of racial exclusionary groups.

Museums as a Public Good: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Met Museum’s Admission Policy Change • Michael Davis, University of Iowa • For decades, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has stood as an exemplar for open access. On Jan. 4, 2018, President Daniel Weiss announced that the museum would discontinue its “suggested donation” policy. Starting March 1, 2018, non-New York State residents were expected to pay $25. Using Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the language in Weiss’ press release, this paper will argue that this action discriminates based on race, residential status, and economic factors.

Malaysia and the Rohingya: Media, Migration, and Politics • Emily Ehmer, Texas State University; Ammina Kothari, Rochester Institute of Technology • This study examines the representation of Rohingya asylum-seekers in Malaysia’s media and how news coverage supports the state regarding issues of sovereignty, political debates about migration, and domestic policies on refugees. The framing analysis draws upon news stories reported by The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, in 2012 through 2016 to identify narrative themes during a period of escalating violence in Myanmar that prompted the Rohingya to flee to Malaysia.

The Vegas shooting: A case study of news literacy and a dysfunctional public sphere • Tim Boudreau, Central Michigan U; Ed Simpson; Elina Erzikova, CMU • This exploratory study examined comments associated with YouTube conspiracy videos posted days after the Las Vegas shooting. Overall, the study found that commenters used the social media platform as a public sphere, where debate and argument were conducted in ways similar to more mainstream outlets. This indicates a need for further exploration of the principles of news literacy and those principles can shape a public sphere.

The Dewey problem: Public journalism, engagement and more than two decades of denigrating discourse • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Jacob Nelson, Arizona State University; Miles Davis • Using a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse from journalism trade magazines, this study examines how the industry discursively articulated the need for the public journalism and engaged journalism movements and imagines their audience. The data illustrates how remarkably similar these movements are and the consistency by which the journalism industry imagines its audience. The results are interpreted with an eye toward of the future of the industry and the potential effects of these interventions.

The Visual Rhetoric of Disaster: How Bodies are Represented in Newspaper Photographs of Hurricane Harvey • Ever Figueroa, University of Texas • This study looks at images that appeared on the front pages of newspapers during key dates of hurricane Harvey coverage. Drawing from 106 front page photos gathered from August 28th, 2017 to September 4, 2017, this study presents a visual textual analysis that pays attention to the way race is represented within this context. The results show that media used visual rhetoric that presents minorities as displaced, while whites are represented as saviors and caretakers during moments of environmental crisis.

Hacking Culture not Code: Qualitative Analysis of How the Russian Government Used Facebook Social Ads During the 2016 Presidential Election • Bobbie Foster; Sohana Nasrin, University of Maryland; Krishnan Vasudevan, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland at College Park • Russia’s disinformation campaign intended to cripple American democracy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and in its aftermath is well documented in recent scholarship (Ziegler, 2018; Barrett, Wadhwa, and Baumann-Pauly, 2018; Farwell, 2018; and Jamieson, 2018). An integral aspect of Russia’s strategy was the exploitation of the existing architectures and affordances of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This study’s main findings suggest that discourses about Black identity such as Black empowerment and Black aesthetics that were presented within enclaved spaces (Squires, 2002) and by micro-celebrities on social media platforms provided a form of consumable culture that could be studied and replicated. The current study, based on a multimodal grounded analysis of 197 Facebook ads made public by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee in May 2018, examined how Russian operatives hacked American culture to encourage forms of mal-civic action. This deliberate decision was premised upon two considerations. First, the examination of Russian propaganda offers a unique case study to consider how Facebook provides a space for foreign actors to learn about American race relations, as the social media platform facilitates the sharing and consumption of text, image, audio and video. Secondly, the researchers argue that this cultural knowledge was employed to engender the trust of Black Americans to ultimately spur them in to civic action. By undertaking this study, we seek to provide a qualitative methodological strategy for scholars to examine other discourses within the dataset that warrant scholarly inquiry.

Performing Identity on Social Media: How the “Pan-African Network” Facebook Group Affords its Members an Oppositional Identity • James Gachau • This study is an exploration of the concept of human identity as it pertains to the ultimate goal of each individual to attain self-fulfillment by “having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs” (Dewey 1954). By identity I do not mean the identity politics which campaigns for the elimination of discriminatory practices based on people’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age, or any other “generalized social categories.” Rather, I mean the participation of group members in activities that allow them to identify with the group. I use philosophical and communications literature on identity to explore the Pan-African Network (PAN), a Facebook group that promotes the interests of Africans across the globe by campaigning for the advancement of a proud black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks and people of African descent. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Rob Cover’s conception of identity online as performative. I propose that as a social media group, PAN gives its members a sense of identity that is predicated upon the discourse and rhetoric produced by the group. In other words, the group is made by and sustained by its multifarious members, and the members are made and sustained by the group as a body of subjective interlocutors, acting as a public composed of members who write and read the norms they expect each other to follow.

Elite Company: Sourcing Trends in 2014-2017 Prestige Press Climate Change Editorials • Christopher Garcia, Florida State University; Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University • This paper examines the sourcing practices of 103 prestige press climate change editorials published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today between 2014 to 2017. Utilizing a critical political economic approach, this analysis found that despite the ideological differences between the newspapers of interest in this study, each relied on sourcing practices that emphasized the views of elite political and economic actors with often no scientific training. This examination reveals that despite their differences from news content, editorial content reflects the “objective” balance of journalism norms that have been widely discussed in political economic literature. Thus, despite their ideological differences, editorials often reflect and rely on sourcing from elites who ensure that the discourse of climate change remains one that does not challenge the status quo and that remains a political debate rather than a solution-based discussion.

Losing the Newspaper Building: Collective Nostalgia as Periodization and Preservative • Nicholas Gilewicz, Manhattan College • This paper examines how journalists at metropolitan daily U.S. newspapers covered the sales of their buildings and newsroom moves between 2005 and 2018. In response to allocative decisions beyond their control, newspaper journalists use collective nostalgia in an attempt to preserve their values. As a structure of feeling, collective nostalgia offers refuge from present-day problems, and a future-oriented discourse that binds the community of newspaper journalists, preparing them—and readers—for the newspaper’s move.

Spill the Foundation: Parasocial Relationships with Beauty YouTubers • Samantha Kissel, Indiana University of Pennsylvania • Creating and utilizing a YouTube account is an important part of being a social media influencer. Influencers use their content to develop parasocial relationships with subscribers. This study looks at beauty YouTubers who maintain trust with their audiences after being involved in sponsored or collaboration projects with cosmetic brands. The findings reveal they need to maintain activity on their YouTube accounts and continually build PSI in their videos to gain additional followers.

Storming with communication: Organization leads a community’s resilience after Hurricane Harvey • Jacqueline Lambiase, TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communication; Ashley English, Texas Christian University • One district serving 75,000 students in parts of Houston and several of its southwestern suburbs, the Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD), used a strategy of connection and empathy when creating community messaging tactics before, during, and after Hurricane Harvey. This qualitative case study tests the frameworks of social legitimacy theory and the discourse of renewal theory, as well as focuses on a public school system, rather than a corporate context, which receives the lion’s share of scholarly work related to crisis communication. This case study also uses rhetorical analysis of the district’s messaging—especially those of its superintendent—to scrutinize the ways that the Fort Bend ISD served as caretaker, booster, and beacon of hope during this historic storm in 2017 and for more than a year after the hurricane.

Mapping Representations of the Subaltern: The case of Indigenous Environmental Activists Bertha Caceres & Isidro Baldenegro • Dominique Montiel Valle • The present case study contributes to research on theories of the subaltern subject by examining news coverage of two Latin American activists’ (Berta Caceres, Isidro Baldenegro) death. In order to deconstruct and analyze dominant ideologies of ethnicity, gender, and class in news discourse, a mixed methods approach of critical discourse analysis and content analysis was deemed most appropriate. Research found that both activists were constructed as subalterns and that dominant ideologies of ethnic whitening, the patriarchal division of the private and public sphere, and classism were prevalent within news commentary. Though both activists’ representation as a subaltern was intersectional, Caceres’ was predominantly gendered.

Korean Popular Culture Consumption as a Way among First-and-a-half Generation Korean Immigrant Children in the United States to Develop Their Ethnic Identities • Jiwoo Park, Northwood University- Michigan • 12 first-and-a-half generation Korean immigrant children in the U.S. were recruited for photo-elicitation interview (PEI) to explore the effects of digital media-driven Korean popular culture consumption on their lives. As a result, they revealed their frequent consumption of Korean popular culture on their digital media devices functioned as a Korean cultural facilitator that is influential in their ethnic identity formation in one sense and in turn contributed to their senses of Korean identity in another.

Thinking Black: a Historical Analysis of the Impact of Black Racial Identity on the Discourse of Media Practitioners’ Coverage of Social Justice and Political News • Gheni Platenburg, University of Montevallo • Using a triangulation approach, this study explores this possibility by examining the impact of race on black, cable news practitioners’ discourse and looking for framing patterns in the discourse of these practitioners on the 2015 Baltimore protests, Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address and the Bill Cosby sexual assault scandal. This possibility is also vetted by examining whether these media practitioners embrace a black racial identity.

Caste Culture as Caste Power: Lifestyle Media and the Culturalization of Caste in India’s News Ecology • Pallavi Rao, Indiana University Bloomington • This paper examines how Indian lifestyle media perform an important role in reproducing the socio-politcal relations of caste through the benign language of taste cultures. I argue that mediated constructions of “Indian culture” that proliferate in soft journalism give life to essentialist notions of “caste as culture.” Lifestyle media therefore result in “the culturalization of caste,” through a heterophilia or love for the Other, without disturbing processes that make the Self or the Other.

Whose Vision Is It? Lessons of European Integration from Advocacy for the Roma in Romania • Adina Schneeweis, Communication and Journalism • Learning from the people doing activism, this article examines intervention for the Roma – Europe’s largest, most impoverished, and most excluded minority – through discourses of development, advocacy communication, and the international funding system. The study evaluates ideological commitments underpinning transnational development through in-depth interviews with Romanian activists (as an example of advocacy in the European Union today). A discourse of development marked by opportunism and bureaucracy emerges, different than a grassroots vision of integrated change.

#WhiteWednesdays, Femonationalism, and Authenticity A Twitter Discourse Analysis on the role of Hijab in Feminist Activism • Sara Shaban • In 2017, women in Iran launched a movement against the country’s compulsory hijab law, #WhiteWednesdays. Western right-wing conservatives capitalized on this movement to geopolitically isolate Iran by simultaneously praising women in Iran and criticizing western liberal feminists on Twitter. This study employs critical discourse analysis to examine the Twitter narratives around the role of hijab within feminist activism. Practical implications include the power of femonationalism to circulate specific political ideologies regarding feminism and geopolitics.

Hegemonic Masculinity in the 2016 Presidential Campaign: How Breitbart Framed Trump as the “Uber” Male • John Soloski, U of Georgia; Ryan Kor-Sins, U of Utah • During the 2016 presidential campaign, Breitbart News, a far-right, online publication, emerged as the most popular source of news for conservatives, eclipsing other mainstream news outlets like Fox News. Breitbart was one of Donald Trump’s primary allies in the media, and its former Executive Chairman, Steve Bannon, went on to become Trump’s Chief Strategist. The meteoric rise in popularity of this ideologically-centric news source shed light on the shifting character of the American media landscape. In this paper, we argue that this shift can best be conceptualized using the theory of hegemonic masculinity to trace how Breitbart framed Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 election season. This paper uses critical framing analysis to analyze 62 Breitbart articles to understand how the themes of hegemonic masculinity are woven into Breitbart’s election coverage. Ultimately, we argue that Breitbart’s framing represents an alt-right brand of hegemonic masculinity and identify three main frames in the articles: Trump as a “manly man,” Trump as a “regular guy,” and Trump as an “underdog.”

The Carnivalesque in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election • Bob Trumpbour, Dr.; Shaheed Mohammed, Penn State Altoona • In the 2016 general election for the presidency of the United States, the world saw the emergence of a non-politician celebrity, Donald Trump, as a key figure who, in political rhetoric and actions, frequently challenged existing power structures and figures. That candidate’s eventual electoral win combined with reports of violence at campaign rallies and elements such as calls for removal of those in power, the ridicule of opponents, the use of invectives and name-calling, all suggest parallels to Bakhtin’s elucidation of the carnival and the carnivalesque. The authors examine media coverage of the 2016 campaign using quantitative methods to uncover specific, tangible evidence for carnivalesque references in coverage of the Trump campaign, followed by qualitative analysis of the findings. Evidence demonstrated that references to the carnivalesque were significantly higher in number than in media coverage during the same time frame for the democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. The far-reaching implications of presidential campaigns which are steeped in carnivalesque rhetoric and actions are discussed, with concerns raised regarding the future of media institutions and participatory democracy.

2019 Abstracts

Open Call Competition
Social Networking for Interpersonal Life: Facebook Use and the Forms of Competence • Brandon Bouchillon • This study considered associations between Facebook use, computer-mediated communication competence, and interpersonal competence over time. Results indicate CMC competence contributed to interpersonal competence, and interpersonal competence related to CMC competence. Facebook use related to CMC competence as well, but not to interpersonal competence, at least not directly. Facebook use did contribute to interpersonal competence indirectly, through increasing CMC competence over time. Social networking can facilitate real-world interactional capability by first adding to its online counterpart.

Beyond the What to the Who: Advancing Archetype Theory to Improve Branded Communication • Katie Wiliams; Karissa Skerda; Jared Brickman, Carnegie Dartlet • Archetypal theories have been long studied to better define human personality. Concurrently, brands looking to separate from their peers have attempted communication strategies that take advantage of emotional storytelling through the voice of a personified protagonist. However, bringing consensus around this vision is difficult in organizations with varied stakeholders. This paper extends archetypal theory in communication specific to organizations while also proposing a method for consensus-driven research to uncover the “who” of higher education institutions.

Mediation analysis in communication science: Examining the study of indirect effects in communication journals between 1996-2017 • Michael Chan; Panfeng Hu; Macau K. F. Mak, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • Mediation analysis is one of the most popular techniques in communication research. However, a systematic synthesis of the trends, tools and statistical methods used to conduct mediation analysis in the field is lacking. This content analysis examined 595 journal articles published in 14 communication journals from 1996 to 2017. Results showed an exponential increase in the number of studies employing mediation analyses in the past two decades using both regression and SEM-based approaches. The proportion of studies using regression-based approaches in particular has grown rapidly in the second decade, due to the popularity of user-friendly macros that simplifies necessary procedures to test indirect effects. Bootstrapping has become the most popular method for testing indirect effects while uses of the Baron & Kenny and Sobel approaches have declined over time. Many studies though claim mediating mechanisms without formally testing the indirect effects, and others report the indirect effects, but not how they were tested. Findings and implications for practice are discussed.

Climate frame dynamics over time: Computer-assisted detection and identification of news frames • Yingying Chen, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University; Kjerstin Thorson; John Andrew Lavaccare • We analyze the evolution of news frames about climate change over the course of four years, between 2012-2015. We use a structural topic model combined with human coding to detect frames in news coverage of twelve climate-related events between 2012-2015. Findings suggest that frame usage strongly varies by event, and that some events seem to constrain the diversity of news media framings. Journalists also consistently rely on a small set of “default” frames about climate.

That’s not news: Audience perceptions of ‘news-ness’ and why it matters • Stephanie Edgerly; Emily Vraga • How do people identify news on social media sites? This study uses an experimental design to isolate two features of a headline shared on Twitter to determine the impact on audience ratings of ‘news-ness.’ We find that headline story type (breaking, exclusive, opinion, fact check) and source (AP, MSNBC, Fox News) separately impact news-ness, with partisanship conditioning the influence of source on news-ness. News-ness then mediates these effects on outcomes of tweet credibility and verification.

What makes gun violence a prominent issue? A computational analysis of compelling arguments and partisanship • Lei Guo, Boston University; Kate Mays; Yiyan Zhang, Boston University; Margrit Betke; Derry Wijaya • Drawing upon theories of compelling arguments and selective exposure, this study examines the impact of mainstream and partisan media on U.S. public opinion regarding a highly polarized issue: gun violence. Results demonstrate that episodic framing of gun violence in the mainstream media increases the issue prominence among conservatives than liberals, thus to some extent narrowing the opinion polarization. Exposure to conservative media, however, makes people believe gun violence is a less important issue.

Priming Postpartum Prejudice: Comparing Media Effects and Embodied Risk to Accessibility of Mental Illness Concepts • Lynette Holman, Appalachian State University; Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina • A between-subjects experimental replication (N = 581) was conducted to ascertain whether a media exemplar could prime a stereotype of mental illness among women who are pregnant or of child-bearing age and how that media effect compared to the effect of one’s health status. The findings suggest that the provocation of the exemplars alone was not significant predictor of participant perceptions of risk. Pregnancy prominently predicted mental illness stereotypes, increased risk perceptions, and treatment avoidance.

Foundations for the development of communication that works with, not against, stakeholders’ existing viewpoints • Sadie Hundemer, University of Florida; Martha Monroe, University of Florida • The scientific and social complexity of natural resources issues can yield perspectives that vary substantially among stakeholder groups. This diversity can make it difficult to structure communication that promotes outreach objectives and cross-group collaboration while also attending to existing viewpoints. This study uses cultural domain analysis to examine stakeholders’ mental models of regional water challenges and explore ways natural resources communicators can use this information to bridge cognitive divides.

Mapping the Corporate Social Responsibility Research in Communication: A Network and Bibliometric Analysis • Grace Ji, Virginia Commonwealth University; Weiting Tao, University of Miami; Hyejoon Rim • This study evaluates how scholarly research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in communication has developed over the last four decades and discovers the pattern of knowledge diffusion during this process. Comprehensive bibliometric analyses were conducted with 290 peer-reviewed articles published between 1980 to 2018 by 490 authors in 61 communication journals. Taking a network perspective, invisible colleges of CSR research were unveiled via co-authorship and co-citation analyses. The study identifies the studies and publication sources that have the most significant influence over the construction of CSR scholarship in communication and uncovered the social networks of scholarly collaboration. Results empirically demonstrate the area of CSR research in communication is notably multidisciplinary, which is investigated by scholars from public relations, advertising, organizational communication, and environmental communication. In addition, results also show the joint impact from management and marketing literature to CSR scholarship and their transformation into the communication field via public relations and advertising research. Future paths of CSR research in communication are suggested.

Inferential statistical analysis with Inaccurate self-reports Comparing correlational outcomes with self reported and logged mobile data • Mo Jones-Jang; Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina; Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz; David Moscowitz, School of Journalism and Mass • Research on the social and psychological effects of mobile phone use primarily employs self-report measures. However, recent findings suggest that such data contain a significant amount of measurement errors. The key question of this study is not only to examine discrepancies between survey and logged data, but also to compare correlational outcomes resulting from two different measures. Two hundred ninety seven college students participated in this study by providing both self-reported and digital trace data of daily minutes of screen time and number of phone screen unlocks over seven days. We specifically examined correlations between smartphone use and four social variables, including bridging, bonding, well-being, and problematic use of smartphone. The results indicate that the effect sizes of correlations using self-reported data are in fact smaller compared to inferential statistical results with logged data. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

Classifying Twitter Bots • Michael Kearney, School of Journalism | Informatics Institute | University of Missouri; Lingshu Hu, University of Missouri; Iuliia Alieva, University of Missouri – Columbia • The current study sought to leverage public Twitter lists in order to develop a machine learning classifier of “bot” accounts. In addition to developing a Twitter bot detecting-classifier, we have also exported this classifier in two ways. First, we have exported the classifier as an interactive Shiny web application. Second, we have exported the classifier as an R package, tweetbotornot. As a programatic tool, it is possible to leverage the classifier to get probability estimates of up to 90,000 Twitter accounts every fifteen minutes. Through our work to develop and share list-leveraging Twitter bot classifier tools, we threfore offer three major contributions. First, we provide a novel and flexible approach to the classification of Twitter accounts. While accounts were initially labelled using well-known “bot” accounts and lists published in previous research, additional labelling was achieved via a new snowballing method wherein additional accounts were identified if they appeared on similar Twitter lists. Second, we provide a transparent, user friendly (Shiny web application), and scalable tools (R packages) for classifying Twitter accounts. These tools can be used by members of the public and academics alike. Finally, we provide a template for a flexible and dynamic approach to the construction of Twitter classifiers. Twitter lists can similarly be leveraged for other types of accounts, allowing researchers to further maximize information gleaned from the large trove of Twitter data.

Culling on Social Media: Antecedents and Consequences of Unfriending and Unsubscribing • Dam Hee Kim; Kate Kenski; Mo Jones-Jang • This paper investigates whether selective avoidance actions on social media such as unfriending and unsubscribing in the context of elections are determined by motivated reasoning styles. Analyses of a two-wave national survey collected before and after the 2018 midterm election revealed that individuals with a high need for cognition and a high need to evaluate were most likely to selectively avoid over time, which then positively predicted political expression on social media.

Framing Effects of Numerical Information in Communicating Risk • ByungGu Lee; Jiawei Liu, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Hyesun Choung; Douglas McLeod • In messages that present information about risk, the same piece of information can be presented in alternative ways. This article investigates the interplay between risk statements (i.e., positive versus negative portrayal of risks) and number formats (i.e., raw frequency versus percentage) in influencing readers’ comprehension of numerical information and their subsequent emotional and cognitive evaluations. Experimental findings across two issue contexts (impaired driving and endangered species) showed that statistics in the form of percentages reduced the effects of positive versus negative risk statements and produced more accurate and reliable comprehension of risks as compared to statistics with raw frequency formats. Moreover, the comprehension of risk statistics determined the level of emotions readers experienced, which in turn affected their risk perceptions. Implications are discussed.

Highlights of Two U.S. Presidential Debates: Identifying Candidate Insults that Go Viral • Josephine Lukito, UW Madison; Prathusha Sarma, UW Madison; Jordan Foley, UW Madison; Jon Pevehouse, UW Madison; Aman Abhishek; Dhavan Shah, UW Madison; Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Chris Wells, Boston University • This study analyzes social media discourse and debate rhetoric during two U.S. Presidential debates: the first 2012 debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and the first 2016 debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Using a combined strategy involving time series analysis to identify potential viral moments in social media and natural language processing to determine whether words shifted in use in the pre-viral and post-viral moment, we find and examine several viral moments in both debates. Notably, the majority of 2016 debate viral moments were insults or remarks about a scandal, rather than gaffs or mistakes. Overall, the results of both 2012 and 2016 suggest that candidates can induce viral moments on social media to temporarily increase attention towards themselves.

Processing News on Social Media. The Political Incidental News Exposure Model (PINE) • Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna; Andreas Nanz, U of Vienna; Raffael Heiss, Management Center Innsbruck; Marlis Stubenvoll • This paper outlines the Political Incidental News Exposure Model (PINE). The PINE model understands incidental news exposure (IE) as a dynamic process by distinguishing two levels of IE: the passive scanning of incidentally encountered political information (first level) and the intentional processing of incidentally encountered content (second level). The PINE model further differentiates intention-based and topic-based IE, and it conceptualizes IE with respect to political and non-political content. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

Agenda Setting by News and by the Audience in a News Portal Experiment • Martina Santia; Raymond Pingree, Louisiana State University; Kirill Bryanov, Louisiana State University; Brian Watson • A 12-day experiment embedded in a purpose-built online news portal tested effects of the news agenda and the “user agenda.” Participants were randomly assigned to encounter more or fewer real, timely news stories on particular topics (the news agenda) and altered rankings of stories in a recommended or trending sidebar (the user agenda). News agenda setting effects were found only on education. A user agenda emphasizing racism increased perceived importance of immigration, particularly among Republicans.

Why Defining Automation in Journalism is not Automatic • Jia Yao Lim, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Ruoming Zheng, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Andrew Prahl, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Shangyuan Wu, Nanyang Technological University Singapore • This paper examined the ways automation has been defined in manufacturing, education, healthcare, and journalism, arguing that the journalism industry can learn from the experience of other industries when it comes to understanding the impact of automation. In the context of journalism, most definitions include references to an autonomous system that entails the replacement of humans, consistent with fears that algorithms might displace human journalists when it comes to writing stories. However, many of these definitions have focused on automated writing, when journalism is more than just writing articles.

Personality factors differentiating selective exposure, selective avoidance and the belief in the importance of silencing others: Further evidence for discriminant validity • Yariv Tsfati, University of Haifa • Recent research proposed self-report measures tapping three different strategies used by people to place themselves within an ideologically homogeneous information environment: selective exposure, selective avoidance and the belief in the importance of silencing others (BISO). However, demonstrating that people are able to answer survey questions about these strategies falls short of establishing that people are able to distinguish between them. Using online survey data collected in Israel (n = 749), the present investigation explores the discriminant validity of these constructs. Confirmatory factor models and model comparisons support their empirical differentiation. In addition, it is argued that the constructs are empirically different given the fact that they correlate differently with personality factors. BISO is more strongly and positively associated with authoritarianism. Selective avoidance is more strongly negatively associated with openness to experience. Selective exposure was positively associated with empathy, with which selective avoidance was negatively associated. Further differences in the correlates of these constructs are discussed.

Theorizing News Literacy: A Proposed Framework for Unifying a Fractured Field • Emily Vraga; Melissa Tully; Adam Maksl, Indiana University Southeast; Stephanie Craft, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; Seth Ashley, Boise State University • News literacy research has received increased attention as we consider the role of news in a chaotic public sphere. However, existing research lacks a consistent definition of news literacy or guiding theoretical framework. Therefore, building from the Theory of Planned Behavior, we propose a model for exploring critical news consumption in which we add news literacy – defined as knowledge and skills in five domains – to the model. We conclude by proposing a continued research agenda.

News About Victims’ Delayed Sexual Harassment Accusations and Effects on Victim Blaming: A Mediation Model • Christian von Sikorski; Melanie Saumer • We lack research on how news about delayed sexual harassment accusations affect victim blaming. Drawing from construal level theory and attribution theory, we experimentally tested how participants react to news about a victim’s delayed accusations (harassment occurred years ago), non-delayed accusations (harassment occurred days ago), or accusations with no time cue. Findings showed that delayed accusations resulted in the attribution of negative motives toward the victim. Negative motives, in turn, increased victim blaming.

Testing the Role of Positive News in the Empathy-Helping Relationship • Masahiro Yamamoto, University at Albany; Chun Yang, Louisiana State University • This study integrates two types of news consumption, positive and crime news, into the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis. Data from an online survey of Japanese citizens reveal that positive news use at Time 1 has a positive effect on helping at Time 2. Data also indicate that positive news use does not have a significant effect on empathic concern and personal distress. Rather, empathic concern at Time 1 has a positive effect on both positive news use and crime news use at Time 2. Implications are discussed for the role of positive news in promoting prosocial, helping behaviors.

Exploring Genetic Contributions to Motives for News Use: A Study of Identical and Fraternal Twins • Chance York, Kent State University; Paul Haridakis, Kent State University • Prior research conducted within the Uses and Gratifications theoretical framework has considered the contribution of numerous social and psychological (e.g., personality) differences to media use and effects. In this study, we explore whether an additional fundamental source of individual differences—genes—also may explain motives to use media. Utilizing original data collected on identical and fraternal twins, we find differences in underlying genetic traits explained 35% of the variance in news consumption for surveillance purposes.

Understanding privacy concern in using social media: The extension of Marshall McLuhan • Bu Zhong, Pennsylvania State University; Tao Sun, University of Vermont; Yakun Huang, Jinan University; Yu Zhou, South China University of Technology • The advances of information and communication technologies (ICT) have reinvigorated a long tradition of searching for the links between the dominant communication technology of an age and the key features of society. Guided by Marshall McLuhan’s media ecology theory highlighting the ICT role in defining historical stages, this study analyzes the Internet privacy concern (IPC) among social media users (N = 1,340) from the United States and China. It has found a generation gap concerning IPC between people growing up with social media as a dominate media platform and those who did not. A significant correlation between the power use of social media and IPC was also identified, which was further moderated by respondents’ cultural background. The findings expand media ecology theory by providing empirical support to it in terms of the impact of dominant ICT on societal perceptions, thus contributing to the understanding of IPC in a cross-cultural setting.

Student Paper Competition
Realtime Distributed Cognition: A Conceptual Framework • Wes Hartley, Regent University • While the broad framework of distributed cognition has proven to be a versatile theoretical lens through which to view team problem-solving structures, this broad use of distributed cognition theory has, perhaps, allowed the theory to drift away from some of the root ideas that grounded the original concept. This paper seeks to advance the distributed cognition framework by narrowing the parameters of the theory and providing a new conceptual framework with clear boundaries for identifying distributed cognition units. Two real-world scenarios will be evaluated using this new conceptual framework in order to demonstrate its functionality.

An Approach for Measuring Partisan Segregation in Political Media Consumption • Jacob Long • Despite the amount of research on the topic, there are few direct measurements of partisan segregation in media use. Of those that do exist, none are easily transferable to multi-party systems. Using a network analytic approach, I use data from a nationally representative survey of the United States to describe the amount of partisan segregation in media consumption and discuss further applications for these measures.

Improving the Generalizability of Inferences in Quantitative Communication Research • Jacob Long • This paper discusses the quality of quantitative communication research in light of the so-called “replicability crisis” that has affected neighboring disciplines. I discuss some of the problems these fields have faced and suggest implementing some of their solutions in communication research. I then argue for greater consideration of generalizability and propose a theoretical framework for assessing the quality of studies suited to a variable field like communication.

A Territorial Dispute or An Agenda Battle? A Cross-National Examination of the Network and Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects between Newspapers and Twitter on Diaoyu Islands Dispute • Yan Su, The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University; Jun Hu, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California • Within the theoretical frameworks of Network Agenda-Setting (NAS) model and intermedia agenda-setting, this study analyzed the media agendas in China, Japan, and the U.S. on the Diaoyu Islands dispute – a geopolitical issue involved multiple subjects, in terms of the theme, directionality, and valence of present relationships. Further, the study analyzed the discussions on Twitter and probed the intermedia power flow between Twitter and the selected media. The findings showed that the Chinese media’s depictions were more biased. Although reciprocities emerged, Twitter exhibited an overall stronger power in predicting traditional media’s agenda. Moreover, Chinese and the U.S. media had stronger transnational intermedia effects, whereas Japanese media is less likely to exert influence across the national boundaries.

< 2019 Abstracts

Faculty Paper Competition
Examining the Role of Individual Differences & Motivation in Predicting Social TV Viewing Behaviors among Young Adults in the U.S. • Alexandra Merceron; David Atkin • Social TV is the modern media multitasking behavior in which audiences engage in simultaneous social media use while watching linear or streaming television. An online survey (N = 276) tested uses and gratifications and social cognitive theory as a framework for examining motivations closely associated with television consumption and social media use. Results suggest that Personal Innovativeness, Internet Self-Efficacy and the Need for Control over media positively influence the likelihood of using Social TV.

Is video news better in virtual reality? An experimental examination of news processing outcomes between 2D and 360-degree formats on mobile platforms • Aaron Atkins, Graduate Student Interest Group; JAtin Srivastava, Ohio University; Eric Williams; John Bowditch; Benjamin Carpenter; Daniel Ryan • Considering 360-degree videos as a part of the news media fundamentally influences the way we think about the building blocks of journalistic practice, such as defining a story or defining the role of the journalist as a content creator. It also raises concerns about the audience’s ability to process the content effectively, which is vital to developing a critical understanding of that content. Unlike entertainment-based contexts, processing in 360-degree news environments involve assessment of the quality of the information and the source, among others, to make decisions about validity of the information being presented; immersive environments may hamper this evaluative process, which involves counter-argumentation and a deeper level of scrutiny. To address this, an experimental study was conducted to compare the nature of information processing between two-dimensional (2D) video news delivered through a mobile handset, 360-degree video news delivered through a mobile handset, and 360-degree video news delivered via head-mounted display. Findings indicated that across modes of delivery, 360-degree video news elicited a stronger experience of presence from its audience than the 2D format, which was expected. However, the 2D video format was associated with deeper processing of the messages than the 360-degree news. Implications of these findings for future research as well as professional journalism practice are discussed.

Countering Othering Through Digital Technology: How Online Semi-Structured Micro-Interventions across Difference Influence Belonging and Curiosity • Gina Baleria • This exploratory qualitative study sought to discover how a single, relational intervention in a digital space focused on civil, respectful conversation across difference might increase marginalized college students’ sense of belonging and privileged students’ level of curiosity. Findings involved how the digital intervention influenced student feelings of belonging, curiosity, and connection in other parts of their lives, including a desire and openness to foster rapport and build relationships where before they may have avoided engagement.

Hashtag Justice: Implications of Social Media Engagement on Social Movement Perceptions • Nadine Barnett Cosby, Iona College • In recent years social media platforms have emerged as integral and operative elements of activism social justice movements. Prior studies have focused primarily on quantifying the use of social media in political and social campaigns. The overall purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the quality and types of engagement that occur on social media platforms related to social justice movements. The study used mixed qualitative methodologies to investigate how the use of social media to communicate and/or engage with protest movements – specifically Black Lives Matter and Take a Knee — impacts awareness and perceptions of the movement. The mixed-methods research design incorporated content analysis of approximately 1400 Facebook and Twitter posts that utilized prevalent hashtags for the movements, in-depth interviews with a select sample of 5 participants, and analysis of the social media discourse on the topic among the interview subjects’ social media timelines. Findings indicate that discourse via social media affords movements and activists the opportunity for organization, mobilization and free expression of a movement’s people, purpose and plans. As a result, social media has become a preferred medium giving voice to the marginalized. However, one of the pitfalls of social media used in this way is the potential to effectively drown out or subvert the narrative of a movement by those presenting counter-narratives, which presents a major issue of concern for many activists and movements.

Media Participation When Nothing and Everything Is at Stake: Creative, Consumptive Influences on Political Engagement • Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Jacob Groshek, Boston University; Li Zhang, Boston University • This study builds upon previous inquiries into the media participation hypothesis, originally advanced by Author (2005) and recently buttressed with longitudinal data (Author, 2018). In this analysis, we examine the extent to which previous theorizing based largely on the presidential campaign context holds when considering midterm elections in the United States. A series of hierarchical regression analyses using nationally representative data from 2014 and 2018 were modelled and compared across dimensions of campaign participation, crossover political talk, and political system efficacy. On the whole, support is found for increased use of creative media activity in comparison to more passive consumption of traditional media in positively predicting political engagement. One instance where this did not hold, however, was in augmenting political system efficacy. Findings are discussed in the context of midterm versus presidential elections as well as changes in the perceived consequence of the highly disparate midterm elections of 2014 and 2018. This study thereby introduces additional nuance to the media participation hypothesis while contextualizing the evolving nature of the uses made of increasingly interactive and participatory media.

Virtual Diffusion: Psychometric Predictors of Consumer-Level VR Device Adoption and Usage • James Cummings, Boston University; Tiernan Cahill, Boston University; Blake Wertz, Boston University; Qiankun Zhong, UC Davis • In recent years virtual reality (VR) technology has been mainstreamed for everyday media audiences, with various consumer-facing devices released by media firms such as Facebook, Google, Samsung, and HTC. In order to better understand who is most likely to adopt mainstream commercial VR technology for personal use, the current study seeks to produce a psychographic profile of VR users. The present research investigates the role of various psychological factors in predicting VR adoption rates and patterns of sustained use over time, examining psychographics relevant to the unique immersive affordances of the technology (e.g., immersion, mental absorption, sensory richness, and escape from external reality), as well as trait levels of individual innovativeness and user demographics. Separate analyses were conducted for fixed versus mobile VR platforms, in light of distinct technological affordances. In general, models accounting for psychometric factors – specifically, individual differences in immersive tendencies, openness to absorption, sensation-seeking, need for cognition, and social well-being – offered additional predictive insight into VR technology adoption, initial usage, and change in usage over time. The findings yielded here not only expand upon the limited work previously investigating theoretically-relevant individual differences predicting VR adoption, but also mark the promise of psychometrics for understanding the diffusion of consumer-facing VR devices. Areas for future study – including explanation of distinct predictors of adoption versus usage, as well as testing of additional psychological variables of possible relevance – are discussed.

Social Media Engagement Tactics in Community Policing: Potential Privacy and Security Concerns • Alexander Carter, University of Tennessee; Mariea Hoy; Betsy DeSimone, University of Tennessee • Despite law enforcement’s best efforts to use social media as a means of community policing, some engagement tactics may lead citizens to disclose personally identifiable information (PII). Through Salesforce Marketing CloudRadian6 software, researchers coded 100 tweets with the popular #9PMRoutine that tagged @PascoSheriff for participant PII. Implications for law enforcement to protect their communities are discussed as well as opportunities to continue to cultivate their online relationships in a more secure forum.

Technology Power Usage and Health Portal Acceptance among Chinese Cancer Patients and Their Families • Chan Chen; Yujun Nam; Hang Guo • The advancement of mobile technology provided a unique opportunity for health communication research in China. Internet-based healthcare portals allowed users to remotely make appointments, consult with doctors and keep updated on current health news. Results showed that individual difference in technology power usage is associated with intention to adopt health portal to enhance health communication independently and via its prior influence on perceived control of health portal. Implications to healthcare practices are discussed.

Determinants of Technology Acceptance: Two Model-Based Meta-Analytic Reviews • Charles Feng, Shenzhen University; Xianglin Su, Shenzhen University; Zhiliang Lin, Jinan University; Yiru He, Shenzhen University; Nan Luo, Shenzhen University; Yuting Zhang, Jinan University • The technology acceptance model (TAM) and its variants and extensions are the most popular theoretical framework in examining the adoption of technologies. Two model-based meta-analytical approaches, i.e., the meta-meta-analysis and the conventional meta-analysis, were used to pool the correlations and to test the path relationships among the variables of the TAM. It was found that the extended TAM which we term the TAM Plus, prevails in the model fit testing and that the results of the pooled correlations and path coefficients estimated using the meta-meta-analysis and meta-analysis were generally consistent.

The effects of internet use, bystander experiences, and moral disengagement on children’s online privacy violation. • Yi-Hsing Han, Fu Jen Catholic University; Shih-Hsien Hsu, National Taiwan University • Based on national survey data, this study proposes new advances by examining the relationship among problematic internet use, online observation of cyberbullying, moral disengagement, and online privacy invasion among three age groups. Results show that the social cognitive development of self-efficacy, use of euphemistic labeling, and moral disengagement vary between children and adolescents. Children’s age, problematic internet use, and bystander experiences all predict their moral disengagement, causing their sharing and liking others’ privacy violation incidents.

Mobile Users and Power Users: Digital newspaper readers’ device preference, familiarity with technology, and engagement • Jackie Incollingo, Rider University • Mixed-methods research examines uses and gratifications sought by a newspaper’s mobile users, and correlations with technological familiarity and engagement. Survey results (n=1,252) demonstrate mobile-first participants had statistically significant higher levels of engagement. Participants most at ease with technology preferred mobile devices, and reported higher engagement. In semistructured interviews (n=25), convenience and affinity for mobile devices was salient. Correlations between mobile news preference and ease with technology suggest a process gratification derived from using mobile devices.

Interdependent Self-Construal and System-Generated Cues: Causal Attribution in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Campaigns • Jinho Joo; Yoon-Joo Lee, Washington State University; Hye Jin Yoon, Southern Methodist University • This article examined the interactions between interdependent self-construal and system-generated cues in evaluating casual attribution in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. Under a high number of Twitter followers on a CSR campaign page, individuals with a high level of interdependent self-construal tend to perceive a CSR campaign more genuine and therefore have higher purchase intentions. However, under a low number of Twitter followers, the conditional indirect effect was not found.

Walk Me Through my Social World: The Uses and Gratifications of News Values on Social Media • Jack Karlis, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire • This study examined the uses and gratifications of news values on social media by 18-29 year-olds, the largest demographic of social media users through an electronic survey (N=613). Using Bednarek’s (2016) news values on social media and Sundar and Limperos’ (2013) gratifications of social media, a new gratification, Aided Exploration, and it was also found to be a predictor of news value consumption on social media.

Cognitive and Affective Processing of Interactive Infographics on the web • Narae Kim; Adam Pitluk; Glenn Leshner, University of Oklahoma • Effects of interactive infographics along with multiple modalities on online websites users’ cognitive and affective information processing outcomes were tested. A 2 (low/high interactive infographics) × 2 (low/high modalities) between-subjects factorial experiment was conducted in an online setting. Significant main effects and interaction effects were found on participants’ information comprehension, recall, recognition, and disorientation. Such outcomes were addressed in the context of theoretical frameworks guided this study. Implications and limitations were also discussed.

Facebook Birthday Fundraising as an impression management tool: The mediating role of altruistic motive on prosocial behavior • Hyosun Kim • An online experiment was conducted to understand how Facebook Birthday Fundraising helps enhance donation intent. Results revealed that social distance (proximal vs. distant) with friends does not directly affect willingness to donate to the Facebook Birthday Fundraising; however, the relationship between social distance and donation intent is mediated by altruistic motive and issue involvement. That is, individuals attribute the fundraising to altruistic motives when the fundraising is run by a socially close friend. Perceived altruistic motives then increase issue involvement to positively affect donation intent.

Understanding Public Engagement with #Refugee on Twitter: A Digital Movement of Opinion Framework • Ammina Kothari, Rochester Institute of Technology; Emily Ehmer • This study applies the digital movement of opinion framework to analyze how the Twitter hashtag #refugees was used to foster digital citizen participation. While the peak of the refugee crisis has plateaued, there is still political engagement around the issue of the refugees on social media which in turn shapes public opinion. Using a combination of computational and interpretive methods we examine public tweets in English (n=7,908) posted between October 2016 and March 2019. Results indicate that the digital movement of opinions around the refugees was driven by a combination of private citizens and officials accounts of NGOs which was then amplified by individual users.

How Age-Morphed Images Make Me Feel: The Role of Emotional Responses in Building Support for the Elderly Among Millennials and Generation Xers • Ah-Ram Lee, University of Florida; Eunice Kim, Ehwa Women’s University; Linda Hon, University of Florida; Yoo Jin Chung • This study explores the potential of age-morphing technology as a communication tool for promoting public engagement in elderly-related issues. Drawing on the perspective-taking theory, this research examines emotional responses as an underlying mechanism. Two experiments (laboratory and online) were executed to test the effects of subjects of images and temporal status manipulated by age-morphing technology on individuals’ attitudes toward the elderly and behavioral intentions to support elderly-related issues on the samples of different generations.

Parents, Peers, And Pot: Adolescents’ Social Media Sharing of Marijuana-Related Content • Jessica Willoughby; Stacey Hust; Jiayu Li; Leticia Couto; Soojung Kang; Shawn Domgaard • Adolescents often post content related to risk behaviors online, but it is unclear what types of content related to marijuana are being posted on social media and what may influence such sharing. We conducted an online survey in Washington state (n=350) to examine adolescents’ social media sharing of marijuana-related content. Peer marijuana use and perceived approval of marijuana were positively associated with the likelihood of posting marijuana-related content, and parental monitoring was negatively associated.

The Interplay of Self-Awareness and Self-Esteem Influencing Selective Exposure to Downward and Upward Social Comparisons on Social Media • Wenbo Li, The Ohio State University; Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick • The study investigates the effects of self-awareness and self-esteem on selective exposure to online blog posts that portrayed upward and downward social comparison targets. A novel self- awareness induction was developed and shown to be effective in inducing private and public self-awareness. State self-esteem, on the other hand, was captured as a moderator. Participants then browsed the blog posts for five minutes. Their selective exposure to upward and downward social comparisons (portrayals of successful vs. unsuccessful others) was unobtrusively recorded. The results show that, for people with low state self-esteem, public self-awareness made them spend more time on upward social comparisons whereas private self-awareness made them spent more time on downward social comparisons. High state self-esteem individuals, on the other hand, preferred upward comparisons in the private self-awareness condition.

Effects of Bandwagon Cues and Automated Journalism on Reading, Commenting and Sharing of Real vs. False Information Online • Maria Molina, The Pennsylvania State University; Jinping Wang, Pennsylvania State University; Thai Le; Carlina DiRusso; S. Shyam Sundar • Do social media users read, comment and share false news more than real news? Does their engagement with news depend on whether the source of the story is a staff writer or a bot, and whether the story is endorsed by many or only a few others in the network? We conducted a 2 (real vs. false news story) x 2 (staff writer vs. bot) x 2 (high vs. low bandwagon) experiment to find out.

Nudge Effect of Fact-Check Alerts: Conditional Moderation Analysis of News Source and Media Skepticism • Elmie Nekmat • This study investigates the effectiveness of fact-check alerts to deter news sharing on social media, moderated by news source, and whether this moderation is conditional upon users’ skepticism of mainstream media. Experiment results (N = 929) revealed significant main and interaction effects from fact-check alerts and news source. The decrease in news sharing was, however, greater for mainstream news when nudged. No moderated moderation was found. Instead, media skepticism amplified nudge effect only for mainstream news.

#BeTheMatch: Assessing How Testimonial Narratives on Reddit Promote the Importance of Donating Bone Marrow • Nicole O’Donnell, Virginia Commonwealth University; Jeanine Guidry, Virginia Commonwealth University • This study explores how testimonials on Reddit encourage bone marrow donation. The integrative model of behavior prediction guided a content analysis of 1,024 Reddit comments about donation. Comments addressed more positive than negative outcome and efficacy beliefs related to donation. Additionally, exposure to testimonials successfully encouraged individuals to sign-up for national and international bone marrow registries. This research reveals how organic conversations on Reddit can positively lead to health information seeking and advocacy behavior adoption.

Effects of Cultural, Social, and Technological Influences on Snapchat Usage: A Cross-Cultural Study Comparing United States, Germany, and South Korea • Haseon Park; Joonghwa Lee, University of North Dakota; Soojung Kim, University of North Dakota • This study addressed unbalanced popularity of Snapchat worldwide and explored cultural, social, and technological influences associated with Snapchat usage by comparing United States, Germany, and Korea. The results from an online survey showed that separateness self-schema, personal-level norms, and perceived usefulness and ease of use had significant positive effects on attitudes toward Snapchat and behavioral intention to use Snapchat. National differences among United States, Germany, and Korea were discussed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Tweeting the Screen: Investigating Types of Second Screeners and Their Social Media Behaviors • Ke Jiang; Ruobing Li; Lance Porter; Rui Wang • This paper extends the previous research on second screening as a hybrid media practice by taking a broad look at second screening activities. Matching survey data on second screening with a year’s worth of Twitter data from survey respondents, we identified four types of second screeners, and found different Twitter behaviors among them. Twitter users who second screen at high levels are more active content producers and users are consequently more influential.

Mobile Phones and a Capability Approach to Those Experiencing Homelessness in Southern California • Nathian Rodriguez, San Diego State University; Peggy Peattie, San Diego State University • The study examines how individuals experiencing homelessness in San Diego County in Southern California use mobile phones in their daily routines to enable their capabilities – a concept of what a good and valued life is for themselves; what individuals are actually able to do and be, rather than what society says individuals should do and be. Employing the capability approach, the study found mobile phones contributed to nine out of the ten capabilities on the Central Human Capabilities List. It also found that capabilities are not mutually exclusive, but rather overlap in particular circumstances.

Social Bots as Threat for Digital Democracy? How News Coverage Can Empower Media Users • Desiree Schmuck, University of Vienna; Christian von Sikorski • We conducted two experimental studies to investigate how exposure to news coverage about social bots influences perceived threats from bots. Across both studies, we found that individuals perceived higher threats for their online political information behavior when the news media report about social bots in election campaigns without conveying literacy about bots. In contrast, when the news media include literacy, these threats were reduced, which could be explained by an increase of perceived behavioral control.

Community Social Media and Civic Life: Exploring Relationships among Social Media, Trust, and Participation in U.S. Local Communities • K. Hazel Kwon, Arizona State University; Chun Shao, Arizona State University; Seungahn Nah • Drawing upon social capital theory and a communication mediation model, this study investigates relationships among community social media use, trust, and civic participation across the US communities. Findings suggest that interpersonal trust is predicted by the uses of community social media. However, organizational and institutional trust played a more important role as mediators between community social media use and participatory behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for civic technology and civic community building are also discussed.

Predicting Parasocial Relationships, Binge Watching and Social Media Engagement from Favorite TV Character Perceived Personality Attributes • Heather Shoenberger, Penn State University; Freya Sukalla; Ryan Tan, Penn State University • Contemporary television viewing exists in stark contrast to the days when people tuned in to their favorite show once a week. People have a plethora of choices in the entertainment content they consume and how they consume it. Television show creators encourage their audiences to interact with the episodes they are watching via social media to capture some of the attention diverted to multiscreen viewing (e.g., watching TV while also on a cell phone, tablet or laptop device). Some entertainment programs are marketed as “binge worthy,” a suggestion that several episodes of the program can be painlessly watched in one sitting. Media executives seek to engage consumers across all mediums or devices; enticing eyeballs from their programs on the television screen, the laptop or on the smartphone. This paper examines whether underlying character attributes may predict parasocial relationships with favorite characters, increased engagement with the program on social media as well as the proclivity of a television show to be binged.

Social media literacy: A hierarchy of competencies • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Jeremy Ong, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Ysa Marie Cayabyab, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Duan Xu, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Han Zheng, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Matthew Chew, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Janelle Ng, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Cui Min Lim, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Lydia Rui Jun Cheng • This study sought to understand the problems that social media users encounter on social media and the competencies they think they need to address these problems. Guided by the social theory of literacy, this study refers to these as literacy events and literacy practices respectively. Through a focus group discussion involving 62 social media users in Singapore, this study finds correspondence between literacy events and practices: technical, privacy-related, social, and informational. Based on the results, which are grounded in social media users’ actual experiences, this study conceptualizes social media literacy as a hierarchy of competencies.

Fewer Ads or More Technology? Advertising Avoidance, Technology Acceptance, and Motivations for Cable Cord-Cutting • Alec Tefertiller, Kansas State University • Cable cord-cutting occurs when users cancel their cable subscriptions to adopt web-streaming as their primary means of watching television. This study sought to better understand the influence of advertising avoidance alongside perceived technological advantages on television users’ cord-cutting intentions. Using a survey (N = 599) analyzed via structural equation modeling, it was determined that advertising avoidance does not influence cord-cutting intentions. However, the perceived technological advantages of streaming are an important predictor of cable cord-cutting.

Digital Inclusion and the Third-level Digital Divide: A Social Cognitive Perspective • Hsin-yi Sandy Tsai • Bridging the digital divides has been an important issue. This study examines factors affecting how Internet users take use of the Internet and develops a theory of digital inclusion by using a mixed-method approach. An online survey and 17 in-depth interviews were conducted by applying social cognitive theory for Internet adoption. The results show that social cognitive factors (expected outcomes, observational learning, enactive learning, and self-efficacy) are important for shortening the third-level digital divide and facilitate digital inclusion.

Social TV and Audience Engagement • Hsin-yi Sandy Tsai; Mina Tsay-Vogel; Hui-Fei Lin, National Chiao Tung University • This study examined how social media engagement relates to the performance of entertainment TV programs. Investigating social TV engagement in the context of a popular reality talent program, The Voice, this case study considers how messages on the Facebook fan page of the program relate to program ratings. Specifically, three seasons (82 episodes) of social TV usage data were collected. Findings revealed a positive relationship between social TV use and TV ratings.

User Experience (UX) Matters: What are the Most Desired Skills in the UX Designer and UX Researcher Job Ads? • Ruoxu Wang; Jin Yang; Louis Asser, University of Memphis • A content analysis study (N = 200) was conducted to examine the most desired skills in UX designer and UX researcher job ads. Results showed the visual interface design skill is the most needed design skill for UX designers. Behavioral mixed and behavioral qualitative are the two most needed research skills for UX researchers. Information Technology & Service and Computer & Network Security are industries that have the highest need in UX designers and researchers.

Regulating Mood and Arousal: The Benefits of Interactivity as Information Control • Taylor Jing Wen, University of South Carolina; Linwan Wu, University of South Carolina; Sela Sar • The present study explores the relationship between mood, arousal, and interactivity. The results demonstrated that when individuals are in positive moods and moderate arousal or negative moods and high arousal, they displayed more positive attitude toward the website and more favorable brand attitude to the high-interactivity website than the low-interactivity website. In contrast, the level of interactivity doesn’t seem matter much for people in positive moods and high arousal or negative moods and moderate arousal.

American and Chinese Subjects’ Explicit and Implicit Perceptions of AI-Generated Content: A Mixed-Methods Approach • Yi Mou; Yuheng Wu; Zhipeng Li; Kun Xu • Prior literature has accumulated mixed findings regarding subjects’ perceptions of content generated by algorithm. To resolve this inconsistency, an online experiment and follow-up content analysis have been conducted to investigate the explicit and implicit perceptions of AI-generated poetry and painting on two samples from the U.S. and China. The American subjects were more critical of the AI- than the human-generated content, both explicitly and implicitly; yet the Chinese subjects represented explicit approval but implicit underappreciation.

Will Location Privacy Concerns Influence Mobile Users’ Communication Privacy Management Strategies? • KENNETH C. C. YANG, The University of Texas at El Paso; Yowei Kang, National Taiwan Ocean University • Mobile services and apps rely heavily on users’ location information to deliver highly-targeted and -personalized contents. An important, but less studied, question is how consumer location privacy concerns may influence their privacy management strategies in the age of pervasive computing. A survey was used to collect data from conveniently recruited 391 participants from the United States. Empirical results from four hierarchical regression models found that mobile users’ location privacy concerns motivate them to employ different communication privacy management strategies to protect their own location information. After taking into consideration users’ previous experience with location-sensitive services/apps and demographics, location privacy concerns continue to be a powerful predictor of privacy management strategies. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Student Paper Competition
Problematic Instagram Use: Are Certain Affordances and Gratifications Responsible for Addictive Behavior? • Cheng Chen, The Pennsylvania State University; Olivia Cohen, Pennsylvania State University; S. Shyam Sundar • This study examined risk factors of problematic Instagram use from a uses and gratifications perspective. Data were collected from 493 Instagram users. Findings showed that 25.1% of the participants had PIU. The level of PIU was positively related to the lurking, broadcasting, and community-building affordances, as well as modality- and interactivity-based gratifications, but it was negatively related to navigability-based gratifications. Additionally, the mediating role of gratifications was examined in the relationship between affordances and PIU.

I am a Doctoral Student: A Content Analysis of Doctoral Students’ Online Self-Disclosure and Support-Seeking on Weibo • Haoyang Chen, Hong Kong Baptist University; Qiushi Jia; Jiawei Du, Hong Kong Baptist University • Various factors are influencing doctoral students’ well-being and their doctoral education experience. This study offers one of the first to examine Chinese doctoral students’ use of Weibo for in-group communication, through a content analysis of 930 anonymous posts in a Weibo super-hashtag page. The results elucidate the emotional states in the posts, nine topics of contents of the posts and the prevalence of supportive communication among doctoral students online.

Alexa, Netflix and Siri: User Perceptions of AI-Driven Technologies • Cheng Chen, The Pennsylvania State University; Carlina DiRusso; Hyun Yang; Ruosi Shao; Michael Krieger; S. Shyam Sundar • With the arrival and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in media platforms, it is important to understand user perceptions of AI-driven technologies. Two focus groups identified five gratifications (i.e., efficiency, outsourcing, being served, information accuracy, and communicating without social pressure), two disappointments (i.e., lack of human warmth and intimacy and fears of malfunctioning), and two expectations (i.e., need for transparency and error-free performance). The findings provide significant implications for uses and gratifications of AI-based media.

Retailers in an Age of E-commerce: How Instagram User-Generated Content Frames the Target In-Store Experience • Teresa Daniel, University of Memphis • While consumers increasingly fill shopping carts online, this study employs a social listening tool to conduct a content analysis of Instagram posts containing the physical Target shopping cart. Findings show that through their user-generated content (UGC), customers frame Target as an experience, one in which adults can act like children and no shopping list is required. Target also encourages these frames through their re-posts of UGC on Instagram, a tool they use for digital communication.

The Relationship Between Influencers’ Self-Presentation Strategies and User Engagement on Instagram • Andrea Gudmundsdottir • This study investigated what self-presentation strategies of influencers affect user engagement. Influencers’ commercial viability is largely dependent on self-branding, where they capitalize on number of followers and user engagements for commercial gains. Thus, self-branding involves appealing to followers through self-presentation. This study employed content analysis of top influencers on Instagram based on three overarching self-presentation strategies: Authentic, real person; opinion leader; and micro-celebrity. The results show that micro-celebrity strategies are the main driver of engagement.

Real-world relationships matter: Attachment theory as a framework for explaining loneliness on social media • Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina • This study employed attachment theory to explore how social media users’ attachment styles influence related psychological outcomes. Unlike other attachment theory studies, this study focused on real-world friends online. Findings show high-anxiety individuals tend to be sensitive to their real-world friends’ feedback on their activity on social media. Feedback sensitivity, in turn, increased loneliness. These findings imply real-world friends may be the key factor to explain psychological outcomes of social media use.

Chinese Automated Journalism: A Comparison Between Prior Expectations and Actual Perceptions • Chenyan Jia, The University of Texas at Austin • Chinese automated journalism started relatively late but developed rapidly due to the large market. This work adopts expectation-confirmation theory. Two experimental studies (Study 1: n = 125; Study 2: n = 308) were conducted to investigate the difference between the prior expectations and actual perceptions of Chinese automated news and human-written news. Participants in study 1 were randomly assigned to read either human-written or automated news. Participants in study 2 were asked to read both human-written and automated news. Results show that readers’ actual perceptions of human-written news do not meet up their expectations while readers’ actual perceptions of automated news are higher than expectations. When participants read both human-written and automated news, actual perceptions of human-written news are significantly higher for readability and expertise. When participants read either human-written or automated news, significant differences only exist for expertise.

The Untapped Potential of Big Data to Assess Organization-Stakeholder Relationship Type on Social Media • Devin Knighton, Purdue University • Big data has the potential to change the way public relations identifies and assesses the quality of its relationship with its stakeholders. Computational approaches, including text mining and semantic network analysis, represent untapped potential for public relations go beyond traditional social media analytics that measures audience reactions to stakeholder relationships. The study explores themes from analyzing more than 80,000 tweets from two major technology conferences – Adobe Creative Max and Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce. The results show map stakeholder-stakeholder communication to relationship type and demonstrate the power of CEO Communication at live events.

Motivations, Interaction, Knowledge, and Participation: An O-S-R-O-R Model of Second Screening’s Political Effects in China • Yiben Liu, University of Alabama; Shuhua Zhou, University of Missouri; Hongzhong Zhang • Second screening refers to a bundle of media practices in which individuals simultaneously use an additional media device while watching TV to further engage with the television content. Applying an O-S-R-O-R model, this study demonstrates a integrated procedure of second screening’s political effects among Chinese citizens — from motivations to second screening practices to mediating activity (online interaction) and psychological post-orientation (political interest), and finally to the cognitive and behavioral outcomes (political knowledge and participation).

Support Seekers on Instagram: Discrepancy between Given and Received Attention and Psychological Well-Being • Lihong Quan, Sungkyunkwan University • This study examines the relationship among the discrepancy between given and received attention on Instagram, support seeking behavior, perceived social support and loneliness. The results of the online survey (N = 300) showed that support seeking behavior increased perceived social support. However, it widened the discrepancy between given and received attention, which further undermined perceived social support. In addition, we found that support seeking behavior on Instagram intensifies loneliness.

Majority or Success: How Other’s Online Behaviors Shape Perceptions of Descriptive Incivility Norms • David Silva • Perceptions of descriptive norms are used to determine appropriate behaviors in online discussions. These norms can be formed by observing the majority’s actions, but online forums also provide additional social information through social endorsements. An experiment compared the effects of majority influence and social endorsements on perceptions of descriptive incivility norms. Findings show the effect of social endorsements on group norms is sometimes stronger than majority influence, but only when viewing a person’s ingroup.

Snap at me! Self-disclosure, Maintenance Expectations, Entrapment and Relationship Satisfaction on Snapchat: Experience Sampling Method • Preeti Srinivasan, University of Connecticut • This study applies the mobile maintenance expectations paradigm to the context of Snapchat, and looks at how self-disclosure, expectations, entrapment impact relationship satisfaction, and whether entrapment and satisfaction change over eight days. N=68 college students completed the study. Results indicate that maintenance behaviors positively predicted relationship satisfaction. Entrapment negatively affected relationship satisfaction, albeit contemporaneously. Entrapment decreased over a period of eight days. Practical implications for Snapchat’s design and theoretical implications for interpersonal relationships are provided.

Conspicuous Donation and Strategic Self-Presentation on Social Media: Prosocial Fitness App as a Double-Edged Sword • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Wanying Zhao, Indiana University Bloomington • We conducted two studies to explore prosocial fitness apps users’ conspicuous donation behaviors on social media, and how networked audiences might respond to those users’ strategic self-presentation. Study 1 examined context collapse among users and found they tended to engage in positive self-presentation on Twitter. Study 2 indicated employing both self-oriented and other-oriented frames in posting donation messages would increase audiences’ self-presentation-related attributions to the message sender, which led to undesirable interpersonal and motivational outcomes.

Predicting Intentions to Use Mobile Fitness Apps: The Integration of TPB and TNSB • Ryna Yeoh; Yujun, Amanda Lin; Alvin Daniel Ho; Kai Feng Ho • This study integrates the theory of planned behaviour and the theory of normative social behaviour to study mobile fitness app use intentions. By comparing users and non-users, this study explores group difference by adoption phases. A sample of 277 university students participated in an online survey. Results highlighted the need to strengthen measurement of social influence in behavioural models, and revealed the effect of perceived behavioural control as the key difference between users and non-users.

Excitation Transfer Effect in Journalism Consumption in Mixed Immersive Environments • Li Zhang, Boston University; Xinyue Liu, Boston University; Di Mu; Bochao Sun; James Cummings, Boston University • With the mainstreaming of virtual reality and 360° video, media consumption will increasingly include engaging highly immersive messages alongside more traditional media formats. That means users will need to potentially switch back and forth between highly immersive and relatively non-immersive media messages. However, little is yet known about how transitioning between drastically different immersion levels may impact the cognitive and emotional processing of those messages. This paper presents the first study to examine the impact of immersion on excitation transfer during such transitions and the corresponding impact on message recall. We find strong support for the existence of excitation transfer of arousal elicited by an initial immersive message (T1 stimulus) to arousal response to subsequent non-immersive media experiences (T2 stimulus). Curiously, we also find that physiological arousal at T2 does not linearly increase with higher levels of message immersion at T1. However, in contrast to recent empirical work, higher subsequent arousal levels were not associated with greater memory of high-priority media content (e.g. messages that are more goal-related). Additionally, the non-specificity of valence in excitation transfer, a key feature of the original theory, was also confirmed. Theoretical implications and future research directions related to the psychological processing of sequences of messages of varied immersion level are then discussed.

< 2019 Abstracts