Open-Source Media Project: Community Attitudes After Five-Year Organizational Evolution • Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State University; Samuel Mwangi, Kansas State University; David Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Queensland University of Technology; Steven Smethers, Kansas State University • This paper examined the community attitudes toward a rural Midwest journalism initiative whose services evolved over the past five years beyond the original mission of citizen-produced news and information. Survey research found substantial support among residents for both the new services and the participatory-journalism mission, suggesting that organizational learning and adaptation that meets the needs of the organization and its customers is mutually beneficial and may offer a model for other community media organizations.

Citizen Journalism Scholarship Revisited: A Meta-Analytic Approach • Young Eun Moon, University of Oregon; Meredith Morgoch, University of Oregon; Seungahn Nah • This paper examines how the scholarship of citizen journalism has evolved over the last 15 years. Despite the prolific literature, few studies have taken a systematic approach to examine theories, conceptual definitions, and outcomes. Most of studies are limited to asking for journalists’ reactions, and value of citizen journalists focusing on specific cases. The present study calls for the necessity of a more theoretically solid and methodologically rigorous research beyond specific case studies.

Citizen Engagement with Live Blogs: Passive Consumption Rather than Participation • Mirjana Pantic, Pace University • This study investigated citizen participation in live blogs in the changing media ecosystem from the public sphere perspective. The live blog is an online, participatory-oriented journalistic genre, comprised of brief updates of an event in motion, designed to deliver real-time information from multiple sources about breaking news and scheduled events (Thurman & Newman, 2014; Thurman & Walters, 2013). To examine participation in this contemporary news format, the current, exploratory study, collected survey responses from 339 volunteers and found that participation was not a motivating factor for readers to engage in live blogging on a deeper level. Other study findings pertaining to participation were also pessimistic, showing that the majority of participants were not personally interested in participating in live blogging. This implies that the capacity of online platforms to accommodate participation does not necessarily translate into citizens’ willingness to participate.

“I Love Weather More Than Anybody”: A Digital Ethnography of The Weather Channel’s Online Fan Community • Jeremy Shermak, University of Texas at Austin; Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin • We Love Weather is the fan community of The Weather Channel. Launched in 2016, We Love Weather aims to serve so-called “weather geeks” by providing exclusive and specialized weather content, as well as participatory and communal elements. This study proposes that We Love Weather is an “affinity space” where participants create, procure and develop content and knowledge. It exemplifies the power and capability of a high-functioning, efficient online information hub.

Can journalists make a difference? How journalists’ involvement in comment sections affects perceived journalistic quality • Nina Springer, LMU Munich; Ina Innermann • This experimental study contributes to our knowledge on the effects of active comment moderation and investigates whether (1) user commentary addressing journalistic quality criteria and (2) journalists’ engagement ‘below the line’ would affect the audience’s quality perceptions. We find that a journalist’s involvement can positively impact recipients’ quality assessments. Further, our findings suggest that newsrooms should engage especially with comments that address journalistic quality since such comments almost always lead to (significantly) lower quality assessments.

To share is to receive: News as social currency on social media • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Alice Huang, NTU Singapore; Andrew Duffy, NTU; Rich Ling; Nuri Kim, NTU Singapore • Guided by the framework of reciprocity on social media, this current study investigated antecedents to news sharing. Using a two-wave panel survey involving 868 respondents who took two surveys about a year apart, this study examined the effect of frequency of receiving news on social media on subsequent news sharing behavior, while controlling for demographics, news sharing motivations, and trust in social media news. The study found that motivation for self-presentation and trust in news shared by one’s social media network positively predicted news sharing on social media. Frequency of receiving news at Time 1 also predicted sharing news subsequently at Time 2. This points to news being valued as a form of social currency.

Co-Constructing Journalistic Knowledge with the Audience: A Case Study of Sustained Reciprocity • ‪Neta Kligler-Vilenchik‏; Ori Tenenboim, University of Texas at Austin • While audience members can engage in news-production processes, ongoing reciprocal relationships between them and a journalist are rare. Using a multi‐method qualitative approach, this study demonstrates such relationships on WhatsApp. It shows that a continuous conversation between a journalist/blogger and audience members in a non-public online space allows a continuous co-construction of journalistic knowledge. We identify this space as a meso-newspace, occurring between the private and public realms, and discuss the implications for journalist-audience relationships.

Engaged Journalism in Rural Communities • Andrea Wenzel; Sam Ford • With a growing interest in audience engagement and membership models in local journalism, engagement has been positioned as the one-stone that may address the two-birds of building trust and financial sustainability. However, little is known about how these practices play out in rural areas. This case study explores the efforts of one rural hyperlocal outlet as it attempts to adapt community traditions as engagement interventions—reimagining “society columns” as community contributors, and “liars tables” as listening circles. Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, it draws from 18 interviews with journalists, participating residents, and community stakeholders to examine how these efforts have and have not affected the local storytelling network and activated existing communication assets.

2018 ABSTRACTS

No Men in Women’s Bathrooms: Encoding/Decoding in Activist Strategic Communication • Erica Ciszek • In November 2015, Houston, Texas voters defeated an anti-discrimination referendum, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which protected people from discrimination on the basis of 15 categories. Both proponents and opponents of the ordinance planned and executed strategic communication efforts, representing an instance where public relations intersects with activism, public opinion, and policy. This article presents Stuart Hall’s (1980) encoding/decoding model as one response that although it may be seen as a relic of cultural studies, it holds theoretical and empirical value in the examination of contemporary message creation and dissemination in public relations practice. Based on the perspectives of 27 proponents of the ordinance, this article analyzes strategic communication failure within the framework of encoding/decoding.

Who “Framed” Ramchandra Siras?: News Discourses of a Controversial Outing Case in India • Khadija Ejaz; Leigh Moscowitz • In 2010, a professor in India was forcibly outed as gay when he was filmed being intimate with another man. Analysis of Indian English-language newspapers revealed that journalists drew upon a law which criminalizes homosexuality and framed sexuality as essentialized with respect to the Indian constitution, consent, location, and morality. At the same time, findings reflected dominant Western notions of sexuality despite what initially appears to be supportive discourses of alternate indigenous sexualities in India.

Audience Perceptions of LGBTQ Television Characters • Aryana Gooley, California State University, Sacramento • Much of the existing research surrounding television audience studies employs an empirical approach; however, there have been minimal efforts to examine television audiences’ perceptions more in-depth to move beyond existing generalizations. With an effort to contribute to the existing vein of literature on the LGBTQ community through qualitative television audience research, the purpose of this study is to examine how television audiences perceive the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) characters on television.

HIV and Anniversary Journalism: Susceptibility and Severity Messaging in News Coverage of World AIDS Day • Josh Grimm; Joseph Schwartz • The purpose of this study was to analyze the frequency of statements about population susceptibility and threat severity of HIV/AIDS. Using a coding scheme derived from the Extended Parallel Process Model, we analyzed 219 articles of World AIDS Day news coverage from 1988 through 2017. Our results show that while susceptibility did change over time, coverage minimized the impact the disease has had on men who have sex with men (MSM).

The Digital Couch: The Therapeutic Potential of a “Gay Hookup App” • Robert Huesca, Trinity U. • The geosocial networking mobile application Grindr has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in the past decade because of its diverse uses and widespread adoption. Yet no study has identified Grindr as a platform whereby HIV positive users have provided support and guidance to people newly diagnosed as HIV positive. Findings from 33 in-depth interviews shed light on this potentially important use of Grindr to contribute to the well-being of people living with HIV.

Media Representation of Transgender Civil Rights Issues: A Quantitative Content Analysis on Media Coverage of the “Bathroom Bill” Controversy • Minjie Li • As the transgender media visibility increases exponentially, new patterns of journalistic reporting and framing of transgender issues immerge in the news media emerge. Taking a quantitative content analysis approach, the present study examines how national mainstream news outlets and LGBTQ news outlet represent a transgender civil right issue, the “bathroom bill” controversy. Theoretically, it focuses on how the news outlets apply power exemplification and issue attribution in their narratives. The content analysis findings suggested that the news media outlets as a whole were significantly more likely to mention societal causes (vs. individual causes) and suggest societal solutions. The mentions of societal consequences, however, did not significantly outnumber the mentions of individual consequences. Compared to the LGBTQ outlets, the mainstream outlets are more likely to mention individual causes, societal consequences, and individual solutions. Moreover, journalists tended to give less persuasive power to cisgender women and transwomen through using indirect quotation.

The rise of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming representation in the media: Impacts on the population • Robyn King, University of Nebraska at Kearney; Richard Mocarski, University of Nebraska at Kearney; Natalie Holt, UNL; William (Sim) Butler, University of Alabama; Debra Hope, University of Nebraska Lincoln; Heather Meyer; Nathan Woodruff, Trans Collaborations • In recent years, the Transgender and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC) population has gained a stronger voice in the media. Although these voices are being heard, there are limits on the type of TGNC representation displayed in media. The current study interviewed 27 TGNC individuals. These interviews exposed how participants view the rise of TGNC media representation. The main themes that emerged were TGNC Awareness and TGNC Identity Discovery and Role-Modeling.

The LGBT activist on social media: Analyzing LGBT activism online in India and Taiwan • PAROMITA PAIN, The University of Texas at Austin; Victoria Chen • Through the lens of framing theory and qualitative interviews, this analysis examines how LGBT activists in India and Taiwan use social media to counter negative portrayals and mobilize audiences for social change. In 2017, same sex marriage was legalized in Taiwan making it the first Asian country to do so. In India, the Right to Privacy controversy shook the country in early 2017.  In-depth qualitative interviews with LGBT activists from various cities in India (30) and Taiwan (30), helped understand how they use SNS (social networking sites) in their activism, the decisions involved in the framing of messages and the advantages and disadvantages of SNS.

“Coming out and going home”: Communication action and regional mobility among the gay supportive families in Taiwan • Hong-Chi Shiau • Despite the historical centrality of western cities as sites of queer cultural settlement, larger global economic and political forces have vociferously shaped, dispersed, and altered dreams of mobility for Taiwanese queers in the age of globalization. Drawn upon five-year ethnographic studies in Taiwan, this study examines how counternarratives were used by families with gay sons to disrupt the dominant homonormative discourse in the Taiwanese society. The nuanced changes in communication action and increasingly common regional migration for the gay youth has made gay youth in Taiwan to “come out and go home quietly.” The transformation has been shaped by multiple economic and social forces at work involving (1) the optimal distance with the biological family, (2) the prospect in the seemingly lucrative “new” and gay-friendly employments and (3) the proper performances of consumption policed and imposed by the gay community in the neoliberal Taiwanese society.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Practice makes perfect? A longitudinal case study of experiential learning among intermediate-level sports journalism students • Experiential learning is “learning in which the learner is directly in touch with the realities being studied. It is contrasted with the learner who only reads about, hears about, talks about, or writes about these realities but never comes into contact with them as part of the learning process” (Keeton & Take, 1978). One of the challenges of experiential learning is how to teach students to create professional-quality content, while encouraging them to think innovatively. In the following longitudinal case study, sports journalism students enrolled in an intermediate-level undergraduate reporting class (N = 198) were surveyed over the course of seven semesters in order to examine how incorporating outside publications into class objectives (e.g., student publication requirements) has shifted overtime, and this shift’s resulting ramifications. Data suggest students who worked with legacy media have had significant decreases in satisfaction with newspaper editors and willingness to recommend legacy media publications to students the following semester. This has led to less collaboration with local media outlets: Fewer students are spread around area news organizations and more students are publishing on the same, online-only platforms. Results suggest the best predictors of publication requirements fulfillment are timely responses from sources, overall satisfaction with the relationship with the editor, and the semester during which the course was taken.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Insecure and Girls: Innovative or the Same? • Tessa Adams, The University of Iowa • This study analyzes the sexualized images and dialogue of black female characters in the show Insecure and white female characters in the show Girls, to find out how the representations differ. Feminist theory and critical race theory are theoretical framework. The literature review consists of information related to patriarchy, race, sexuality, and stereotypes. The methodology is a rhetorical analysis with an ideological criticism focus. Results suggest that hegemonic racist and gendered stereotypes prevail in media.

Enjoying Crime: Examining Disposition Theory in the True Crime Podcast Audience • Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina • This study explores disposition theory within the true crime podcast audience and potential impact on the criminal justice system. Using an online survey (n = 308), this study found that the true crime podcast audience listens for entertainment (92.47%) and enjoyment (84.58%), but they also see the potential for societal impact and they want to be part of the movement. Over 80% of respondents believe the podcasts are already having an impact on the cases covered.

Reddit’s Cops and Cop-Watchers: Context Reclamation in Online Interpretive Communities • Michael Buozis, Temple University • Among the many online message boards hosted by the platform Reddit—known as subReddits—two have emerged as spaces where two very different, often oppositional, communities produce discourses about law enforcement in the United States: r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut, a community critical of police conduct, and r/ProtectAndServe, a community representing police. These subReddits can be understood as online interpretive communities, who use the digital spaces provided by Reddit in order to develop and sustain an interpretive regime consisting of “the sharing, transfer, accumulation, transformation, and cocreation of knowledge” (Faraj, Jarvenpaa, & Majchrzak, 2011, p. 1224). In creating and fostering these communities, members express the importance of context reclamation, or a practice of unraveling the context collapse inherent in broader social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. With this reclaimed context, users of these subReddits engage in three discursive community practices: the creation of community-specific genres out of the raw material of media; making meaning through community rituals and practices; and the translation of that knowledge into community practices.

Stop Watching Me: Examining a Moderated Mediation Model of Privacy Concern and Information Control. • BIN CHEN, Tsinghua University; AN HU • Social media has experienced exponential growth in recent years. They offer attractive means for communication, but also raise privacy concerns. This study investigated the relationship between young adults’ privacy concern and their information control in social media. The result shows the relationship between privacy concern and information control is mediated by information control affordance and this indirect effect is moderated by individual’s extraversion personality. The implication of these findings was also discussed.

Score! How Female Hockey Players Around the World Score More Likes on Instagram • Tanja Eisenschmid • This study examined effective social media strategies for female hockey players from four nations, the U.S., Canada, Germany, and Switzerland, particularly focusing on their Instagram posts. The result from the content analysis of 1,011 Instagram posts showed that posts highlighting hockey careers (e.g., achievement in the athlete’s sport) and athlete endorser’s role (e.g., promotional posts) were more likely to generate higher likes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Ad-Brand Schema Incongruity Effects on Engagement with Facebook Posts • Drake Glatter • This study takes schema theory and schema incongruity and applies it to modern advertising on Facebook. Ad-brand schema incongruity’s effects are measured with a psychological social media engagement scale. This study finds success in applying this theory for the first time to social media and identifying three distinct levels of incongruity, proving schema theory can be applied to modern social media advertising efforts.

No Country for Selfies: Privacy Concerns on Facebook and Instagram • Daniel Haun, University of South Carolina • Members of social networking services reveal a great deal of personal information, and are not very aware of their privacy options (Acquisti and Gross, 2006). To further explore the privacy, authorship, and safety and security concerns presented by social networking sites (SNS), a textual analysis was conducted of six user agreements of social networking site Instagram and its parent company Facebook. Three themes emerged from Instagram and Facebook’s Terms of Use and Service: privacy concerns, questions of user generated content authorship, as well as safety and security concerns.

TMZ and Mass Media: A Love/Hate Relationship • Angelica Kalika, CU Boulder • Tabloid media can have a contentious relationship with mass media. TMZ in particular is now making headlines for its breaking news stories. When the popular celebrity news site breaks journalism norms, newspapers and other sites can jump on the chance to repair journalism’s image. The paper will analyze this form of paradigm repair to see how TMZ violated normative practices and use attribution theory to see why a paradigm was broken in the first place. A textual analysis demonstrates the media’s response to TMZ stories that break professional boundaries (Reinforcing the Broken Paradigm, Breaking News Paradigm, and Disrupter status).

Media Representation of Female Candidates in Ugandan Parliamentary Elections: A Content Analysis of three Newspapers • Juma Kasadha, City University of Hong Kong; Rehema Kantono, Islamic University in Uganda • A total of N=1704 newspaper articles were content analyzed from studied newspapers; the New Vision (State owned) and privately owned Daily Monitor and Red Pepper. Results show that newspapers represented more of male candidates in all analyzed topical issues compared to female candidates. All studied newspapers scored less than a minimum of 3 issues covered as representative of female candidates. Female candidates’ coverage in all newspapers’ on dominant topical issues on average was (2.70 ±3.74). Placement of a news article and page number; were statistically significant in giving male candidates prominence in news compared to female candidates. For Placement of News Article F(1, 1703)=7.909, p <0.005 and Page number F(1,1701)=5.593, p <0.018 statistical significance. Findings also show that State Media set the agenda on how private newspaper considered covering female candidates. This was evidenced in all private newspapers not covering female candidates on issues of foreign affairs and law since state owned newspaper did not cover them. Daily Monitor and New Vision did not cover male candidates on the issue of agriculture and yet gave prominence to agriculture when covering female candidates. This positions female candidates as those suitable for agriculture roles on average (3.00±.) compared to politics on average; Daily Monitor (2.80±.60); New Vision (2.94±.31) and Red Pepper (2.90±.32). Based on findings in this study, there is need for more and equitable representation of female candidates in media by state owned media as one that should set the agenda for private owned media to follow.

Tailoring genetic testing communication for mental health patients’ stability and controllability attributions • Amanda Kastrinos • The integration of genetic testing into the mental healthcare has the potential both alleviate and reinforce mental health stigma. Using the lens of attribution theory, this paper explores how patients’ stability and controllability attributions can predict their emotional response to genetic testing results. Communication strategies are recommended for each emotional response type based on extant literature. The typology presented here is intended to serve as a framework for both future research and mental health providers.

How Motives for Political Information Seeking Online Influence Political Discussion Offline • Sangwon Lee • The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between online political information seeking and offline political discussion. I examined how different motives for seeking political information online influence offline political discussion with heterogeneous others. The results showed that strong partisans with entertainment motivation are more likely to avoid cross-cutting political discussion, while weak partisans with the same motivation are more likely to engage in cross-cutting political discussion.

Love Triangles: Effects of Relationship Status, Reception Partners, and Interpersonal Communication on Romantic Parasocial Interactions • Nicole Liebers, University of Würzburg • Besides many insights into romantic parasocial attachments, the effect of relationship status and reception partner on romantic parasocial interactions (romantic PSIs) remains unclear. This study attempts to close that research gap with new findings on romantic PSIs in cinemas based on a 2×2 quasi-experiment (N = 103). The presence of a romantic partner decreased romantic PSIs, whereas singles had the most intensive romantic PSIs. Interpersonal communication concerning a media character enhanced romantic PSIs.

Using an expanded Theory of Planned Behavior to Predict WeRun Users’ Intention to Engage in Sports in China • Yingying MA • A study was conducted to test an expanded Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in predicting sports intention among WeRun Sport users in mainland China. Two variables (perceived barriers and self-efficacy) were added in the TPB. A purposive sampling design was adopted to WeRun Sport. Altogether 635users were asked to complete a structured questionnaire about sports engagement. Results of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling supported the structural validity of the proposed expanded model. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that selected items of the perceived behavioral control and perceived barriers should be combined to form a new measure of perceived behavioral control. The new measure of perceived behavioral control and self efficacy were found to be more influential than attitude as well as subjective norm in predicting sports behavior . Past behavior and gender were found to be significant moderating variables.

Time Enough at Last: Pornography Viewership Motivations and Obstacles • Farnosh Mazandarani, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • This study explores obstacles, avoidance, and attitudes of pornographic access patterns. A survey through Amazon’s MTurk asked about usage, motivations, attitudes, discrete emotions, and stressors that may influence pornography use and change. The research found a decrease in usage in relation to increased age. Respondents with increased usage reported porn fulfills a need, is entertaining, and healthy. Decrease users reported no longer being interested, found pornography offensive, are bored by the content, and having new life stressors.

Habrá que callar la tragedia del Yasuní : A muted group theory perspective of media coverage of indigenous communities inhabiting the Ecuadorian Amazon • Maria D. Molina, Penn State University • Using a muted group theory framework, this study analyzes media coverage of the indigenous communities of the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. A content and thematic analysis of newspaper articles from 2013-2014 reveal the communities were rarely given voice in coverage. Nevertheless, the coverage of these communities was counter-hegemonic and expressed the importance of understanding the cultural worldviews of indigenous people and developing the Ecuadorian system to encompass the multiculturality of the nation.

Understanding the influence of employee communication behavior: How job board reviews impact millennial perceptions of organizational reputation, relational trust & intent to apply • Katy Robinson; Patrick Thelen; Cen April Yue, University of Florida • Employees are seen as important contributors to an organization’s strategic communication efforts. Using experimental design, this study evaluates the impact of responsive leadership communication and rewards-based culture on corporate reputation, relational trust and overall intent to apply. Results indicate employees’ communication behaviors, specifically employee-generated job board reviews using responsive leadership communication and a rewards-based culture information, have separate effects on organizational reputation and relational trust, but collective effects on overall intent to apply.

Understanding User Behaviors Regarding Smart Speakers: A Multidisciplinary Perspective • CHUN SHAO, Arizona State University • As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies became increasingly common in people’s daily lives, understanding the social and psychological factors behind individual’s usage of AIs remain a central concern of both media and information system’s research and practice. Through a multidisciplinary perspective, this study explored the underlying mechanism behind individuals’ usage of virtual personal assistant (e.g., Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant). The results showed that the usefulness of virtual assistant can be perceived due to not only its functional utility, playfulness and social presence also played important roles in shaping user’s satisfaction and usage intention. Individuals with strong feelings of social presence have more positive perceptions of virtual assistants, and they may treat virtual assistants as social actors rather than as mere machines.

The NCAA and Crisis Communication: Examining Controversial Issues in Collegiate Sports • Matthew Stilwell; Branden Birmingham • The goal of this study is to examine the perception of controversial issues involving the NCAA. Guided by the lens of a crisis communications perspective, this study surveyed sports fans to assess views on how the NCAA is ruling on controversial issues related to college sport, media consumption patterns, and demographic information. Results of the study found fans tend to view the NCAA in a negative light, but also put blame on its member insitutions for these issues.

Risky Business: A Case Study of a Leader’s Framing of News Coverage of Organizational Risk-Taking • Josh Watson, University of Oklahoma • Recently, one of the top energy companies in the world was the target of sustained, national media criticism. After each story, the company and its CEO sought to frame the critical story. Drawing on previous studies of organizational rhetoric, framing, and risk communication, this study proposes a unique model of apologia called social media intertextual responsiveness. The conditions of this model are explicated, as are the boundaries. Implications are offered for scholars and practitioners.

How Employees Perceive Organizational Change? An Investigation into Change Management from an Internal Communication Perspective • Cen April Yue, University of Florida • Organizations are experiencing constant changes in an unstable business environment. Organizational changes pose challenges to management and the success of change initiatives depend on employees’ support. A conceptual model is proposed to illustrate how perceived transparent communication can foster employee openness to change by decreasing change-related uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the change management scholarship from the internal communication’s perspective. Implications on public relations scholarship and practice are discussed.

The Effects of Presence on Responses to Argument Quality in a Virtual Environment • Qiankun Zhong, Boston University; James Cummings • This study examines how presence may influence the cognitive resources available for persuasive message processing. Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, this research aims to connect the key concept of presence with the cognitive mechanisms underlying persuasion though a 2 x 2 mixed factorial experiment. The result indicates that weak messages have a better persuasive effect than strong messages in a low presence level. Weak messages also work better in a low presence level than that in a high presence level.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Textual and contextual analysis of Moana • Nafida Banu; Jocelyn Pedersen, Price College of Business • This study applied a theoretical explanation of “hegemony” to analyze the gender portrayal and outside culture representation in Disney’s animated movie Moana. The findings of the textual analysis suggest that similar to other Disney female characters from outside cultures, Moana also has warrior-like characteristics. Contextual analysis findings suggest that the movie transforms the original Polynesian mythical story into a new version. The transformation of the original story was criticized for “cultural misappropriation.”

When 18 Days of Television Coverage Is Not Enough: A Six-Nation Composite of Motivations for Mobile Media Use in 2018 Winter Olympic Games • Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Natalie Brown-Devlin, University of Texas at Austin; Kenon Brown, The University of Alabama; Michael B. Devlin, Texas State University • A survey of 2,296 people from six nations (Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United States) deciphered uses and gratifications for consuming content on a variety of media platforms during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Results indicate that media diets significantly differed by platform and device, all 16 uses and gratifications were significantly different by nation, and that that the two inverse predictors of Olympic media consumption relate to the desire to interact (companionship and relationship building), while none of the four direct predictors (entertainment, arousal, competition, and Schwabism) pertained to interpersonal aims. Findings bifurcated by media platform as well; both inverse predictors of smartphone use (passing time and escape) were direct predictors of television use. Implications for uses and gratifications and cross-nation media research are advanced.

Soundtracking Shondaland: Televisual Identity Mapped Through Music • Jennifer Billinson, Christopher Newport University; Michaela Meyer • This paper examines how Shonda Rhimes’ rise to fame is informed by her innovative approach to using popular music for bolstering her show’s identities, framing television narrative, and developing storylines through positioning background music alongside character, plot, and genre development. Throughout Shondaland, musical soundtracks are tantamount to narrative development and audience engagement. More broadly, they establish a key facet of Rhimes’ signature as a showrunner and Shondaland’s style as a production company. To examine the important relationship music plays in constructing the stylistic vision of Rhimes’ work, we examine the soundtracking of three Shondaland shows to reveal the distinct ways music is employed for affect and style. Collectively, Grey’s Anatomy (2005-), Scandal (2012-), and How to Get Away With Murder (HTGAWM) (2014-) span Rhimes’ primetime career and demonstrate her evolution as an auteur. Linking new media developments to Rhimes’ ascendance and popularity in the television industry, this paper unravels her use of music and narrative to create unique identities for her shows, evoke emotion, and make critical statements about contemporary cultural politics.

Recreational video games as a value-supporting activity for cancer survivors • Maria Leonora Comello, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Diane Francis, Louisiana State University; Laurie Hursting; Elizabeth Breaux; Laura Marshall • We examined two underexplored areas: the potential for recreational video gameplay to have positive effects, and the values and experiences of cancer survivors.  In a survey of survivors who reported regular gameplaying, we included an open-ended question asking what they value and the extent to which gameplaying supports the value.  We content-analyzed the responses (N=496) using Schwartz’s value typology.  Eighty-five percent mentioned a value, and among those, 84% said game-playing supported their values.

Exploring Character Development as a Central Mechanism in Viewer Responses to Morally Ambiguous Characters • Serena Daalmans; Mariska Kleemans; Allison Eden; Addy Weijers • The current study explored if character development (as a narrative characteristic) plays a role in the liking, moral evaluation, and enjoyment of narratives featuring morally ambiguous characters [MACs]. Additionally, this study explored the potential role of identification as a moderator. The results of a quasi-experiment provided support for the claim that character development is a central mechanism to explain viewer responses to MACs. As such, the study provides new directions for affective disposition research.

When TV Spin-offs Fail Fans: Narrative Dissonance in AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead • Jennifer Fogel • AMC’s The Walking Dead series has earned critical praise and fan approval, but its spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead, has met a more indifferent response. With the lack of transportation into this burgeoning zombie-riddled world and absence of parasocial relationships with its cadre of characters, Fear the Walking Dead doesn’t breed the same thrilling appreciation as its predecessor and is hindered by the narrative dissonance of its shrewd built-in fan base.

“Mighty” Kacy: Gender Framing within American Ninja Warrior • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Lauren Schwartz, University of South Carolina • While previous studies have demonstrated that sports and primetime television programming have traditionally treated women in a less flattering light compared to men, the show American Ninja Warrior has emerged to challenge that tradition. Using framing as a guide, an examination of episodes from season nine revealed that female and male competitors receive the same personality, performance, and physicality taxonomies when their athletic successes and failures are described by the announcers.

Examining a Prototype versus Exemplar Approach to Understanding Viewer Categorizations of Morally Ambiguous Characters • Serena Daalmans; Benjamin Johnson, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Allison Eden • This study extends understandings of morally ambiguous characters (MACs) by comparing prototypical and exemplar approaches to descriptions of MACs. Participants described characteristics of a prototypical MAC in an essay, then nominated an exemplar of MAC and described this character in an essay. Impressions of and responses to exemplars were rated quantitatively; scores were juxtaposed with open-ended responses coded both deductively and inductively. The mixed-methods results provide a more comprehensive picture of essential characteristics of MACs.

Teens’ Interpretation of the Controversial Show “13 Reasons Why” • Colleen Kappeler, 1975 • “A high school class observation, of students discussing the show, as well as one-on-one interviews with teens between the ages of 12 and 17 showed that those who were watching were not coming away with suicidal thoughts or concerns, as the adults were worried they would. They were interpreting the show as a statement on how we need to have a kinder, more accepting world as they saw bullying as the main theme.

This article qualitatively looks at teens’ reactions to the show and how their interpretation of this particular media matched up with the intentions of the producers and writers. A content analysis of Beyond the Reasons, a show that followed 13 Reasons Why, was done to learn of intent by writers and producers and their work with highly trained professional psychologists.”

Factors Affecting Millennials’ Intentions to Consume Local and Foreign Media in Singapore • Daphne Lee; Ee Jin Liaw; Xing Mun Jolene Lee • This study examines effects of local-global identity and consumer-cultural nationalism on Singaporean millennials’ local and foreign entertainment media use intentions. The theory of planned behavior served as a theoretical foundation explaining media use intentions. Regression analysis of Singaporean millennials (N = 1,020) indicated that local identity and consumer-cultural nationalism positively correlated with local media use intentions. Global identity positively correlated with foreign media use intentions. Findings suggested importance of individual-level variables in determining media preferences.

Videos Games as Mindfulness Training Partners • Travis Loof, University of South Dakota • A 2 (trainer type: artificial intelligence/human) by 2 (trainer helpfulness: helpful/not helpful) study tested if trainer type and prior cooperation increased perceived training effectiveness and intentions to use a mindfulness. Participants played a video game that encouraged the use of mindfulness practices. The participants were trained either by a human or presumed advanced artificial intelligence. This study evaluated if cooperation in a video game task would influence perceptions of training effectiveness and intentions to use mindfulness. The results indicated that trainer type and prior cooperative behavior did not independently increase intentions or increase perceived training effectiveness. However, there were marginally significant differences in the interaction of the two factors.

Chinese Films Abroad:  Balancing Soft Power and Orientalist Stereotypes in the “Big Three” Film Festivals • Bruno Lovric, City University of Hong Kong • “Through the past decade People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been making a progress in the international distribution of Chinese movies and the government has been adapting regulations in an attempt to strengthen the country’s film industry. At the same time, Chinese films have been winning prizes at some of the most prestigious international festivals and gaining broad international recognition. However, critics have argued that politicization is an important factor in film festivals and that film selections may favor controversial productions which are critical of the party. This article examines the contents of some of the internationally most successful Chinese movies and evaluates their soft power potential by identifying common thematic patterns and repeatedly enforced ideas. Results of the thematic analysis suggest that despite the government’s efforts to minimize negative messages abroad, the Orientalist film selections at big international film festivals are likely to enforce negative stereotypes of China. The article further gives practical suggestions in designing future soft power strategies in the PRC and highlights its most salient challenges.

Keywords: soft power, pop culture, Chinese film, orientalism, thematic analysis, self-orientalism, qualitative research, stereotypes, film tropes”

“But, he’s so serious”:  Framing of masculinity among western hemisphere Indigenous Disney animated characters • Tim Luisi, University of Missouri • To date there has been only limited research examining indigenous characters in children’s media. Stereotyping or omission of underrepresented groups contributes to symbolic annihilation of underrepresented groups. Through a qualitative textual design, the researcher explored how western hemisphere Indigenous masculinity was framed in five Disney animated films. Although the characters had several positive traits, the researcher found that previous Indigenous stereotypes were upheld and that the characters had limited character growth across the films.

The Role of Narratives on the Enjoyment and Appreciation of Popular Music • Nikki McClaran, Michigan State University; Joseph Steinhardt, Michigan State University • Narratives have been found to influence enjoyment and appreciation of entertainment media, yet little research has explored narrative’s influence on popular music. Two experiments were conducted to test whether narratives about recording artists influence subsequent enjoyment and appreciation of a song, and what the role affective disposition may play. This exploratory study provides evidence that narratives positively influence enjoyment and appreciation of a song, and that the effect is mediated by affective disposition.

Out in Play: Openly Gay Athletes Navigate Media, Celebrity and Fandom • Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama • Featuring in-depth interviews with collegiate out-athletes in American team sports along with high-profile former professional athletes from the NFL, MLB and NBA, this project builds on the narratives of young out athletes to interrogate how their coming out experiences are shaped, transmitted and received through pervasive, powerful, albeit imperfect commercial media forms. This project critically examines where the young openly gay athlete is situated once they step into the media spotlight, advancing scholarly understandings of youth, sport and celebrity.

The “Ellen” Agenda: How One Entertainer’s Twitter Account  Provides Content and Sources for Mainstream News • Jane O’Boyle, Elon University; Alex Luchsinger, Elon University • This qualitative content analysis examines news produced from Ellen DeGeneres’Twitter feed. Results show that, in 2016, network TV news shows at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox aired 251 excerpts from DeGeneres’ Twitter stories, and Ellen’s posts were featured 1,291 times on local TV news and their websites, regardless of whether they carried her syndicated talk show, and in 298 print newspapers, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  Implications are discussed.

College Women’s Alcohol Refusal Beliefs and Perceptions of Refusal Scripts in Popular Television • Nicole O’Donnell, Virginia Commonwealth University; Stacey Hust; Stephanie Gibbons; Soojung Kang, Washington State University • This paper explores college women’s outcome evaluations, normative beliefs, and efficacy beliefs associated with alcohol refusal and portrayals of alcohol refusal on popular television shows. Data from four focus groups (N=37) revealed that college women hold competing positive and negative alcohol refusal beliefs. Themes identified suggest that individuals use proactive strategies to facilitate alcohol refusal, such as pre-planning refusal and recognizing and adhering to previously established limits. However, individuals cited direct and indirect social pressure, gender dynamics, and friend-group dynamics as inhibitors of alcohol refusal. Participants expressed that mass media rarely depict alcohol refusal, and current representations portray refusal as negative social behavior. These findings imply that there is an opportunity for mass media to frame alcohol refusal as a healthy behavior, and health practitioners may consider using an entertainment-education approach to reinforce positive alcohol refusal beliefs.

Playing Doctor on TV: Physician Portrayals and Interactions on Medical Drama, Comedy, and Reality Shows • David Painter, Rollins College; Alison Kubala, Rollins College; Sarah Parsloe, Rollins College • This investigation compares physician portrayals, behaviors, and patient-centered communication on a medical drama, comedy, and reality show. Specifically, we analyzed 1,353 scenes from Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, and New York Med, and the results indicate television physician doctors’ demographic characteristics and interactions differed significantly across shows. Since this study is the first to consider a medical comedy and to analyze programs by scene, the results provide important implications for parsing television physician portrayals by genre

What does it mean to be a woman in “indie” game storytelling?  Narrative Framing in Independently-Developed Video Games • Mimi Perreault; Andrea Suarez, Appalachian State University; Gregory Perreault, Appalachian State University • Video games have long held a spotty history in their narratives regarding women. Most research has examined large budget games and identified issues of simplification, oversexualization and a general lack of agency among female characters. The present study looks at the gaming niche of “indie”–or independent game developer–video games in their representations of women, and in particular at Never Alone, Gone Home, and Her Story. This paper argues that these game narratives emphasized multilayered female characterizations, female-to-female interactions, and internal dramas as a way to potentially reach female gamers and present an alternative narrative on women.

Who loves the Biblical Epic? A mixed-method analysis of online community perception of epic Biblical movies • Gregory Perreault, Appalachian State University; Thomas Mueller, Appalachian State University • “In recent years, high profile Biblically-oriented movies have sought to find an audience in America. This approach is reasonable in that 70.6 percent of Americans identify with some denomination of Christianity (America’s Changing, 2015). Yet, how Christianity motivates those Americans, and more specifically, whether it motivates them to watch a Biblical epic movie remains a question.

This research reports on a survey of active participants on religiously-oriented Reddit threads. Prior research has shown that participants in online communities tend to be more enthusiastic and more invested on a given topic than non-participants (Duggan & Smith, 2013). We would like to assess the degree to which different religious groups feel motivated to attend Biblical epics and how religiosity predicts attendance at Biblical epic movies. Survey questions will be largely quantitative but some qualitative questions will be asked in order to provide context for the findings as per Creswell’s (2013) explanatory model.

Such research theoretically contributes to the understanding of the audience for Biblical epics and more broadly contributes to our understanding of the religious motivations for media consumption. More practically, understanding the audience for Biblical epics could help media producers understand the boundaries of their audience and the preferences of their audience.”

Reading between the lines:  A content analysis of vinyl records’ run-out groove etchings • Waleed Rashidi, California State University, Fullerton • The “Easter egg” phenomenon exists in various formats of digital entertainment media, including DVDs, computer applications and video games. However, such “Easter egg” content can also be attributed to analog formats, including vinyl records. This study examines messages etched into run-out grooves of rock music vinyl records. The author argues that music media often provides multi-layered messaging, including album artwork, photography, artist statements and lyrics, and that the run-out groove message is an additional layer of messaging not commonly examined, largely due to difficulty in being noticed. Of the 616 7-inch vinyl records by 1990s independent and alternative rock artists examined, 136 featured custom message etchings. Seven categories emerged, including artist reference, release reference, song reference, label reference, listener reference, and media reference. Messages referenced the artists’ themselves, the record itself, the record’s songs, the label releasing the record, the record’s audience, and other media (e.g., books, television, film). A majority of messages reviewed (52.9%) were unable to be placed into the aforementioned categories, and were instead categorized as unknown references. Ways in which messages were presented, coupled with types of messages etched, echoed characteristics of “Easter eggs.” With recent upticks of analog music media sales, musicians may have opportunities for additional messaging via such etchings, providing a novel, idiosyncratic view of mediated communications that many audiences may not know even exists, and offering additional consideration to how media producers—artists and record companies—deliver messages to their publics.

Learning politics from political films: Exploring the effects of fictional political entertainment • Azmat Rasul, Valdosta State University • This study examined the effects of entertainment narratives on political knowledge gain and attitude change in audiences of fictionalized accounts of female politicians. Data from 310 participants indicated that political knowledge significantly increased and general attitudes about female politicians became more positive after exposure to biographical political movies. A proposed model of the political entertainment effects process indicated that initial political knowledge transported the audience into the biographical narrative. Increased transportation was associated with greater enjoyment, as well as political knowledge gain and more positive attitudes towards female politicians. The study also highlights implications of results and directions for future research.

Binge-watching: Social and Psychological Factors Behind Audience’s Binging Behavior • CHUN SHAO, Arizona State University; Paisley M. Benaza, Arizona State University • Various streaming media platforms and Internet entertainment services have dramatically changed the way audiences consume media content. Interactive media technologies also provide individuals with more control over their media consumption. Although binge-watching is now considered “the new normal”, the underlying motives behind it deserve more scholarly attention. By integrating constructs from various theoretical bases into a single framework, the study introduces a structural model that explained the underlying factors behind audience binge-watching behaviors. The results from an online survey (N = 208) demonstrated that enjoyment, easy accessibility to content, and social recommendation were the most salient factors for audiences to binge-watch. Moreover, the results revealed that perceived control has indirect effects on behavioral intention, mediated by enjoyment and perceived easy accessibility to content. This study provides an empirical overview of why individuals are motivated to binge-watch streaming media content, and explores how demographic variables are related to audiences binge-watching behavior.

In the Dark but Not Alone: The Fear of Missing Out, Social Capital, and Social Gratifications of Moviegoing • Alec Tefertiller, Kansas State University; Lindsey Maxwell, University of Southern Mississippi; David Morris II, University of Oregon • The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of participation in social media networks on cinematic movie attendance decision-making, with particular attention paid to the fear-of-missing-out (FoMO) and social capital. Using a national survey (N = 472), it was determined that the social utility of a movie was a better predictor of movie attendance than FoMO or social capital. However, both bridging social capital and FoMo are predictors of social sharing.

Certified Fresh: Rotten Tomatoes, Gratifications, and Motivations for Cinema Attendance • Alec Tefertiller, Kansas State University; Lindsey Maxwell, University of Southern Mississippi • Critic aggregate scores from the popular website Rotten Tomatoes have been blamed for the success and failure of recent Hollywood blockbusters. Using an online experiment (N = 469) examining four different films released within a two-week period, this study found that the presence of Rotten Tomatoes scores did not influence consumer decisions to see a film during its theatrical release. However, expectations of meaningful experiences and their communication utility best predicted theatrical attendance.

Pervasive Pokémon: Location-Based Augmented Reality Game Enjoyment and  Place Attachment • Shaojung Sharon Wang, National Sun Yat-sen University; Chih-Ting Hsieh • This study explores the complexity of the connection between Pokémon Go play experience and players’ affection towards their physical surroundings from the environmental psychology and the media entertainment perspectives. A stratified sampling method was conducted and a total of 1172 respondents participated to take the online survey. The results showed that simulational realism, freedom of choice, integrated presence, and perceptual pervasiveness all positively influenced game enjoyment. It also found that co-presence positively predicted game enjoyment while perceived crowding was negatively related to game enjoyment. Game involvement partially mediated the relationship between co-presence and game enjoyment and game involvement also mediated the relationship between game enjoyment and place attachment. Theoretical implications on linking physical places to virtual world are also discussed.

Binge-Watching as a Predictor of Narrative Transportation • Stephen Warren, UMass Amherst • This study explores the changing state of television by measuring binge-watching and its association with narrative transportation using longitudinal data.  Hierarchical Linear Modeling found that binge-watching had a positive logarithmic association with transportation – the power lessens as binge-watching rate increases.  Further, one’s typical binge frequency weakened the relationship between viewing session length and transportation.  Overall, more frequent binge-watching reduces its effect power on transportation.  Implications for theory and industry are also discussed.

Forever foolish? A content analysis of depictions of fathers in U.S. sitcoms • Stephen Warren, UMass Amherst; Eean Grimshaw; Gichuhi Kamau, UMass Amherst; Menno H. Reijven, University of Massachusetts Amherst; congcong zhang • This study examines the depictions of fathers in U.S. family-oriented television sitcoms, in relation to the father character being the teller or target of disparagement humor. In “real world” families over the last few decades, the roles and values assigned to fathers as well as the composition of how families are constituted have shifted in response to changing gender and family dynamics. This content analysis explores if and how these changes are reflected in media by looking at a sample of 578 scenes within 35 of the top-rated sitcoms featuring families from 1980 through 2017. Our findings suggest that sitcom fathers have largely remained foolish over time, with a slight decrease in foolish portrayals since the 1990’s. Yet, fathers have increased in being the butt of the joke as told by other characters. It seems that the most recent U.S. sitcom fathers continue to tell their fair share of disparaging jokes at the expense of other characters while simultaneously slightly appearing less foolish than they had in the past, overall. Dynamics of class, gender, and race among sitcom families as well as variables pertaining to how often sitcom fathers are shown engaging in parenting interactions are also discussed.

Down With the Clown: Taste, Class and Protest in American Journalistic Coverage of Juggalos • Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin • This research examines depictions of poor taste and low class in journalistic portrayals of juggalos through the lens of two 2017 events: the Juggalo March on Washington and the Gathering of the Juggalos. Through a multimodal analysis of text, images and their synergistic connections, this research analyzes the main themes and the differences between American music and news coverage to understand how the fan community is situated on a social hierarchy within American media coverage.

Gossip at one’s fingertips: Influential factors of celebrity news on Twitter • Yan Yan; Wanjiang Zhang • The present study collected 2223 tweets of news by the Twitter account of People Magazine about the Top 100 celebrities during the year 2016. The content analysis method was used to collect data on celebrity attributes and news features, and the social network analysis method was used to collect and analyze data on the relationships between celebrities and news topics. Results indicated that news agendas and audiences’ responses were highly different. News coverage was primarily determined by news features, yet audiences care about only about big stars. Regular topics centered the themes of celebrity news. The celebrity-by-topic network was theme-driven rather than human-driven, demonstrating the nature of the celebrity industry as embodiment of the capitalist society.

Measuring Virtual Reality Engagement: Survey and Electroencephalography (EEG) • Gi Woong Yun, University of Nevada, Reno; Claire Youngnyo Joa, Louisiana State University Shreveport; Daiwon Hyun; Sooyoung Lee; Hongsuk Kim; Sanghee Park; Sasha Allgayer, Bowling Green State University • This research tapped into the area of research connecting Virtual Reality (VR) and mobile EEG measurement tool.  A two by two experimental design using both repeated measures (exciting VR content vs. experiential VR content) and between subject stimulus (social vs. no social) was implemented and the effects were measured with a mobile EEG tool, Emotiv EPOC, and post-test surveys.  The mobile EEG tool was able to detect stimulus content showing increased brain activities in T7 temporal cortex and two frontal lobe, F7 and FC5, areas. However, social interaction stimulus did not make a difference in EEG measurements and showed no interaction effect. The research framework developed in this research can be adopted in the areas of research on contemporary VR production, audience research, content regulation, game development, and many other areas.

2018 ABSTRACTS