Open Competition
Making @YourState “Friends” With #Privacy: Rights and Wrongs In State Social Media Privacy Password Statutes • Jacob Elberg, University of Kansas; Genelle Belmas, University of Kansas • Since 2012, over half the states have adopted social media privacy laws to protect students and employees from demands of schools and employers for their passwords or social media content as a requirement of admission or employment. This paper evaluates the legal landscape of social media privacy in terms of vintage communications laws and cases as well as new state statutes and makes some recommendations as to the best ways to craft new statutes.

Artificial Authors: Making a Case for Copyright in Computer-Generated Works • Nina Brown, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications • For years, computers have dominated humans at chess, poker, and even Jeopardy! Now, increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence creates music, art, and even news stories. And though the purpose of copyright law is to encourage this exact type of artistic production, none of these works are protected because in the U.S., only humans can own copyrights. Instead of accepting the that law must lag behind technology, this paper explores whether copyright law can-and should-evolve.

First Amendment Envelope Pushers: Revisiting the Incitement-to-Violence Test with Messrs. Brandenburg, Trump & Spencer • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper examines weaknesses with the United States Supreme Court’s Brandenburg v. Ohio incitement test as its fiftieth anniversary approaches.  A lawsuit targeting Donald Trump, as well as multiple cases pitting white nationalist Richard Spencer against public universities, provide timely springboards for analysis.  Specifically, In re Trump: 1) illustrates difficulties in proving Brandenburg’s intent requirement via circumstantial evidence, and 2) exposes problems regarding the extent to which past violent responses to a person’s words satisfy Brandenburg’s likelihood element.  Additionally, the Spencer lawsuits raise concerns about: 1) whether Brandenburg should serve as a prior restraint mechanism for blocking potential speakers from campus before they utter a single word, and 2) the inverse correlation between government efforts to thwart a heckler’s veto via heightened security measures and Brandenburg’s imminence requirement.  Ultimately, the paper analyzes all three key elements of Brandenburg—intent, imminence and likelihood—as well as its relationship to both the heckler’s veto principle and the First Amendment presumption against prior restraints.

Report and Repeat: Investigating Facebook’s Hate Speech Removal Process • Caitlin Carlson, Seattle University; Hayley Rousselle, Seattle University • Facebook’s Community Standards ban hate speech. Users are tasked with reporting this content, but little is known about how Facebook responds to these reports. This study identified 144 (n=144) posts containing hate speech and reported them to Facebook. A qualitative content analysis was performed on the removed (n=64) and not removed (n=80) content. This revealed inconsistencies in the removal process that curtailed certain forms of expression and left users open to abuse.

Journalists’ Access to 911 Recordings: Balancing Privacy Interests and the Public’s Right to Know about Casualties • Erin Coyle, Louisiana State University; Stephanie Whitenack, Louisiana State University • Nine-one-one call recordings may capture unique distress from a person’s final moments of life. Journalists argue that publicly disclosing those recordings could shed light on matters of public interest, but publishing that content might emotionally devastate surviving family. This research explored whether and how state statutes, court opinions, and attorney general opinions address that potential conflict and determine whether journalists may access and publish content from 911 calls related to tragic death scenes. This research found a tendency for court rulings, statutes, and attorney general opinions to strike a balance between the public interest in learning about government actions and the likelihood for disclosure of 911 records to intrude upon privacy interests. Some struck that balance by allowing journalists to listen to tape recordings, releasing transcripts of calls, or redacting sensitive personal information prior to releasing records.

The Internet of Platforms and Two-Sided Markets: Implications for Competition and Consumers • Rob Frieden, Penn State University • This paper examines developments in the Internet marketplace that favor powerful intermediaries able to install a platform accessed by that both upstream sources of content and applications as well as downstream consumers.  Ventures such as Amazon, Facebook and Google have exploited, “winner take all” networking externalities resulting in the creation of seemingly impenetrable barriers to market entry even by innovative companies.  Courts and regulatory agencies recognize the substantial market shares these ventures have acquired, but refrain from imposing sanctions on grounds that consumers accrue ample benefits when platform operators use upstream revenues to subsidize downstream services. The paper examines digital broadband platform operators with an eye toward assessing the aggregate benefits and costs to both upstream firms and downstream consumers.  It concludes that governments have failed to revise and recalibrate tools that examine potential marketplace distortions and assess the potential for damage to competition and consumers.  The paper demonstrates how the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have relied on economic and legal doctrine ill-suited for digital broadband market assessments.  These agencies have generated false positives, resulting in market intervention where no major problem exists, and false negatives where undetected major problems cause harm without remedy.  Additionally these agencies appear to misallocate their resources and attention on insignificant matters when more compelling problems exist.

Sheppard v. Maxwell Revisited:  A “Roman Holiday,” a “Carnival” or “Decorum Comparable with the Best? • W. Wat Hopkins • Possibly the most common term used to characterize the trial of Sam Sheppard for the murder of his wife is “Roman holiday.”  The Supreme Court of the United States reported that “bedlam reigned in the courthouse during the trial.  Four months after the Supreme Court delivered its opinion, however, 10 journalists who covered the trial for respected media organization wrote the justices and told them they were wrong.  The trial, they told the justices, was conducted with “decorum comparable with the best.”  This paper explores the question of who was right – the Court or the reporters.

Anthem Protests & Public-College Athletes: Is There a Need for a Constitutional Audible? • Carmen Maye, Univ. of South Carolina • National-anthem protests reveal complexities associated with symbolic counter-speech tied to symbols of patriotism. For public-college officials and coaches, the complexity of game-time anthem protests extends beyond the court of public opinion. Uniformed collegiate student-athletes occupy a constitutional limbo-land in which the signals are mixed. Courts considering coach-imposed limits on anthem protests should eschew the traditional and school-specific options in favor of one that allows for a more direct balancing of interests.

“Walk” This Way, Talk This Way:  How Do We Know When the Government is Speaking After Walker v. Sons of the Confederacy? • Kristen Patrow, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • “One prong of the three-part government speech test developed in Walker required the Court to examine whether reasonable observers would understand the message as the government’s. Determining what a “reasonable observer” might consider government speech is nebulous at best. Analysis of six cases shows that paths to limiting this ambiguity of the doctrine include requiring a clear message, the government to self-identify as the speaker, and medium scarcity.”

Seeking clarity: European press rights at peaceful assemblies • Jonathan Peters, University of Georgia • European intergovernmental organizations are developing guidelines to establish a baseline for press rights at peaceful assemblies. This paper contributes to those efforts in two ways. First, it reviews existing European press protections in the assembly context. Second, it discusses issues that should be addressed in the forthcoming guidelines. The scholarly value of this paper is to explore the procedural and substantive dimensions of European press rights at assemblies, while the practical value is to clarify key issues and suggest ways to address them.

Considering Fair Use: DMCA’s Takedown & Repeat Infringers Policies • Amanda Reid, UNC Chapel Hill • The 20th anniversary of the DMCA is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the First Amendment implications of this legislative compromise between copyright holders and online service providers.  DMCA safe harbors were intended to protect business interests and expressive interests. As digital media are woven into modern daily life, this safe harbor schema needs recalibration to protect fair uses.  To recalibrate, this paper explores how fair use considerations should be operationalized under the DMCA framework.

Transparency Reporting and Content Takedowns: Examining Internet Censorship in the United States and India. • Enakshi Roy, Western Kentucky University • Drawing on the literature on internet censorship this study investigates the practice of content takedowns carried out by the United States’ and Indian governments. To that end this research employs two studies. Study 1 examines the transparency reports of Google, Facebook, and Twitter from 2010- 2015 to find out what content is removed from these platforms. Study 2 through in-depth interviews with technology lawyers and authors of transparency reports finds out about the content removal process and its complexities. The findings show “defamation” is one of the most cited reasons for content removal in both the United States and India. “Privacy and Security” is another top reason for content removal in both countries. In India, “Religious Offense” was the most frequently cited reason for content removal. Findings reveal a disturbing trend where defamation notices were misused to request takedown of content that was critical of the governments, politicians, public figures, law enforcement officials, and police. The findings of this comparative study are important, they demonstrate several ways in which the internet is being censored even in democratic countries without the knowledge of the users. Such censorship maybe eroding the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitutions of both the United States and India.

Internet Memes and “Cultural Flourishing”: A Democratic Approach to Copyright • Yoonmo Sang, Howard University • This paper explores the socio-cultural implications of Internet memes in conjunction with legal and policy inquiry that involve copyright and freedom of expression. In doing so, the concept of cultural democracy is advanced to better understand Internet memes that are created and shared by ordinary people to express their emotions, ideas and opinions in order to better understand cultural and political events. This normative study unpacks implications of Internet memes and applies the concept of cultural democracy to Internet memes in the context of copyright law. This study ultimately argues that the concept of democratic culture provides an alternative understanding of copyright legislation as well as a viable theoretical justification for copyright reforms in support of users’ creative use of preexisting cultural works in the age of user-generated content.

The Artificial Marketplace: Examining Potential Changes to Marketplace Theory in the Era of AI Communicators • Jared Schroeder, Southern Methodist University • Artificially intelligent communicators, particularly since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, have occupied an increasing role in democratic discourse. Their natures, as non-human actors with fundamentally different capabilities and motivations than citizens, raise substantial questions about whether the marketplace of ideas theory, the Supreme Court’s dominant rational for freedom of expression, can persist in its current form. In other words, the growing presences of artificially intelligent communicators undermine some of the foundational assumptions of the marketplace approach. This paper contends that without some revisions to the fundamental building blocks of the theory, it will no longer be viable as a rationale for freedom of expression in the AI-infused discourse of the twenty-first century. To this end, this paper explores the increasing influence of artificially intelligent communicators, the traditional assumptions of the marketplace approach, the longstanding criticisms of the theory, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s conceptualization of truth, and judicial opinions regarding the rights of other non-human communicators, such as animals and corporations. This paper ultimately proposes a process-focused, public-good-based revision to the theory’s foundational assumptions. Ideally, such a revision would allow the theory to remain functional in the growing artificial marketplaces of the twenty-first century.

Give Me a ©: Refashioning the Supreme Court’s Decision in Star v. Varsity • Jared Schroeder, Southern Methodist University; Camille Kraeplin, Southern Methodist University; Anna Grace Carey, Southern Methodist University; Lauren Hawkins, Southern Methodist University • Fashion designers have struggled to establish their works as expressions that qualify for copyright protection. The Supreme Court’s decision last spring in Star v. Varsity was less of a victory for fashion designers than it might appear. The Court’s effort to clarify and apply the “separability test,” stopped short of providing the clarity needed to protect the works of fashion designers. This article contends that this confusion can be resolved by conceptualizing fashion designs as forms of art that are often applied to useful objects, rather understanding them as useful items that, if their designs can be conceptually separated from the object, can receive protections.

Confronting Power, Defining Freedom and Awakening Participation: An Argument for Expanding Media Law Education • Erik Ugland • This article contends that some understanding of media law and policy is now indispensable for citizens in the Digital Age and proposes strategies for expanding knowledge of these subjects. This knowledge is essential to citizens’ self-preservation and individual agency, it equips them to engage in emerging First Amendment debates, and it enables their participation in settling media policy dilemmas (surveillance, net neutrality, big data) whose resolution will ultimately affect the broader balance of social power.

Defamation Per Se and Transgender Status: When Macro-Level Value Judgments About Equality Trump Micro-Level Reputational Injury • Austin Vining, University of Florida; Ashton Hampton; Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper uses the September 2017 defamation decision in Simmons v. American Media, Inc. as a springboard for examining defamatory meaning and reputational injury.  Specifically, it focuses on cases in which judges acknowledge plaintiffs have suffered reputational harm, yet rule for defendants because promoting the cultural value of equality weighs against redress.  In Simmons, a normative, axiological judgment – that the law should neither sanction nor ratify prejudicial views about transgender individuals – prevailed at the trial court level over a celebrity’s ability to recover for alleged reputational harm.  Simmons sits at a dangerous intersection – a crossroads where a noble judicial desire to reject prejudicial stereotypes and to embrace equality collides head-on with an ignoble reality in which a significant minority of the population finds a particular false allegation (in Simmons, transgender status) to be defamatory.  The paper concludes by proposing variables for courts to apply in future cases where a dispute exists over whether an allegation is defamatory per se, rather than leaving the decision to the discretion of judges untethered from formal criteria.

Requester’s Paradox: Acknowledging FOIA’s Defects, Moving toward Proactive Disclosure • A.Jay Wagner, Bradley University • “Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco exposed long-standing issues in the FOIA. Her deliberate circumvention of records management rules and the State Department’s intentionally misleading response to FOIA requests demonstrated deep and troubling flaws in the contemporary FOIA paradigm. In looking at the laws and judicial interpretation that undergird records management and adequate search elements, the study finds little in the way of legal obligations and a court system limited in combatting the problems. FOIA requesters already suffer from a paradox – never truly knowing what records exist – and these twin failures further undermine the access mechanism. The study explores the unsteady foundation on which the FOIA rests and uses these failures to campaign for more reliance on proactive disclosure mechanisms. In considering proactive disclosure, the study looks at both international and domestic efforts where no request for information is needed. The United States has already experimented with expanding proactive disclosure, including a Justice Department pilot study and amended small elements to the FOIA statute in 2016.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Markham Student Paper Competition
Phillip Arceneaux, University of Florida • The West Africa we were shown: A visual content analysis of the 2014 Ebola epidemic • Via content analysis, this study investigated what themes of West Africa were visually publicized by U.S. newspapers, and if such themes mirrored coverage of African groups. Data were collected from the New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Dallas Morning News. Quantitative findings suggest coverage favored victim-based frames which became significantly less negative once Ebola patients were in the United States. Such results contribute to literature regarding public perception of foreign affairs covered in the media.

William Edwards; Kyle Saunders • Perceptions and Reality of Press Freedom Following the Arab Spring: An Analysis of Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia • This study examines the relationship between perception of press freedom and both frequency of political news consumption and perception of government corruption in Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia in 2013. Results showed that frequency of political news consumption is positively correlated with a poor perception of press freedom in Egypt, and that poor perception of press freedom is positively correlated with perception of corruption levels in government in Egypt and Iraq.

James Gachau • Facebook Groups as Affective Counterpublics • Using counterpublic theory à la Nancy Fraser, Catherine Squires, Zizi Papacharissi, and Michael Warner, this article analyzes the media content shared on three Facebook groups’ walls. Based in Kenya, the first group identifies with freethought and atheism in a society that is predominantly Christian. The second group campaigns for a proud Black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks. The third group espouses a feminist atheist identity against Judeo-Christian “white male supremacy.”

Chen Gan, 1990 • Influence of Cultural Distance on Female Body Image: Race, Beauty Type, and Image Processing • This experimental study aimed to investigate the role of cultural distance on beauty ideal, regarding different races and inclined beauty types, in women’s responses to idealized media images. A sample of 140 young Chinese women viewed advertisements containing East Asian models in Cute/Girl-next-door looks (CG), East Asian models in Sexual/Sensual looks (SS), Caucasian models in CG looks, Caucasian models in SS looks, or product-only images. Image processing variables (comparison, fantasy, and internalization) and body image outcomes (state mood and body satisfaction) were measured immediately after advertising viewing. It was found that exposure to CG-type models elicited higher comparison, fantasy, internalization, and improved positive emotions among participants than SS-type models. Model’s race only had effect on internalization, and participants exposed to Caucasian models reported higher internalization than those exposed to East Asian models. Moreover, regression analyses revealed significant relationships between image processing variables and body image outcomes. This study develops a framework for cross-cultural body image research and casts some implications on the influence of exposure to Western media on Chinese women’s beauty ideal and feminine values.

Gregory Gondwe, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO • News believability, trustworthiness and information contagion in African online Social networks: An Experimental design • This experimental study seeks to find out what kind of news source is most believable in Africa between those generated by the West and those generated within the African continent. Second, it measures the levels of contagion within those news stories from two different continents. Using Zambian and Tanzanian online news sources, the study employs experiments to argue that NWICO and McBride’s debates are still relevant in today’s digital age.

Volha Kananovich • Thanks, Obama: Internet Memes as Contested Political Spaces in the United States and Russia • Drawing on the concept of a meme as a “nationwide inside joke” and a potential vehicle of anti-elite political expression, this study compares the evolution of Obama memes in America and Russia. The findings show that, despite the broad participatory appeal of the format, the reach of the meme remains contingent on the socio-political context. This may constrain the meme’s diffusion outside the tight community of liberally minded, politically savvy Internet users.

Liudmila Khalitova, University of Florida; Sofiya Tarasevich, University of Florida • Assessing the role of international broadcasters as information subsidies in the international agenda-building process • This paper explores the agenda-building potential of government-sponsored international broadcasting (GIB) by focusing on the relationships between congruence of political culture and journalists’ practices regarding the use of foreign government-sponsored news content. The findings suggest that value proximity between a broadcaster’s home country and the host country increases the likelihood that the host country’s media will use the GIB as an information source and will accept frames promoted by the government that funds the GIB.

Claire Shinhea Lee • Making Home through Cord-cutting: The Case of Korean Temporary Visa-status Migrants’ Post-Cable culture in U.S. • With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are “cutting the cords” and viewing television through Internet-based video services via streaming or downloading. This study aims to better understand and contextualize this phenomenon through investigating Korean temporary visa-status migrants’ television viewing practices. Through 40 qualitative interviews and employing the framework of the domestication theory perspective, this paper examines how these deterritorialized individuals who experience dislocation make home through cord-cutting practices. By making use of the Internet and delivery technologies/ interfaces legally and illegally, Korean tempv migrants go beyond territorial limitations and make home materially, feel home affectively, and connect home relationally in their diasporic space. Moreover, the study debunks some utopian ideas about online audiences and shows what remains fixed in terms of transnational post-cable culture. I argue that the paper provides many insights into investigating contemporary television audiences and suggest a novel approach to studying migrant media practices.

Nyan Lynn, University of Kansas • The danger of words: Major challenges facing Myanmar journalists on reporting the Rohingya conflict • When covering the Rohingya conflict, Myanmar journalists were criticized for failing to question the government and army. They were also criticized for their reports, most of them are one-sided and lack of multiple voices. This research studied why Myanmar journalists failed to report this conflict professionally and what major challenges they have faced. This research interviewed 17 reporters and editors from 10 media outlets, most of them based in Yangon.

Ruth Moon, University of Washington • “They only threaten you or cut off your job”: How Rwandan journalists learn self-censorship • This paper examines the communication and implementation of a self-censorship norm among journalists in Rwanda. Using observation and interview data from eight months of fieldwork, I show that self-censorship in this context is communicated in a two-step process that can be understood using the concept of isomorphism from institutional theory. Editors and publishers are directly pressured to produce particular kinds of news coverage and pass on the expectation to reporters through obliquely communicated expectations.

Subin Paul, University of Iowa • The Qatar-Gulf Crisis and Narratives of Emotionality in Nepal’s English-language Press • This study examines the media discourse on the 2017-18 Gulf diplomatic crisis and its effect on one of the most marginalized populations in Qatar: Nepali migrant workers. While the diplomatic crisis made news headlines across the Middle East, Nepal-based newspapers were the only ones to cover the vulnerable migrant worker population in some detail. In writing about this population, three prominent English-language publications in Nepal, the Kathmandu Post, Republica, and People’s Review employed emotional storytelling. Drawing on Wahl-Jorgensen’s notion of the “strategic ritual of emotionality,” this study specifically analyzes the use of emotion in the three publications’ news coverage. The study finds that the publications engaged in the ritual of emotionality not by assigning that function to external news sources, as common in Western newspapers, but mainly through their own journalists and opinion writers who narrated their subjective viewpoints and concerns. This unreserved embrace of emotions and subjectivity in newswriting illuminates a unique, cultural mode of producing journalism.

 

Robert L. Stevenson Open Paper Competition
Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Riffe; Meghan Sobel; Seoyeon Kim • “Pivoting” With the President’s Gaze: Exploring New York Times Foreign-Policy Coverage Across Nine Administrations • Through an analysis of 50 years of New York Times’ international news coverage (N = 20,765) across nine presidencies, ranging from Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 to Barack Obama in 2015, we apply an interpretive framework guided by presidential historians’ nonpartisan insights to an examination of the top-ten countries and topics covered during each administration in order to assess whether the Times’ gaze toward particular events or issues aligned with presidential “pivots” or priorities in foreign policy agendas. This study extends previous research on press nationalism and foreign policy coverage, updating this line of inquiry to examine whether or how an elite American newspaper covered international affairs throughout the past 50 years. We find limited evidence exists of an “echoing press” consistently following the “presidential gaze,” illustrating that events in the rest of the world can turn the press’ gaze away from policy goals; however, countries and topics covered during each administration do indicate some alignment with key presidential “pivots” or priorities over time. Further, some presidential and press priorities remained consistent across administrations, illustrating the linear way conflict and diplomacy carry over from one president to the next. This study documents and interprets changing patterns in foreign-policy coverage and contributes to a larger body of work discussing the complex roles of the president-as-newsmaker and of the press who cover – and sometimes “echo” – his administration’s efforts.

Aje-Ori Agbese • Thanks, Tonto and Mercy! Three Nigerian Newspapers’ Coverage of Domestic Violence in Nigeria, 2015-2017 • This study explored how Nigerian newspapers portrayed domestic violence and domestic violence cases in Nigeria. Through content and thematic frame analyses of three Nigerian newspapers from 2015 to 2017, the study found that Nigerian newspapers provided their audiences with a variety of information and failed to portray domestic violence cases as a social problem. Rather, they were portrayed as isolated incidents and blamed the victim for her death or beating.

Ali Al-Kandari, Gulf University for Science and Technology; Mariam Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University; Deb Aikat, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Political and Cultural Forces on the Uses and Gratifications: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat in the U.S and Kuwait • Fundamentally disparate norms of politics, freedom and culture distinguish civil societies in U.S. and Kuwait and impact social media users. By integrating uses and gratifications theories, this study compares U.S. and Kuwaiti social media users’ motivations, time spent, and engagement with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, the leading social media platforms. Based on an audience-oriented survey of U.S. and Kuwaiti social media users, this study concludes that while Kuwaiti users were more likely to use Snapchat and Twitter, U.S. users were more likely to use Facebook and Instagram. Different free speech norms differentiate U.S. and Kuwait. Freedom of speech is not absolute in Kuwait like most nations in the Arab region. The U.S. protects free speech through the First Amendment to its Constitution. This explicates why Kuwaiti social media users’ motivation of learning and information through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat constituted mean values higher than users in the U.S.

Mel Bunce • Foreign correspondents and the international news coverage of Africa • This paper contributes to our knowledge of the factors influencing international news coverage of Africa. It presents the results of 67 interviews with foreign correspondents in sub Saharan Africa that explore the daily practices, working conditions and news values of these journalists. The interviews show that foreign correspondents in Africa have significant autonomy to shape news content – but only when they work at more elite news outlets – those which Pierre Bourdieu would describe as seeking ‘symbolic capital’.

Li Chen, WTAMU • When Hippocrates encountered Confucius – A textual analysis of representations of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas • Using the theory of Social Representation, the current research project studies the representations of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas. The study has three goals: 1) to reveal the anchoring of medical professionalism on Chinese medical dramas; 2) to examine the objectification of medical professionalism; and 3) to analyze the consistency and inconsistency between the localized medical professionalism and the medical professionalism codes proposed by medical scholars and professional associations such as Charter on Medical Professionalism. The results of the textual analysis suggest that medical professionalism was anchored within a Confucian framework: medical dramas used two typical terms, benevolent skills and benevolent heart, to describe the meaning of medical professionalism. Chinese medical dramas were found to add two more components to medical professionalism, making it inconsistent with conventional medical professionalism.

Karin Assmann, University of Maryland; Stine Eckert • ProQuote: A German women journalists’ initiative to revolutionize newsroom leadership • Using standpoint epistemology and critical mass theory this study examines outcomes of the so-called ProQuote [Pro Quota] initiative in Germany to bring at least 30 percent of women journalists into leadership per newsroom. In-depth interviews with 25 journalists in 12 newsrooms find somewhat increased transparency in personnel decisions; improvements in work culture; and more representation of women and diversity on the editorial agenda in all newsrooms that have reached or came near ProQuote’s goal.

Katherine Grasso; William Edwards • A Different Story: Examining the Relationship between Exposure to Snapchat’s “LIVE” Story Feature and Perceptions of Muslims and Arabs • Using Intergroup Contact Theory, the relationship between viewing content depicting Muslims/Arabs on Snapchat and viewers’ attitudes toward Muslims/Arabs was tested. In an online survey, 397 participants reported the frequency and nature of portrayals of Muslims/Arabs in news media, entertainment media, and on Snapchat. Participants’ attitudes about Muslims/Arabs were also measured. Portrayals of Muslims/Arabs on Snapchat were positive, but attitudes toward Muslims/Arabs were not better among Snapchat viewers than non-viewers. These tests, however, lacked statistical power.

Lyombe Eko; Natalia Mielczarek • Raping Europa Again?: Discursive Constructions of the European Refugee Crisis in Four German and Polish News Magazine Covers. • Newsmagazine covers are visual narratives that draw upon myths and archetypes to explain contemporary events. We analyzed how four German and Polish news magazine covers re-presented the European immigration crisis of 2015. The covers of Der Spiegel, Die Stern (Germany), WSieci and Polityka (Poland) couched critiques and concordance with government policy in ancient myths of difference between East and West. Despite discordance of form, the covers demonstrated concordance of substance with respect to the crisis.

BELLARMINE EZUMAH, Murray State University • De-Westernizing Journalism Curriculum in Africa through Glocalization and Hybridization. • The debate that dominant model of global journalism education is predominantly western has permeated the journalism education discourse for decades. Despite several attempts by scholars and international organizations, specifically, the UNESCO through the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC), to de-westernize journalism curriculum, remnants of the dominant paradigm debate still persists. This paper recognizes the existence of western concepts in journalism education worldwide at the same time, concedes that striking attempts have been made to de-westernize and glocalize journalism curriculum. Essentially, this paper hinges on the thesis that instead of resisting the UNESCO model, reformation and adaptation through glocalization and hybridization is encouraged. As such, we further provide a practical application whereby both sides of the above argument are accredited and a hybridization intervention was applied in a collaborative venture between a US-based Scholar and Ugandan Scholars in developing a locally-congruent curriculum for a brand new journalism program at a university in Uganda.

Alex Fattal, Penn State • Target Intimacy: Notes on the convergence of the militarization and marketization of love in Colombia • This article looks beneath the linguistic hinges of “campaigns” and “targets” that connect military and marketing expertise, two spheres that are experiencing a tactical and epistemological convergence in Colombia. The plain of that convergence, I argue, is intimacy and the shared objective is the instrumentalization of love—in the pursuit of victory and profit. I trace how both sets of experts—generals and executives—have come to valorize and appropriate, by any means possible, intimacy, a fleeting index of love, in the context of the Colombian military’s individual demobilization program. Through ethnographic analysis I trace the way in which consumer marketers working with the military try to persuade guerrilla fighters to abandon the insurgency, and the ways military intelligence officers do the same. In juxtaposing the two respective the processes, I show how targeting serves as a switch that connects the counterinsurgency state and the marketing nation in Colombia.

Victor García-Perdomo, Universidad de La Sabana; Summer Harlow, University of Houston; Danielle Kilgo, Indiana University • Framing the Colombian Peace Process: Between Peace and War Journalism • This bilingual, cross-national study analyzes stories about the Colombian peace process that were engaged with on social media to understand the use of peace and war framing in news reporting. Results show that, even during peace talks, media use war narratives more often than peace frames, and social media users amplify more war than peace-oriented content. Proximity also was shown to be an important factor, as Colombian media used more war frames than foreign media.

Vanessa Higgins Joyce, Texas State University; Summer Harlow, University of Houston • Seeking Transnational, Entrepreneurial News from Latin America: An Audience Analysis • Digital-native entrepreneurial news sites from Latin America are generating change in the region’s industry. These news organizations are being accessed nationally and across national boundaries. This study examined, through the theoretical lens of social capital, factors contributing to the creation of transnational audiences for these news organizations. A survey of audiences for these independent news sites in Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela indicated that economic capital, youth, and being female predicted transnational entrepreneurial news use.

Lea Hellmueller; Valerie Hase • Giving Voice to Terrorists: A longitudinal model explaining how national political contexts influence media attention toward terrorist organizations • Few studies have examined how national political contexts shape news attention of terrorism beyond the coverage of terrorist attacks. Based on an automated content analysis between 2014 and 2016 (N = 18,531), this study examines media attention in the US and the UK toward international terrorist organizations in a longitudinal setting. Results reveal that mediated visibility of terrorists is based on media’s political and national embeddedness besides characteristics of terrorist groups.

Lea Hellmueller; Matthias Revers, University of Leeds • Populist Journalism Challenging Media and Political Fields: Transnational analysis of right-wing meta-journalistic discourses • Anti-institutional media discourses have become an integral part of digital right-wing media (e.g. Big Journalism on Breitbart.com). Drawing on automated text analysis, this study analyzes media criticism of right-wing digital websites (2015-2017) in Germany, Austria, and the US. Media outlets, while focusing on anti-globalization discourses, embrace transnational logics of concerns for the decline of Western democracies. Discourses are theorized as space between journalistic and political fields that transcend national boundaries and contribute to social destabilization.

Liefu Jiang, University of Kansas; Peter Bobkowski, University of Kansas • Reading, commenting, and posting: Social media engagements and Chinese students’ acculturation in the United States • Through an online survey with 209 participants, this paper employs acculturation theory to investigate the relationship between social media use and Chinese students’ acculturation in the United States. The findings suggest that the use of western social media platforms is positively related to Chinese students’ acculturation. Specifically, consuming and creating engagements on western social media are positively related to students’ psychological adaptation, while contributing engagements on western platforms are positively related to sociocultural adaptation.

Ralph Martins; Shageaa Naqvi, Northwestern University in Qatar; Justin Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar • Predictors of Cultural Conservatism in Six Arab Countries • This study examined predictors of self-reported cultural conservatism/progressivism among nationals in six Arab countries (n=4,529): Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE. Many variables found in prior research to be correlated with conservatism in Western countries—support for censorship, income, support for cultural preservation, and others—were not positively associated with conservatism in Arab countries. In fact, willingness to censor media was mostly negatively associated with conservatism in the Arab countries studied here. Some variables did correlate with conservatism in ways reflective of countries where conservatism has been studied extensively; age was positively associated with conservatism and education was negatively correlated, for example, but these relationships were not consistent across countries. Self-reported conservatism differed significantly across countries; Emiratis and Tunisians felt more conservative than people in their countries, while Lebanese and Egyptians were more evenly split among conservatives and progressives.

Mireya Máruqez-Ramírez; Claudia Mellado; María Luisa Humanes; Adriana Amado; Daniel Beck; Jacques Mick; Cornelia Mothes; Dasniel Olivera; Nikos Panagiotou; Svetlana Pasti; Henry Silke; Colin Sparks; Agnieszka Stepinska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan; Gabriella Szabo; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Moniza Waheed; Haiyan Wang • Detached watchdog versus adversarial reporting: a comparative study of journalistic role performance in 18 countries • This paper analyses the performance of the detached/passive and the adversarial/active orientations of the watchdog role (N= 33,640) from 18 countries, modelling the factors that better explain their presence in the news. The findings showed that the detached watchdog prevails around the world, although significant differences appear in the type of hybridization of journalistic cultures depending on the orientations – passive versus active – of the watchdog role. The data revealed that the adversarial/active type of watchdog prevails in advanced democracies with contexts of political and economic turmoil, and also in some transitional democracies from Eastern Europe; while the passive stance of this role peaks in liberal democracies such as the United States and Germany. Our results also indicate that societal variables are the strongest predictors of both types of orientations, but specially of adversarial reporting.

Rachel Mourao, Michigan State University; Weiyue Chen, Michigan State University • Covering protests on Twitter – The Influences on Brazilian Journalists’ Social Media Portrayals of the 2013 and 2015 Demonstrations • This paper uses a media sociology approach to untangle how multiple influences shaped the way Brazilian journalists tweet about left and right-leaning protests. Through a mixed methodology matching survey to social media data, we found that individual attitudes predict the way reporters tweeted about protestors, indicating that social media is a space for personal, not professional, expression. As a result, patterns of protest coverage were often challenged, suggesting that Twitter has not yet been normalized.

karlyga myssayeva, al-Farabi Kazakh National University; Saule Barlybayeva, al-Farabi Kazakh National University; Sayagul Alimbekova, al-Farabi Kazakh National University • Political News Use and Democratic Support: A study of Kazakhstan’s TV impact • This study examines the impact of television during the democratization process in Kazakhstan. Television plays a significant role as a public watchdog, with greater success than other media in disseminating a range of perspectives, information, and commentary in Kazakhstan. The analysis examines whether televised political news and information leads to support for democracy and increases public interest in the democratization process. The study discusses the utility and implications of the role of television in democratization.

Olga Kamenchuk, Ohio State University; erik nisbet • Liberation or Control? How do the attitudes of Russian Facebook users differ from those on Runet platforms Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki? • We examine the potential of social media to be a technology of liberation or control in Russia. We theorize that Facebook users, as opposed to users who only use co-opted Russian platforms will express more pro-democratic attitudes. Employing a nationwide household survey conducted in 2016 our analysis shows Facebook users are less trusting and more critical of the government and also express greater support for civil liberties than Russian’s who only use Vkontakte or Odnoklassniki.

BRETT LABBE, University of Indiana South Bend; SangHee Park, University of Wisconsin – Whitewater • U.S. News Media’s Framing of the ‘North Korean Crisis’ Under the Trump Administration: The New Ideological Foreign Affairs Paradigm • On 11 February 2017, North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test of the Trump Administration. Over the ensuing year the North Korean government continued to defy international pressures through the intensification of its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. During this timeframe, an escalation of adversarial rhetoric between the Trump Administration and the Kim Jong-un military government gained widespread media attention for its potential to escalate into military aggression. This study analyzes USA Today coverage of the ‘North Korean crisis’, and its subsequent de-escalation following the announcements of diplomatic talks in March 2018 in order to gain insight into the nature of mainstream U.S. media framing of the issue. Consistent with ‘Cold War’ and ‘War on Terror’ framing scholarship, this study found that the mainstream U.S. media facilitates the construction of dominant, ideological narratives that guide dominant interpretations of the international system and the United States’ position and actions within it.

Subin Paul, University of Iowa; David Dowling • Dalit Online Activism: The Digital Archive as a Site of Political Resistance in India • As digital news archives maintained by mainstream media outlets and libraries proliferate across the world, much less is discussed in academic literature about the efforts of socially marginalized groups to document their news stories. Our case study of Dalit Camera (DC), an online news archive based in Hyderabad, India, examines how historically disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, or “Untouchables,” are leveraging digital tools to narrate their oppressive past to the outside world parallel to the rise of political censorship in India. As part of its archiving process, DC is preserving footage of Dalit resistance against the hegemonic domination by caste Hindus and is thus becoming a useful resource for journalism history scholars. Through their grassroots network of citizen journalists, DC is also engaged in reporting caste-based discrimination and violence today, contributing to the Dalit social movement for equality and justice. Using Manuel Castells’s insights on social movements in the digital age and situating the work of DC within the field of Subaltern Studies, our essay explores the challenges and politics of news archiving in contemporary India, in the process explaining how various socio-political factors curate the content of news archives, and consequently, the construction of journalism history.

Victoria Knight, University of Georgia; Ivanka Pjesivac, University of Georgia; Michael Cacciatore, University of Georgia • Otherization of Africa: How American Media Framed People Living with HIV/AIDS in Africa from 1987 to 2007 • This study examined otherization framing of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa in American media 1987-2007. The results of a content analysis of the representative sample of news articles from three outlets (N=421) show that American media overwhelmingly used otherization frames throughout the 20-year period, in relation to negative article tone. The study represents the first attempt to quantify otherization framing of Africa in HIV/AIDS context. The implications for international reporting and theory are discussed.

Jyotika Ramaprasad • Journalism Ethics and the BRICS Journalist • This paper presents results of a survey of journalists from BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on their ethical orientations: absolutist, situationist, subjectivist, and exceptionist. These orientations are personal level generalized ethical beliefs based on a person’s relativism and idealism in the ethics arena. Individual, work related, and societal level factors are considered as correlates to assess how much they account for these beliefs.

Nataliya Roman, University of North Florida; Mariam Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University; Margaret Stewart, University of North Florida • Tweeting about Terror: Using World Systems Theory to compare international newspaper coverage online • This study looks at news coverage of terrorist attacks on Twitter over a five-year period. It examines Twitter accounts of three American and three UK elite newspapers. This study found that World Systems Theory predicted terrorist attacks coverage in the American media, but not in the UK media. Terrorist attacks in core countries received significantly more attention than attacks in non-core countries in the American media. Also, this study revealed that just three terrorist attacks: January and November 2015 Paris attacks and Brussels 2016 bombings, accounted for nearly a half of the overall U.S. and UK tweets examined in this study.

Jane B. Singer, City, University of London; Marcel Broersma, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen • Innovation and Entrepreneurship: International Journalism Students’ Interpretive Repertoires for a Changing Occupation • Amid ongoing media disruption worldwide, discourse about journalism has increasingly emphasized innovation within the newsroom and the rise of entrepreneurial initiatives outside it. This paper uses the concept of interpretive repertoires to understand how international students preparing for journalism careers understand innovation and entrepreneurialism in relation to changing industry circumstances and long-standing conceptualizations of occupational norms and behaviors. We find shared repertoires that embrace technological change, but generally within an acceptance of traditional normative practice.

Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University; Maria Clara Martucci; G. Scott Burgess, Wayne State Univesity • To censor and surveil: Cross-national effects of online suppression technologies on democractization • Using country- and multi-level analyses, we assess whether internet censorship and surveillance obstruct democratization, providing the first cross-national tests of online surveillance effects. Across 63 countries, online government monitoring is negatively associated with democratization, while internet censorship exhibits no additional effect. We theorize that suppression technologies erode democratic progress by thwarting collective action and examine how they affect individual-level disruptive political participation in a sub-sample of 21 countries. Together, these results suggest the need for greater scrutiny of surveillance and censorship technologies and the countries that use them. Political implications are discussed.

Linsen Su; Xigen Li • Perceived Agenda-Setting Effects in International Context: Media’s Impacts on Americans’ Perception toward China • The previous studies on agenda setting mainly address the effects on aggregate level without full consideration of individual differences. The current study puts forward a highly-related but different concept—the perceived agenda setting effects of media by the audience. The study confirms the existence of perceived agenda setting effects through a structured online survey (N=848) of American adults in April 2016. It finds that coverage on issue involving US interests has the strongest perceived agenda setting effect, while coverage on Chinese tourism has the least effect. The study finds that the media use, interest in China, and media trust are all positively related with perceived agenda setting effect, but direct experience of traveling to China has no significant effect. The study identifies the mediation effect of media use on perceived agenda setting effect through interest, but moderation effects of media trust and direct experience are not significant.

Miki Tanikawa • Is “Global Journalism” truly global? Conceptual and empirical examinations of the global, cosmopolitan and parochial conceptualization of journalism • An acute debate has arisen among some journalism scholars as to whether or not a brainchild of the age of globalization was born in the media world: global journalism. This study introduces the debate and conceptually clarifies the points of disagreement between the two camps including those who deny its existence. In a parallel quantitative study, measures developed to capture the concepts, “stereotypes” and “domestication” whose existence in the news journalism is viewed as inconsistent with the tenets of global journalism, were employed, and found that such content has increased in major international news media in the last 30 years.

Olesya Venger • Nation’s Media Usage and Immigration Attitudes in Europe: Exploring Contextual Effects Across Media Forms, Structures, and Messages • Drawing upon theories of social threat and media systems, the current study uses aggregate data on 20 European nations to examine the basic relationship between nation’s media usage, public attitudes about the general consequences of immigration, and their specific beliefs about immigrants worsening the nation’s crime problem. Nations with higher daily usage of newspapers and the internet were found to have more positive general attitudes toward immigrants, but television viewership was not significantly associated with these attitudes. Regardless of media source, national attitudes about immigrants causing crime were also unrelated to the density of media usage within these countries. Content analyses of several national newspapers (e.g., UK, Hungary, Sweden) were conducted to help understand the pattern of these aggregate relationships and other supplemental analysis revealed the moderating effects of nation’s media system on these results. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and their implications for future research on media’s role in shaping public attitudes about immigration and other social issues across different types of media forms, structures, and messages.

Anan Wan, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina; Linwan Wu, University of South Carolina • Online Social Viewing: Cross-Cultural Adoption and Uses of Bullet Screen Videos • Bullet screen technology, is an innovative way of presenting online videos, allowing viewers to contribute comments that simultaneously appear over the videos. Popular in East Asia, the technology is making its way to American audiences. This study employs a comparative qualitative focus group approach to explore how American and Chinese viewers respond to and interact with this new format of online videos. Three themes have emerged: 1) unique affordance, 2) barriers to adoption and usage, and 3) cultural differences pertaining to technology adoption and usage. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Aimei yang, University of Southern California; Wenlin Liu, U of Houston; Rong Wang • Discourse of the Cross-Sectoral Alliances Network in the Global Refugee Crisis: Studying CSR through a Global Perspective • The scope and magnitude of the current global refugee crisis is unprecedented. This crisis has posed severe challenges to social stability and sustainable development around the world. Surprisingly, in an era when corporations are expected to take part in addressing social issues, our initial assessment showed that some of the largest corporations in the world have communicated their alliances with NGOs and IGOs on the refugee issue quite differently. We draw upon the National Business System Theory and the Media Repertoires Approach to understand what factors influence corporations’ CSR communication of strategic alliances with nonprofit and public-sector organizations on the refugee issue. Findings of this study showed that countries’ economic inequality, citizens’ education level, and philanthropic culture, as well as the nature of digital media platforms affected the communication of cross-sector strategic alliances. Implications for CSR theory and practices are discussed.

Li ZHI, Cityu University of Hong Kong; Limin Liang • Media Improvisations and Bureaucratic Tensions in China:Transcending media control & news routines in disasters • In the controlled media environment in China, marketized media go beyond their normal reporting mode when bureaucratic tensions arise in the propaganda system’s response to major disasters. This study builds on the framework of regulated marketization and the literature of fragmented authoritarianism in understanding Chinese media and the propaganda system. Through analyzing 36 significant disasters and conducting a case study on one typical disaster, it reveals how marketized media get the chance to strive for more autonomy and improvise new strategies to report disasters. Regulated by the Party-State, marketized media must follow the propaganda apparatus’s reporting guidelines in routines. The media’s journalistic roles, norms, obligations are confined to the limited realm delineated by the reporting guidelines. Even in the very unexpected and newsworthy disasters, the marketized media need to abide by the guidelines. They could not go beyond the routine practices and improvise strategies to accommodate the disasters, when the Party-State’s control are strict and consistent. However, sometimes, the propaganda agencies involved in disasters may lack good coordination or have conflicts of interests. Such tensions delay, suspend, and nullify some of the strict reporting guidelines, making disasters venues for improvisations.

 

2018 ABSTRACTS

The Amateurs’ Hour: South Carolina’s First Radio Stations, 1913-1917 • John Armstrong, Furman University • This paper provides evidence that South Carolina’s first civilian radio stations appeared in 1913, not 1930, as has been suggested in histories of the state. Based on primary sources, it also provides a case study in how a poor, highly rural state made its first contact with radio broadcasting and radio networking through the efforts of amateur radio operators.

“Your paper saved Seattle”: E.W. Scripps, a man of contradictions, responds to the Star’s coverage of the General Strike of 1919 • Aaron Atkins, Ohio University • In February 1919, unionized workers across trades joined shipyard laborers in Seattle in an effort to raise stagnant shipyard wages, frozen for two years during U.S. involvement in World War I. The joint effort resulted in the country’s first labor action recognized with a general strike designation. Newspaper mogul E.W. Scripps built his media empire on a business model championing the working class and supporting labor unions. He owned the Seattle Star, one of the pillar daily newspapers of Scripps’s organization. Following the conclusion of the strike, Scripps was informed that Byron Canfield, editor of the Seattle Star, had turned the Star into a mouthpiece for the city’s mayor leading up to and during the strike, and used it to vilify the workers and call repeatedly for the strike to end. This paper examines the Star’s coverage of the strike and Scripps’ response through original copies of his personal letters, essays, and disquisitions, housed in a special collection at the Ohio University library. It determines whether Scripps supported his editor and newspaper when doing so would help his paper turn a profit, or whether he held fast to his pro-working class business model at a time when the actions of the working class directly and negatively affected one of his pillar news operations.

Elmer Davis and His Anti-McCarthyism Broadcasts on ABC Radio • Ray Begovich, Franklin College • Using primary sources from the Library of Congress, this study examines how broadcaster Elmer Davis, of ABC Radio, challenged the anti-communism tactics of Joseph McCarthy. The study shows how Davis was an early McCarthy critic, and that Davis’ challenges to McCarthy were years ahead of Murrow’s famous See It Now TV takedown of McCarthy. The study provides examples of how Davis repeatedly called for common sense in the first month after the beginning of McCarthyism.

“We matter”: The launching of a counter-narrative Black public affairs program in Columbia, S.C. • Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina • Through oral history interviews and archival documents, this article examines how African American public affairs shows, like Awareness, played an integral role in the Civil Rights Movement by presenting a counter-narrative to what was seen on mainstream news. Through this counter-narrative, Awareness had the unique ability to elevate the conversation beyond protests and demonstrations, and deeply discuss issues that could potentially alter the Southern mindset of stereotypical Blacks and improve race relations in the South.

Pulpit and Press Pioneer: Samuel E. Cornish, the Minister, before founding Freedom’s Journal • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina • Before becoming a founding editor of Freedom’s Journal, America’s first African American newspaper in 1827, Samuel E. Cornish trained in Philadelphia to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church. It was an interesting choice given that black religious denominations were being formed, a number of other white denomination had black congregations, and the Presbyterian Church supported African colonization of blacks. Cornish, who became the second African American licensed as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (1819), began his ministry preaching in rural Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania (1819-1821). He moved his ministry to New York and established the first African American Presbyterian Church in the city (1821-1823). This first-time detailed examination of this aspect of his background shows his decision to join the Presbyterian Church resulted in coverage in newspapers and magazines and exposed him to contacts with white leaders who might have influenced him as he helped found Freedom’s Journal.

The War Council: Editors’ Publicity Campaign for Louis D. Brandeis’s 1916 Supreme Court Nomination • Erin Coyle, Louisiana State University; Elisabeth Fondren, Louisiana State Univeristy; Joby Richard, LSU • This study reveals ways “publicity friends” sought to influence public opinion during the Supreme Court nomination of Louis D. Brandeis in 1916. Editors of The New Republic, Harper’s Weekly and La Follette’s Weekly coordinated publicity for Brandeis, their friend, fellow progressive, and political ally. The analysis of archival sources shows that these advocates strategically used publicity to support Brandeis, consciously engaging in agenda building to shape public opinion and persuade senators to support Brandeis’s appointment.

Constructing (“Typhoid”) Mary Mallon: How Public Health and Journalism Criminalized the Healthy Carrier • Katie Foss, Middle TN State University • In 1907, health officials blamed Mary Mallon for transmitting typhoid fever, forcing her to live in quarantine for 26 years. Newspaper coverage analysis of what would become the case of “Typhoid Mary” demonstrates how her intersectionality as a woman and immigrant of low socioeconomic class in this unique cultural moment immortalized Mary as the public health scapegoat. Moreover shifting models in journalism and medicine highlight the growing acceptance of public health authority over personal autonomy.

Walter Lippmann and the Follies of Detachment • Julien Gorbach, University of Hawaii at Manoa • This study examines Walter Lippmann’s fraught relationship with his American Jewish heritage, and the implications that had for his ideas and practice of journalism. Lippmann has been touted by journalism historians—most notably Michael Schudson—as “the most wise and forceful spokesman for the ideal of objectivity” during the years when objectivity became adopted as the foundational standard for the profession. But Lippmann has also been roundly criticized as a self-hating Jew for columns about Jewish assimilation and the rise of Hitler, columns that, like all his writing, were shaped by a belief in journalistic detachment. Lippmann’s mishandling of what was then called “the Jewish question” highlights the dilemma of weighing a journalist’s professional commitment to detachment against the contrary dictum that the best journalism “comes from somewhere and stands for something,” as National Public Radio’s Scott Simon once put it. The imbroglio is a story worth revisiting, not only because it yields fresh insight into objectivity by focusing on a key challenge for its most famous champion, but also because it offers clarity about Lippmann’s nuanced ideas of reporting and news that remain poorly understood, despite the extraordinary attention that already has been paid to his work.

The German-American Press and Anti-German Hysteria during World War I • Kevin Grieves, Whitworth University • During World War I, the German-American press became a lightning rod for anti-German sentiment in the U.S. New rules required German-language papers to supply English translations, and many publications faced bankruptcy. Some of the most strident attacks came from English-language journalists. This study examines how editors of German-language newspapers positioned their publications during World War I, responded to attacks from other journalists, and how they articulated their professional stance in relation to loyalty to the government.

Henry Luce’s American & Chinese Century: An Analysis of U.S. News Magazine’s Coverage of General Chiang Kai-shek from 1936 to 1949 • Danial Haygood, Elon University; Glenn Scott, Elon University • Time magazine founder Henry Luce was accused by his critics of using his media empire to support and promote General Chiang Kai-shek and his ruling Chinese Nationalist party during the pre-war, World War II, and Chinese Civil War eras. This research reviews the U.S. news magazines’ coverage of Chiang to determine how the general was presented and if these portrayals were different. The research also determines whether a Luce agenda was included in Time’s coverage.

Driving and Restraining Forces Toward the Marketization of Broadcasting in the UK in the 1990s • Madeleine Liseblad, Arizona State University • Broadcasting evolved rapidly in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. All aspects of the television newscast changed and broadcasting became properly marketized. This case study examined societal driving and restraining forces, using change theory and force field analysis. Driving forces included competition, technology, and American consultants, while restraining forces included a resistance to change, money, unions and a fear of Americanization. The ITV franchise auction and privatization were both driving and restraining forces.

Retreat from the Golden Age: Russian Journalists & Their World, 1992-2000 • Rashad Mammadov; Owen V. Johnson, Indiana University • The overall processes in the first decade of independent Russian media can be described as the path of the media from its golden age of political independence in early 1990s, to the establishment of partial government control along with increased proximity to the ruling elites by the presidential elections of 1999 and transfer of power to Vladimir Putin in the year 2000. We argue that although understanding of professionalism among Russian journalists may differ from western standards, primary reasons why Russian media gave up much desired independence were complicated economic realities of transitional society, raising interest of the new financial elites-oligarchs in media and re-asserted political influences.

“Songs of the Craft:” poetry in 20th-century U.S. newsrooms • Will Mari, Northwest University • Throughout the twentieth century, reporters and other news workers not only wrote about the news, they wrote about each other, their bosses, their daily grind in the newsroom and journalism itself in the form of poetry. This occupational verse was a way to relieve workplace tension, vent about controlling editors and annoying readers, and fulfill a playful impulse (and kill time between assignments). Written by practicing journalists for their newspapers and trade publications, it also occasionally appeared in memoirs and dedicated collections of workplace poetry. More prosaically, it was written on scraps of notepad paper or typed up to be posted to newsroom bulletin boards. Newsrooms were not known as centers of reflection—loud, busy, swirling with immediate concerns (primarily deadlines, but also editors)—but reporters nonetheless found space for poetry. This paper explores how occupational poetry, sometimes called “doggerel” by critics but even by its own creators (who were often self-deprecating), was part of American journalism’s professionalization project and reflected changing newsroom values, priorities and a broader white-collar consciousness among news workers. Ephemeral by nature, newsroom poetry nonetheless survives into the present as an important commentary on the occupation.

Winning Women’s Votes: Dotty Lynch and the Gender Gap in American Politics, 1972-1984 • Wendy Melillo • Dorothea “Dotty” Lynch became the first female pollster to head the polling unit for a presidential campaign. As the chief pollster for Gary Hart’s 1984 race for the Oval Office, she developed the first women focused strategy to be used in a presidential campaign. Based on a decade of work tracking a phenomenon in American politics known as the “gender gap,” Lynch’s work is significant for the contribution she made to help explain why the gender gap existed. She also pioneered the way for women in public opinion polling to work on presidential campaigns in a field heavily dominated by men.

Textbook News Values: A Century of Stability and Change • Perry Parks, Michigan State University • This paper examines the historical contingency of news values as evidenced in journalism historiography and more than a century of journalism textbooks dating to 1894. Textbooks are important distillers and (re)constructors of journalists’ conceptions of news and not-news. Findings suggest that while key news values such as timeliness, proximity, conflict, and impact have held stable since the early 1900s, the way those values are applied to reporting depends on the socio-cultural context of the era.

Mortimer Thomson’s Witches: Undercover Reporting on the Fortune-Telling Trade • Samantha Peko, Ohio University • In 1857, the New-York Tribune hired a “stunt boy ” Mortimer Thomson to go undercover to have his fortune read for a series titled The Witches of New York. The series was launched in response to a number of advertisements for clairvoyants who offered services from matchmaking to curing illness. Thomson’s satirical accounts of his adventures at the “witches'” homes were a popular read for audiences as it sought to expose the clairvoyant’s deceptions.

Voices on Woman’s Suffrage: Lingering Structures of Feeling in 1917 U.S. Letters to the Editor • Lori Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee • Following the cue of cultural studies scholars Raymond Williams and James Carey, this study attempts to recover the cacophony of voices chiming in on woman’s suffrage that echoed across America through published letters to the editor in fourteen mid-sized and mass-circulating newspapers in 1917, a pivotal year in the battle for woman’s suffrage. Overall, a census of 386 letters to the editor related to woman’s suffrage were analyzed through a discourse analysis.

Newspapers as Quasi-Stationery in Nineteenth Century America: The Economic Role of the Letter-Sheet Price-Currents • Bradford Scharlott, retired; Matthew Baker, Westminster College, UT • Letter-sheet price-currents appeared in at least 22 American cities between 1819-1869. These publications were newspaper/stationery hybrids, with at least half of their space filled with commercial information, and the rest left blank for writing a letter on. Middlemen merchants used these for communicating with their customers, often paying to have their firm’s “business card” information prominently displayed, thus personalizing the publications. Advances like telegraphic services and interregional trains killed off the letter-sheets by the 1890s.

Southern Education Report: An examination of a magazine’s contribution to education news in the civil rights era • Melony Shemberger, Murray State University • The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) is one of the most pivotal ever rendered by the highest court. The monumental ruling ended a segregated system in education and affected education news. This paper explores the Southern Education Report, a bi-monthly magazine (1965-69) published by the Southern Education Reporting Service, and argues that it contributed the kinds of education news that mainstream news media failed to cover.

‘More news space:’ Money and Publisher W. E. ‘Ned’ Chilton III, 1953-1984 • Edgar Simpson, Central Michigan University • The owner/publisher of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, spent his time in an oak-lined office in the newsroom, exhorting his editors and reporters to uphold his philosophy of sustained outrage. This study, using the theory of the public sphere, examines this philosophy and how it related to his unusual approach to business, including his own advertisers.

The Rationales for Public Relations: The Engineering of Human Interactions • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • The field of public relations has long attempted to signify the value it offers to societal discourse, deliberation, and decision making. This work finds that public relations, in its attempts to establish itself as a field, has articulated four rationales that all focus on engineering human interactions. This work ends by pointing to how public relations needs to moderate its four rationales so that it can more adequately address the concerns of multiple publics.

Journalism with the Voice of Authority: The Rise of Interpretive Journalism at The New York Times, 1919-1931 • Kevin Stoker, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • This study examines that early evolution of interpretive journalism at The New York Times from 1919 to the 1931, when the newspaper’s Sunday edition began to devote an entire section to interpretive reporting and commentary. Based on Richard V. Oulahan’s reporting and an examination of the business correspondence of The New York Times, this paper chronicles the evolution of interpretive reporting from a type of reporting unique to a particular journalist to an institutionalized style of reporting appearing in the Sunday Times. This study shows that the emergence of interpretive reporting at the Times coincided with Oulahan’s tenure in Washington, the expansion of international coverage, editorial innovations in the Sunday paper, and response to interpretive commentary in a competing newspaper.

Race and Rhetorical Choices: Newspaper Coverage of Detroit’s Twelfth Street Riot • Brandon Storlie, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The July 1967 riot in Detroit, Michigan, was one of the most violent race-related conflicts in American history. Common themes developed in both local and national media coverage of the event, including widespread use of wartime imagery. This study examines the frames and techniques used by three major newspapers when covering the riot and ultimately questions whether local news outlets are those best equipped to cover violent events within their own communities

Making China Their “Beat”: A Collective Biography of U.S. Correspondents in China, 1900-1951 • Yong Volz, University of Missouri; Lei Guo • This study examines the social composition of the U.S. correspondents in China during the first half of twentieth century. Borrowing Bourdieu’s concept of capital and adopting the collective biography approach, this study analyzed the demographic characteristics and career paths of 161 such correspondents to illustrate the opportunity structure and its historical variations in the largely unstructured field of foreign correspondence in China during its formative years.

The Delphian Society and Its Publications: A Historical and Cultural Analysis of a Primer for Middle-Class Women’s Education • Sheila Webb, Western Washington University • The Delphian Society was founded in Chicago in 1910 to educate women in the great ideas of Western society so they could become productive and knowledgeable citizens at a time when women were reconceptualizing their roles in public and civic life. This study examines the publications of the Society; describes the historical backdrop in which the Society was founded; analyzes the importance of the self-education and self-culture movements; and places the publications within the Progressive milieu. At the forefront of exploring adult education, the Society dovetails with other efforts at middle-class edification as the Book of the Month Club and such magazines as Life, which attempted to shape and elevate the taste and discernment of its middle-class readers. The Society partook of the same energy as the newly formed correspondence courses and drew members from the well-established women’s clubs. Each of these venues helped define what was worth knowing. However, the Delphians were unique: no other texts, institutions, or organizations were devoted to women’s education at the highest level or fostered deliberative social interaction and civic advancement. No scholarly work has been done on the publications. This study considers two themes, both related to women’s and cultural history. The first is an analysis of the Society itself, which reflected the growing interest in women entering public life fully prepared with a foundation in the history, art, literature, and politics of the Western world. The second thread considers the Society as fulfilling the role of cultural intermediary in the formation of taste publics, and argues that the role of cultural intermediaries was performed by the editors and writers of the Delphian publications, who could be considered missionaries of culture to their readership. Reader response theory informs the interpretation of how members benefited; the concept of imagined communities is applied to the national conversation in which members engaged.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Media Use and Political Participation: A Comparative Study of U.S., Kenya, and Nigeria • Oluseyi Adegbola, Texas Tech University; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University • This study compares whether news use across media platforms is differently related to online and offline political participation in the U.S., Nigeria and Kenya. Through secondary analysis of data collected from a worldwide survey of adults (N = 1,775), this study found country-specific differences in how both views on national politics and media use predicted political participation. Specifically, there were differences in the effects of traditional and new media on online and offline political participation.

Poles Apart: Influence of Ideology, Partisan Social Media Use,  Discussion and Polarization on Belief Gaps • Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin; Heloisa Aruth Sturm, University of Texas at Austin; Lourdes Cueva Chacón, University of Texas at Austin; Jordon Brown • The role of social media in the 2016 election shows the need to study its influence on the belief gap. This study examines the extent to which ideology, partisan social media use, polarization, and political discussion on social media influence false beliefs toward race and immigration. We found that partisan social media use is linked to affective polarization, conservative social media use increases belief gaps on immigration, and issue polarization is linked to belief gaps on both immigration and race.

Factors Motivating Customization and Echo Chamber Creation Within Digital News Environments • Brooke Auxier, University of Maryland, College Park; Jessica Vitak, University of Maryland • In today’s digital environment, news consumers may experience information overload. To combat feelings of unease associated with the influx of news content, some consumers tailor their news ecosystems. This study explores customization and identifies motivating factors. Results from an online survey (N=317) suggest that consumers who diversify their online news streams report lower levels of anxiety related to current events. Findings also suggest differences in reported anxiety levels and customization practices across the political spectrum.

Real Time Political Deliberation on Social Media: Can Televised Debates Lead to Rational and Civil Discussions on Broadcasters’ Facebook Pages? • Lindita Camaj, University of Houston • As broadcast news organizations partner with social media to generate real time reactions to live political debates, this article explores how this trend impacts discussions among their Facebook page users. Data from the 2016 U.S. elections suggest that comments posted on the Facebook pages of ABC and NBC were more rational and civil than comments posted on the Facebook pages of CNN and Fox News. Moreover, discussions prompted by candidate acclaims and policy issues resulted in more deliberate conversations than discussions prompted by opponent attacks and candidate character.

Small Station with Big Voices: Giving a Microphone to Communities Through Student-Citizen Collaborations • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Mike Farrell, University of Kentucky; Kakie Urch, University of Kentucky; Yung Soo Kim • This study offers insights into citizens working with emerging reporters in a journalism capstone course at a U.S.-based university from the perspective of journalism as process and collaboration. Their joint efforts resulted in radio news stories airing on local broadcast stations. Through a series of conversations, unchanged views were found regarding the roles each group was viewed to perform, but mutual respect was developed as citizens gained skills/journalistic style; students gained community connections/general life lessons.

“I know from personal experience”: Shared news consumption and citizen knowledge exchange on Reddit • Corinne Dalelio, Coastal Carolina University; Wendy Weinhold • This study is an investigation into aspects of citizen knowledge sharing around news in the informal online “community of practice” found on Reddit.com/r/news, such as tacit vs. explicit knowledge sharing, tone and incivility, and knowledge questioning. It was found that: 1) incivility was not a hindrance to knowledge exchange, 2) tacit and explicit knowledge sharing occur with equivalent frequency, and 3) knowledge of other participants was questioned more often than that of an outside source.

Personalized news in the age of distraction • Lisa Farman, Ithaca College • This experiment explored the extent to which the cognitive load experienced during multitasking affects attitudes toward and recall of personalized online news. Personalization led to more positive attitudes toward news, and distraction led to worse news topic recall but better detail recall. Distraction also led to less perceived credibility of the news website, which led to more negative attitudes toward the news. No interaction effects were observed, and there were no differences based on multitasking habits.

Technical Frames, Flexibility and Online Pressures in TV Newsrooms • Victor García-Perdomo, Universidad de La Sabana • This research takes a socio-technical approach to understanding TV changes brought by online video platforms. This paper explains how online professionals working for TV stations are implementing digital technologies into their newsrooms to reinforce their online presence. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, it shows how socio-economic forces and journalistic practices shape technology but, at the same time, it reveals how platforms impose their logic on news production and make producers to lose some control.

How do Lebanese television channels engage with Twitter? An exploratory study into its uses • Claudia Kozman, Lebanese American University; Raluca Cozma, Kansas State University • Through a content analysis of tweets belonging to local television channels in Lebanon, this study sought to examine patterns of their Twitter usage. Guided by the uses and gratifications framework, the current research found that Lebanese broadcast media use Twitter as a one-way tool to disseminate information, rarely making use of its interactivity features. These media tended to discuss news more than any other function, focusing mainly on politics and public affairs.

Frames and sources of links in the climate discussion on Twitter, 2012-2015 • JA Lavaccare, Michigan State University; Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University; Luping Wang, Cornell University • We analyzed the 200 most tweeted links during 10 major events related to the climate change issue to find what media sources were most commonly shared, and how this changed over time (2012-2015) and across events. We find that mainstream news media remain dominant. In the second phase of the study, we analyzed framing of the climate issue in widely shared news stories, and how the popularity of frames has changed over time. Notably, a Morality frame was boosted by two major speeches from Pope Francis.

When Everything Else Fails: Radio Journalism during Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico • Yadira Nieves; BRUNO TAKAHASHI, Michigan State University; Manuel Chavez, Michigan State University • In an era of over-reliance on online media technologies in disasters this research assesses the journalistic functions played by Puerto Rican AM radio stations in Hurricane Maria. Throughout the emergency there was total loss of electricity and communications nonetheless local radio maintained operations. This study is one of a few that explore journalistic practices during a disaster in the context of a Spanish-language media system. Through a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews to radio workers researchers found that in spite of having preparedness plans the magnitude of the disaster led to improvisation and the embracing of alternative journalistic roles. While radio workers were also victims of the disaster they were forced to take on first responder roles.

Prosodic elements for content delivery in broadcast journalism:  A quantitative study of vocal pitch • Shawn Nissen, Brigham Young University; Quint Randle, Brigham Young University; Jenny Lynnes, Brigham Young University; Jared Johnson, Oklahoma State University • Through a quantitative analysis, this exploratory study examined the prosodic elements of mean pitch, pitch variability and pitch range in a sample of 450 voiceovers and throws from 90 male and female broadcast reporters and anchors from larger markets across the United States. Findings indicate that compared to typical speakers in the general population male broadcasters actually speak with an elevated mean pitch, more pitch variability and use more range. However, female broadcasters were found to speak at slightly lower mean pitch levels when compared to other female speakers in the general population (but like males with more variability and range). It is hoped that this study will serve as a starting point in moving broadcast vocal coaching from that of just an art to a bit more of a science.

Rehash or Reset? Examining the intermedia agenda setting effect between Twitter and newspapers on climate change • Yan Su, Washington State University • The purpose of this study was to explore the intermedia influence between Twitter’s and newspapers’ agenda on climate change. Accordingly, using Trump’s announcement of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement as a dividing point, the current study compares the issue agendas on Twitter and newspapers before and after the announcement, analyzing both rank-order correlation and cross-lagged correlations between the two platforms. Results suggested that newspapers influenced Twitter before the announcement, while Twitter conversely influenced newspapers’ agenda within five days after the announcement was released, which challenged the assertion that individuals often discuss online within a few days of the reported news coverage. However, although reciprocity appeared, Twitter’s influence was found ephemeral, newspapers regained the dominant role in intermedia agenda setting from the sixth day after the announcement.

Reactance to fact checking: Facebook users’ evaluations of and intentions to share fake news • Shawna White; Nicole Lee, North Carolina State University • Fake news has become a prominent topic since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook developed a fact-check warning system designed to identify misinformation. We conducted a 2 (warning/no warning) x 2 (RNC/DNC) between-subjects online experiment (N = 235) to test the efficacy of this system, and to investigate whether psychological reactance produces backfire effects. Results revealed the negative outcomes outweighed the positive, explained in part by reactance, particularly when retracted misinformation aligned with partisan predispositions.

2018 ABSTRACTS

Objectified Yoga: Commodity, Identity, and Embodiment in US Women’s Magazines • nandini bhalla, University of South Carolina; David Moscowitz, University of South Carolina • Using framing analysis, this research examines the portrayal of yoga in the U.S. women’s magazines. Textual analysis of narrative and images from three popular women’s magazines demonstrates how the representation of yoga objectifies one type of female embodiment for the purpose of commodity. The majority of images featuring the bodies of slim, white, upper-class women perpetuate not only the commodification of yoga, but also media framing of its negotiation and appropriation to support a multi-million-dollar industry.

The Symbolic Annihilation of Wendy Davis in the 2014 Texas Gubernatorial Election • Jordon Brown • The 2014 Texas gubernatorial election was similar to the rest of that year’s election results. This race, however, was marred with misogynistic attacks leveled at Democratic candidate Wendy Davis. This research explores two incidents – her Republican opponent thanking a supporter who called her “Retard Barbie” and when protest posters identified her as “Abortion Barbie” –  through the lens of symbolic annihilation, and how the top five Texas newspapers used omission, trivialization, and condemnation in their coverage.

“Without Women There Is No Revolution:” A Feminist CDA of Ni Una Menos’s Twitter Communications • Ayleen Cabas, University of Missouri • This paper examines the Twitter communications of the Argentine collective Ni Una Menos to assess its strategies to advance feminist politics and goals in the country. By means of a feminist critical discourse analysis, the study finds that the online discourse of Ni Una Menos was geared towards the transformation of awareness into collective action, and the creation of empowered identities for victims and allies.

A Theoretical Model on How the Media Play a Role in Celebrification Analyses: Based on Bourdieu (1986) and Driessens (2013) • Li Chen, Syracuse University • Beginning with the construction of public persona in the media, the current paper proposes a theoretical model on celebrification analyses addressing the accumulation of three capital forms: cultural, celebrity, and social capital. Once these capital forms are recognized by the audience via the media, they are converted to symbolic capital, exactly at that moment the individual achieves the celebrity status. This theoretical model aims to provide clarification for further empirical exploration on celebrification.

“For India is to be Redeemed!”: Reflections of an American Missionary in British India • Khadija Ejaz • This paper uses Orientalism to analyze a nineteenth century book by an American missionary – the founder of Indian Methodist Christianity – about colonial India. He conceives of two Orients in India, that is, Islam as a rival to Christianity and Hindus in need of Christian salvation. This enables a religious justification for colonization that, while unexpectedly is not revealed to be shared by all Europeans and Christians, mirrors previously studied gendered aspects of colonialism.

The end of ombudsmen? 21st-century journalism and reader representatives • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado Boulder • In May of 2017, The New York Times announced it would eliminate its public editor position, something a growing number of news organizations have done in the 21st century. Using the theory of metajournalistic discourse as a framework and textual analysis as a methodology, this study examines how actors within or on the boundaries of the journalism industry reacted to the news and defined the ombudsman position. The data illustrated that today’s public editor should be a watchdog of the news organization, perform some public relations functions, be a conduit between readers and a newsroom, and build trust with readership. The coverage of the Times’ decision was unilaterally negative. Finally, the author then argues the merit of the position in today’s journalism industry.

Ignoring Our Own Cultural Imperialism: New York Times’ International Coverage of Birth Control 1960-2002. • Ana Garner; Christina Mazzeo, Marquette University • Ignoring Our Own Cultural Imperialism: New York Times’ International Coverage of Birth Control 1960-2002. The United States has spent decades and billions of dollars in reproductive aid to foreign countries in order to further its economic and political interests. Between 1960-2002 the New York Times covered U.S. efforts to regulate reproduction in non-U.S. countries. The newspaper reported on U.S. involvement in birth control and family planning abroad, but largely ignored non-U.S. citizen voices and failed to question U.S. policies and fiscal and cultural role in regulating reproduction abroad.”

Identity Formation and Voter Suppression: The Iconography of Fake Memes in the 2016 Presidential Election • Melissa Janoske, University of Memphis; Robert Byrd, University of Memphis; Dana Cooper, University of Memphis • This study offers a new methodological perspective on understanding visuals with iconography, which allows for analysis of both real and fake social media-based memes from the 2016 presidential election, visuals rich in social, political, and cultural history. Here, the iconographic approach uses description, analysis, and contextual interpretation, as well as the roles of identity formation and belongingness, in order to better understand the impact and future of memes in the American political process.

Resilience, Positive Psychology, and Subjectivity in K-pop Female Idols:  Evolution of Girls’ Generation from “Into the New World” (2007) to “All Night” (2017) • Gooyong Kim, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania • This article examines how music videos of Korean popular music (K-pop) promote a discourse of resilience as a neoliberal ideal of female subjectivity. In a therapeutic narrative of overcoming obstacles and achieving goals, the videos provide audiences with a message that individuals have to be responsible for their success and well-being rather than complaining external, institutional hindrances. While ostensibly promoting female empowerment, the videos update and reinforce patriarchal gender norms and expectations.

Talking back: Journalists defending attacks against their profession in the Trump era • Michael Koliska, Georgetown University; Alison Burns; Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland, College Park • The survival of the institution of journalism is dependent on a cultural discourse, which can be described as institutional myth. The recent attacks and accusations that equate journalism in the United States with being ‘fake news’ have led journalists and news organizations to defend this institutional myth. This research examines the various discursive strategies employed by journalists to uphold public legitimacy of journalism as an institution, through an analysis of their public responses.

Trash and Treasure TV • Sean Leavey, Rutgers University – School of Communication and Information • This paper focuses on a subgenre of reality television (RTV) that I call “Trash and Treasure TV.” I argue that Trash and Treasure TV surfaced after the Great Recession to promote neoliberal ideologies of risk-taking, self-reliance and entrepreneurship at precisely a time when well-paid jobs and the social safety net continued to erode. Although, as demonstrated by data gathered through interviews and observation, there are limits to the influence of RTV as technique of governmentality.

Between Emotion, Politics and the Law:  Narrative Transformation and Authoritarian Deliberation in a Mediated Social Drama • Limin Liang • Through studying media discourses surrounding a land-disputes-triggered vengeful murder in China and its subsequent trial (the “Jia Jinglong Case”), the article examines “narrative transformation” in a contentious social drama and similar events’ deliberative potential for an authoritarian society. Previous studies adopting the social drama paradigm usually follow how events move from an instrumentality-driven “crisis” phase to a value-driven “ritual” phase. However, in this case, crisis was preceded by a verdict sentencing the accused to death that failed to be seen as fair, after scholars made concerted calls for leniency via social media. Henceforth, what ought to be a ritualized trial regressed into a political contest, as “a victim’s story” turned into “a revenge story” symbolizing larger social injustice. But “a strategic contest” does not exhaust the meaning of the case, which also produced a liminal moment inviting reflexivity on the norms governing social life. The paper proposes a model for authoritarian deliberation in which “events crystalize into issues”. It argues that while the alliance between state and media/intellectual elites in a Chinese society with declining ideological hegemony is sustained by instrumental interest, contentious events provide opportunities to bring elite dissent into sharp relief. In this case, media engaged other social institutions in a contentious public performance that ultimately affirmed the perpetuation of schism than consensus, but in its process also encouraged deliberation.

Imagining the Other: Transnational Documentaries & the Politics of Sexuality • Shehram Mokhtar • This paper focuses on recent transnational documentary films that address the question of non-normative sexuality in the non-Western world. These documentaries include festival-centered films produced independently and features commissioned by broadcasting organizations such as the UK’s BBC Three and U.S. based youth driven VICE Media. These films, directed towards and available online for transnational audiences, produce a popular discourse of universal sexuality. This discourse reifies Euro-American center and its teleological temporal schema imagines the sexuality of the other as lagging behind the center requiring the labor of catching up to its ideals. While these films make visible the center, they deploy tropes that devoid others of epistemological agency, historical specificity, and contextual complexity. In this paper, I closely read documentary films and features such as Oriented (2015), How Gay is Pakistan (2015), Dream Boat (2017), and Being LGBT in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (2017) and demonstrate how they function individually as well as in cohesion with one another to produce a discourse of sexuality within the frameworks of freedom and unfreedom, abundance and lack, and timeliness and belatedness.

The People Could Fly: (Re)Imagining the Slave Experience Through Afrofuturistic Readings of a Black Folktale • Taryn Myers • “They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic. And they would walk up on the air like climbin up on a gate. And they flew like blackbirds over the fields” (Hamilton, 1985, p. 166). This is the introduction to Black folktale, The People Could Fly, written by world-renowned children and young adult fiction writer, Virginia Hamilton. This introduction illustrates the purpose of this essay which is to demonstrate the traces of mythical Africa that exist in Black folktales. By theorizing Hamilton’s folktale through the framework of Afrofuturism, this essay will highlight the emancipatory potential prevalent in Afrofuturistic renderings of the Black American experience. This analysis will specifically focus on the folktale named for the title of the book, The People Could Fly.

Old Norms, New Platforms: Objectivity and U.S. Reporting About Race in a Digital Era • Carolyn Nielsen, Western Washington University • This study examined the journalism norm of objectivity as conceptualized by U.S. reporters who cover racial issues in Traditional and emerging, digitally enabled models of journalism called Interactive Race Beat and Journalism 3.0. Data from interviews with journalists in each model show how Traditional journalists who cover racial issues are pushing back against objectivity as an outdated norm and how journalists working in the two emerging, digitally enabled models never subscribed to the concept of objectivity because it centers Whiteness, tells reporters to ignore their own identities, and serves to perpetuate racial stereotyping. These findings, interpreted through the lenses of new institutionalism and the Hierarchy of Influences Model, show a strong departure from a longitudinal body of scholarship documenting how Traditional journalists have strongly valued objectivity as a norm. Data also show how reporters in the new models did not bring objectivity into new journalism spaces.

The Discipline-Autonomy Paradox: How Journalism Textbooks Construct Reporters’ Freedom Just to Tear It Down • Perry Parks, Michigan State University • This study foregrounds the paradox in journalism culture whereby journalists are taught both that they have substantial freedom of judgment and that they must constrain such judgment to meet the narrow, often unspoken common-sense expectations of their peers. Through the lens of Foucault’s concept of discipline, I analyze this contradictory discourse in 75 journalism textbooks spanning the birth of formal journalism education at the turn of the 20th century through the present era.

Tsunamis on the U.S.-Mexico Border? Use of metaphors in news coverage of unaccompanied minors • Christa Reynolds, University of Arizona; Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante, University of Arizona • This study uses content analysis to examine newspaper coverage of unaccompanied Central American minors who crossed to the United States in 2014. The paper builds on previous research on immigration coverage that focuses on the use of metaphors and the sources that are included in news reports. Findings demonstrated that metaphors were used in more than half of all news reports, suggesting that this practice not changed much in the past 20 years.

Public Discourse at a Moment of Racial Reckoning in a Progressive City:  An ideological analysis • Sue Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Applying racial formation theory, this research argues that when progressivism becomes the status quo, it loses its focus on reform and progress. A Critical Discourse Analysis reveals how the ideology evolves into a “racial project” perpetuating systems of oppression. When a moment of racial reckoning emerges, politicians, activists, journalists, and engaged citizens employ discursive strategies to uncover privileges, call out (dis)-trusting relationships, and reclaim the dominant narrative around what reform and progress really look like.

Democratizing Online Journalism Labor: Freelance Journalists’ International Battles Over Digital Rights • Errol Salamon, University of Pennsylvania • Grounded in a critical political economy of communication approach, this paper builds on the concept of alternative communication, examining the labor organizing efforts of freelance journalists at the international level and the digital media tools that they use to resist unfair freelance contracts. It relies on a digital labor standpoint methodology of documentary sources from a freelancers’ international labor organization and one media company.

Numinous Fortune and Holy Money: Dave Ramsey’s Cruel Optimism • John Sewell, The University of West Georgia • This essay is an ideological analysis of Dave Ramsey’s best-selling book, The Total Money Makeover, to parse how its messages implicitly and explicitly promote neoliberal ideology. It is argued that Ramsey persuades by melding the bootstrap narrative, the appeal of American “givens,” and a self-presentational style akin to Lakoff’s (2002) “strict father” model, delivering an oversimplified message to an audience desirous of “straight talk.” Ramsey’s rhetoric supports neoliberal ideology by overlapping popular American mythologies and motifs to deliver a message of virtuous independence that is attained, quite simply, by (first) paying one’s bills and (then) amassing wealth. Building wealth is a virtue, and the wealthy are the virtuous. Ramsey’s common sense worldview finds its basis in the amorphous religiosity of just plain folks and cruel optimism. Ramsey deftly straddles the tangible, lived world of economics and the intangible world of the spiritual by positioning himself as neither a prophet nor an expert, either a prophet or an expert, and as being both a prophet and an expert—whichever of these argumentative positions works best, given the exigencies of a particular utterance. Ramsey paints himself as a rebel who mounts his opposition from within the system: He is a rich capitalist who defies lenders and America’s culture of debt; he is suspicious of academics and avowedly anti-elitist; the personal finance strategies he advocates are framed as nonconformity, nevertheless yielding a contingent neoliberal Truth that is anything but emancipatory for the lower-middle class readers Ramsey claims as over half of his audience.

Teenagers, Terrorism, and Technopanic: How British Newspapers Framed Female ISIS Recruits as Victims of Social Media • Sara Shaban, University of Missouri • In 2015, three teenage girls from London were recruited by ISIS via social media. British news discourse focused on the role of gender and technology in ISIS recruitment. Through the lens of technopanic, a textual analysis of British newspapers revealed two dominant themes: 1) the victimization of female ISIS recruits and 2) the technological fetishism of social media focused on individualized solutions rather than engaging discourse on the appeal of anti-Western ideologies.

Othering by historicizing: The journalistic technique of locating foreign societies in the past • Miki Tanikawa • Drawing on cultural theories, this article probed the “myth” in the news (international) using a combined quantitative and qualitative framework for investigation. Three major newspapers in three different countries were content analyzed and found that most articles that pivot on well-known foreign cultural stereotypes or a mythical image invoke one of three types of theme/content: a well-known point of ancient history, a media myth built over decades or a “lived” experience of the audience.

Taxi Drivers as Reporters: Studying the Distinctive Journalism of the UTCC Voice Newsletter • Krishnan Vasudevan, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park • In 2008, a group of immigrant taxi drivers in Chicago began publishing a monthly newsletter called the UTCC Voice. The newsletter blends elements of investigative journalism, community organizing and opinion writing. As the multimodal grounded analysis of this study found the UTCC Voice is a space for taxi drivers to report on human rights abuses against them, develop a cohesive voice and identity, and present themselves outside the realm of harmful stereotypes.

Anti-Establishment Voices: Tensions of Fascism and Postmodernity in Balkan Rock Music • Christian Vukasovich • Following the Balkan civil wars ethno-nationalism continues to impact identity both in the former Yugoslav republics and abroad among the diaspora. The rise of ethno-nationalism and far right populism in political discourse has been preceded and is presently accompanied by fascist discourse in popular culture throughout Europe. In this paper the author examines how a popular rock music group (Laibach) rearticulate fascist symbolism through their polarizing concert events. More specifically, the author conducts a rhetorical analysis of both groups’ music, images, pageantry and lyrics in order to interrogate the celebrations of fascism in their performances. The author examines the tensions reproduction and representation, as well as how the concerts discursively construct history, culture, nationhood, religion and belonging that undermine contemporary ideologies of fascism through extreme performance and deconstruction.

Glocal Television Possibilities: When Guyana Meets US Appeals • Carolyn Walcott, Georgia State University; Emeka Umejei, Wits, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa • This paper examines the responses of Guyanese audiences to the flow of cultural products from Hollywood through the lens of hybridity and homogenization. Building on the concept of Contra-flow of cultural artifacts, the study provides an audience reception analysis of 560 Guyanese. A total of 560 questionnaires were self-administered on 560 Guyanese in the capital city and its outskirts, based on a random sample of respondents’ representative of the demographics within those areas. The findings suggest a predominant local appeal for global content based on perceived superior production quality. The survey also reveals an appreciation for locally produced genres that meet international standards thus accounting for the hybridization that characterizes local productions that borrow from US formats.  Homogenization also reveals itself through local films produced by CineGuyana film producers as Glocalized cultural artifacts capable of creating modest cultural contraflows.

Local Identity in a Global City: Social Media Discourse of Hong Kong Localist Movement • Yidong Wang • The discursive construction of a local identity was central to the Hong Kong localist movement. I investigated how this local identity was constructed in Facebook posts by localist groups. It was found that the colonial past was purified through the narrative of the “local youth” and was used to distance the local identity from the Chinese identity. However, the redemption of the local through the non-local failed to institutionalize the interests of local communities.

Making Sense of Tastemaking: How Music Journalists Interpret Culture — and Their Place in It • Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin • Through in-depth interviews with 10 music journalists at various American publications, this research applies critical cultural theory and the concepts of taste and high vs. low culture to lifestyle journalism and cultural criticism. It explores how music journalists interpret popular culture and situate music journalism within it. Although music journalists don’t like to be labeled “tastemakers,” they contribute to the development of taste while seeking to inform readers about music and create distinct authorial voices.

Examining Affordances of African Agency through Cultural Brokerage in Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown • Tewodros Workneh, Kent State University • An award-winning CNN prime time culinary adventure reality television show, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown explores various global social groups and their cuisine. Drawing on postcolonial approaches and the intercultural contact notion of cultural brokerage, this study critically examines the portrayal of Africa and Africans in Parts Unknown. The study concludes, whereas immersed brokers in the show resurface outdated and clichéd images of Africa, hybrid brokers offer pathways of African agency.

2018 ABSTRACTS