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Internship and Careers 2014 Abstracts

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Punctuation professionals: A historical analysis of newsroom copy editing • Alyssa Appelman, The Pennsylvania State University • This analysis explores the profession of newsroom copy editing. Through historical descriptive analysis, it presents an overview of the 120-year history of the profession of newsroom copy editing in the context of four themes: changes in newsroom technologies, changes in newsroom business models, changes in attitudes toward the profession, and changes in advice for future copy editors. It concludes with a discussion of the profession’s current struggles.

BP in ICIG: Three levels of assessment • John Chapin, Pennsylvania State University • The internship should be among the most valuable experiences of a college career. In addition to proper advising and guidance in finding, selecting, and procuring the right internship, assessment plays a key role in maintaining quality control within the program and gauging student success. This poster illustrates three levels of assessment (evaluation of the student, evaluation of the site, and evaluation of the program).

Using Klout to Teach Online Influence and Social Networking Skills to PR, Advertising and New Media Majors • Mia Moody-Ramirez, Baylor University; Sydney Garcia, Baylor • This essay uses a constructivist approach to offer suggestions for using the social media aggregator, Klout, to help PR, advertising and new media majors build their online influence. First, it explains the social media platform, and then it offers strategies for incorporating Klout into course curriculum, student resumes and digital portfolios. With the rise of Web 2.0, a multitude of new possibilities for how to use online technologies for active learning has interested academics. Evolving technologies and high employer expectations in a narrowing job market require innovation and adaptation of journalism/public relations and advertising teaching materials. Professors may use applications such as Klout to enliven and augment college curriculum and to help prepare students for the tightening job market.

A career in journalism or just a job: An examination of job satisfaction and professionalism • Greg Pitts, University of North Alabama; Blythe Steelman, University of North Alabama • We are living in a world of digital content but journalists still have jobs and they like what they do. This quantitative survey found job satisfaction and professionalism among the news workers in Chicago. Students (and faculty) may wonder about the suitability of a journalism career but journalists are satisfied with the freedom afforded by the job, the satisfaction they are doing something worthwhile and even the treatment they receive in the workplace.

Taking it one game at a time: Prevalence of temporary work in North Carolinian newspapers’ sports departments • Sada Reed, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Shrinking newsrooms have led to a variety of concerns for industry professionals and academics. Though a shrinking full-time staff and a growing temporary, freelance workforce has been blamed for slipping journalistic standards, little research has been done on the actual prevalence of precarious work in local sports departments. The following paper is a pilot study that explores the prevalence of precarious work in sports departments at North Carolinian newspapers. In this study, 25 department heads hailing from North Carolinian newspapers participated in a survey that examined whether North Carolinian sports departments have lost full-time employees in the last year; if they have gained unpaid or temporary workers to “replace” these full-time employees; and for sports departments that have lost employees, how many departments plan to replace the full-time employees they lost with “new” full-time employees.

The Value of the College Internship: Acquiring Cultural Capital through a well-managed collegiate program • Mary Beth Ray, Temple University; Dana Saewitz, Temple University • In response to the recent flurry of lawsuits regarding the exploitation of interns and the negative press regarding internships, this mixed method study addresses a number of timely questions: Are undergraduate internships valuable or exploitive? Do they actually lead to jobs and careers? Are they essential to break in to certain fields? Do they adhere to current labor laws? Are they illegal? Our key findings indicate that most college graduates who engaged in undergraduate internships, even if they were unpaid, felt that the internship was valuable. Internships inherently help students develop necessary cultural capital such as mode of dress, professional speech and language patterns, posture and personal grooming, appropriate eye contact, behavior in meetings, and written behaviors, which are all part of the professional code that students must learn. In addition, our findings indicate that most internships do not lead directly to employment at the internship site, although they are widely perceived by college graduates as helpful in career preparation. Finally, almost half of internships violate current labor laws and many students feel exploited by unpaid internships. To address these issues, this study presents recommendations for internship program best practices and recommends that universities band together and follow the lead of Conde Nast publications, which has banned all unpaid internships.

Perceptions, Experiences, and News Routines of Entry-level Journalists in Local Television News • Andrea Tanner, University of South Carolina; Elena Faria; Jenni Knight; Yue Zheng, University of South Carolina • This study qualitatively explores the perceptions, experiences, and news routines of entry-level journalists working in local television news in the United States. Seventeen in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with entry-level journalists from varying geographical regions and media markets. Journalists were often influenced by their news managers and the need to cover stories that could be produced under deadline across multiple media. Findings have implications for students, journalism educators, and news managers who work alongside millennials.

Connecting Theory with Practice: Strategies for Improving Academic Rigor in Internships • Bob Trumpbour, Penn State Altoona • This poster will attempt to convey successful strategies for enhancing the academic rigor as it relates to the college internship experience. The poster will explore ways that XXXX University faculty have connected classroom work and assigned readings to an internship experience as a mechanism to improve the degree of professional exhibited by internship applicants. The poster will offer strategies for implementing academic rigor into the overall planning process, while offering tangible strategies that have worked for us at XXXXX University. Our program has had numerous students working in locations such as New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Nashville, and Pittsburgh, with some settings sufficiently impractical to allow for face-to-face meetings as the internship process unfolds. As a result, the poster will also offer ideas for implementing these strategies for internship recipients who may be working at distant locations. We will attempt to tease out tangible examples, while pointing out ways that our strategies have worked. We will also lay out potential challenges and possible issues that may be faced when implementing our strategies and ideas.

2014 Abstracts

Graduate Student 2014 Abstracts

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Evaluating Stakeholders’ Interpretations of Corporate Sustainability Communications • Lauren Bayliss, University of Florida • As organizations turn their attention to improving sustainable practices, it becomes increasingly important to communicate those practices with stakeholders. However, in a diverse society, stakeholder perceptions of corporate sustainability communications may vary widely. Therefore, this study explores how stakeholders’ personal values influence their assessments of organizational values and reputation in the context of corporate sustainability communications. Using literature regarding corporate reputation, selective perception, and values theory, a framework is proposed for understanding the relationship among these constructs. It is proposed that stakeholder evaluations of reputation are influenced by the similarity or dissimilarity of organizational values to stakeholder values. Furthermore, in the case when values are not clearly identified in communications, it is proposed that stakeholders’ selective perception of an organization’s values will be influenced by the stakeholders’ own values. To explore this framework, a study was conducted in a controlled setting. Participants first reported their own values using the Short Schwartz’s Value Survey (Lindeman & Verkasalo, 2005). Then, after viewing corporate sustainability communication materials for fictitious companies, participants responded to surveys regarding the companies’ reputations and perceived values. The results were analyzed using a series of dependent samples t-tests and correlations. Several relationships were uncovered, including indications that participants may, in some cases, selectively perceive a company’s value priorities to be opposite to their own. Furthermore, certain reputations scale items were found to be related to particular values. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Ego, Engagement, and Exchange of Information: A Narcissistic Social Media Culture Can Save Watchdog Journalism • Ginger Blackstone, University of Florida • Utilizing social learning theory, this study presents a conceptual model with eight propositions that connects a narcissistic social media culture to the consumption of watchdog journalism through the mediator of online community building. Self-presentation and need to belong are moderators between the narcissistic social media culture and online community building; and affective appeal, internal locus of control, and civic engagement are the moderators between online community building and the consumption of watchdog journalism.

Molly Vs. Goliath: Studying the Relationship Between Social & Mass Media in Contemporary Social Activism • Kyle Brown, McMaster University • Historically, one of the greatest challenges facing social and political activists is the ability to deliver their message to the public. Due to constraints, such as a limited newshole and reliance on official sources in mass media, activist voices often fall on deaf ears. This study examines Molly Matchpole’s use of social media in a campaign against Bank of America, leveraging public support and mainstream media coverage, as she successfully halted the bank’s unfair fees.

Missing from the News: Local Coverage of Missing Persons’ Stories • Lindsey Conlin, The University of Alabama • News coverage of missing people has consistently focused on stories of young, attractive, upper-to-middle-class white women, known as Missing White Woman Syndrome. Research on this topic has generally compared the cases of missing white women to missing black women, leaving the literature lacking on how stories about all types of missing people are covered by journalists. The current study proposes sociological reasons for how stories about missing people are covered, and employs a content analysis to examine a large sample of local newspaper stories. Results show that journalists perceive stories about missing white women to be deviant, and that journalists integrate writing about missing people into their news routines. Implications for news coverage are discussed.

How The “Like Us On Facebook” Brand Strategy Fosters A Goal-Specific Virtual Identity: A Model • Naa Amponsah Dodoo, University of Florida • In total, the top five brands on Facebook have more than 500 million fans through the “like” Facebook button feature and yet research shows that about only 1% engage with the top brands on Facebook. This suggests that individuals have other underlying reasons for liking brands’ Facebook pages. To address the question of the latent motivations for liking brands on Facebook, a conceptual model that presents latent constructs of why individuals like the brand’s Facebook page either through the like button on Facebook or on the brand’s website is developed and described. This is termed in this paper as the “Like us on Facebook” brand strategy which refers to the use of the like button feature of Facebook by brands seeking to establish a social presence on Facebook. The proposed conceptual model is derived from and explained by literature sourced from social influence, socio-economic status, brand personality, self-congruity, self-disclosure and social identity to suggest that the “Like us on Facebook” brand strategy fosters a goal- specific virtual identity. In addition a typology of goal-specific virtual identity categorized into self-presentation, belonging and enlightened self-interest is explicated. Propositions testable through future research and implications of the model are offered.

Journalists as News Consumers: An Analysis of National Coverage of the Kermit Gosnell Trial • Thomas Gallagher, Temple University • This paper examines the changing relationship between producers of news and consumers of news. Employing a textual analysis of US national media coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial in 2013, this paper reveals how social media provides opportunities for consumers of news to directly critique news coverage and how producers of news learn of stories to cover. Issues of political bias, moral decency and censorship, and race and class division also arise to influence unique coverage of the trial.

Traitor or a whistleblower: How newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia framed Edward Snowden? • Nisha Garud, Ohio University • This study examined three newspapers — The New York Times, The Guardian and The Moscow Times — in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia respectively to study how these newspapers framed Snowden. The study analyzed the content for frequency of news stories, story position, page position and frames. It was found that The New York Times used neutral descriptors for Snowden but framed him negatively in its stories. The Guardian framed Snowden positively, and The Moscow Times framed Snowden neutrally. Snowden was mostly called as a whistleblower or an NSA employee.

The Phantom of Walter Lippmann, and Walter Lippmann’s Phantom: Understanding Responses to Present Crises Facing Journalism • Nicholas Gilewicz, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania • This article comprises a critical review essay of a dozen books published about crises facing journalism from 2007 to the present. Reviewing these texts reveals the liminal position of journalists in the U.S. political economy—media observers appeal to the quasi-scientific expertise journalists claim, while also explicating journalists’ position as representing the voice of a wider public. This cognitive dissonance echoes the so-called “Lippmann-Dewey debates,” even as, a century on, “the public” has radically evolved.

Cultivating and Sustaining a Business’s Community of Practice: How Content Influences Responses on Facebook Pages • Ren-Whei Harn, University of Kansas • Content analysis was applied to examine wall posts themes on a business’s Facebook page and analyze the relationship between the theme and response type. Other characteristics such as visual content and acquisition of content were also recorded and analyzed in terms of frequency and effect on response type. This research took an interdisciplinary approach to understand interaction between a brand and its followers from the perspective of understanding the online user as a lifelong learner.

Nostalgic Advertising and Self-Regard • ILYOUNG JU • Viewers’ past memories and experiences are important indicators for generating positive self-regard. Issues relating to self-verification, loneliness, autobiographic memory, wistful attitude, psychological comfort, self-enhancement, and meaning in a life are addressed. The model offers propositions for the future research of nostalgic advertising. The present study will provide insightful implications for advertisers and marketers by analyzing people’s psychological process and intrinsic values rather than their extrinsic goals.

Motivated Exposure to Counter-attitudinal Information in an Online Political Forum • Sungmin Kang, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Does the structure of diverse information automatically expose Internet users to counter-attitudinal information? Are all Internet users embedded in the same structure compelled to receive attitude-inconsistent contents at the same level? A review of research on cross-cutting exposure aroused these critical questions. Using data collected from 341 participants in an online political forum, this study explored motivations for using online political forums and investigated the relationship between motivations and cross-cutting exposure. The first set of results employed Principle Component Analysis in order to identify factors for using online forum and identified four motivations: self-enhancing information seeking, comprehensive information seeking, pass time, and interpersonal interaction. By using those four motivations, the second set of results used hierarchical regression analysis that revealed comprehensive information seeking and interpersonal interaction were positively associated with cross-cutting exposure. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Exploring Motivations for Social Media Use and their Antecedents • Timothy Macafee • Social media allows individuals to engage in a variety of activities, some more laborious than others. People can seek and share information and they can communication with others. Examining the motivations for engaging in these behaviors is useful to uncover the utility of these sites. In addition, examining what factors drive motivations for using social media may uncover additional patterns to explain why people visit these sites. Using a two-study approach, including a convenience pilot study and a U.S. representative sample survey, the study suggests individuals’ motivations revolve around conversation and information exchange, and several demographic and attention to information factors relate to these motivations. The study is a preliminary look at the current state of motivations for using social media and antecedents to these motivations.

Framing cyberbullying in US mainstream media • Tijana Milosevic, American University • This study relies on content analysis of US mainstream print and TV coverage to explore how cyberbullying has been framed from 2006-2013, primarily in terms of who and what causes cyberbullying (causal responsibility) and which individuals, institutions and policies are responsible for taking care of the issue (treatment responsibility). Despite the rising frequency of this phenomenon, a comprehensive content-analysis of this kind has not yet been conducted. Based on research on episodic and thematic framing, this study finds that TV coverage is more episodic in nature- triggered by individual cyberbullying incidents- than the print coverage. Episodic frames focus attention on individuals rather than institutions or broader social forces, which are typically present in thematic frames. This finding has important implications for cyberbullying prevention: when issues are framed episodically audiences tend to attribute causal and treatment responsibility for issues to individuals involved in these incidents and not to institutions and society.

Hero, Traitor, Whistle Blower or Criminal? A Cross-Cultural Framing Analysis of the Edward Snowden Controversy • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Catasha Davis, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Alberto Orellana-Campos, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Hsun-Chih Huang; TZU-YU CHANG, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Edward Snowden’s leaks about the United States’ data collection efforts were a worldwide story in 2013. Newspapers around the world followed the story, but hardly spoke with one voice. Though some have argued for the emergence of global frames in media, this content analysis of coverage in six countries finds differences across a variety of dimensions. We argue that though information travels easily, meaning construction is still a localized process.

Media Portrayals of Hashtag Activism: A Framing Analysis of Canada’s #IdleNoMore Movement • Derek Moscato, University of Oregon • The confluence of activism and social media – legitimized by efforts such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Movements – represents a growing area of mainstream media focus. The ability of social media tools (such as Twitter’s hashtags) to diffuse and amplify information and ideas has afforded new media outreach opportunities for activists and advocates of various movements. The growing legitimacy of such movements invites more scrutiny of portrayals of these online causes by traditional media, and in particular the media framing of such movements. Using Canada’s recent #IdleNoMore movement as a case, this study uses framing theory to better understand how traditional media are representing activism born of social media such as Twitter. #IdleNoMore is an activist movement that launched in November 2012, focused on raising awareness of political, economic, social and environmental issues specific to Indigenous populations in Canada and internationally . A qualitative framing analysis is used to identify frames present in media reporting of #IdleNoMore during its first two months by two prominent Canadian publications, Maclean’s magazine and the Globe and Mail newspaper. While these frames often serve the purpose of a media outlet’s mandate — to report, to mediate, to debate, to entertain or to take a political or economic position — they can also leverage the efforts of activists by providing history and context while also widening perspectives.

Motivations for Instagram Use: A Q-Method Analysis • Rachel Nielsen, Brigham Young University; Mindy Weston • As a relatively new medium, Instagram has been neglected in the scholarly realm. This exploratory research seeks to understand what types of people use Instagram and what these users perceive as their motivations for Instagram use. A Q-method analysis revealed four archetypal Instagram users and perceived motivations for Instagram use that include fulfilling social needs, seeking out entertainment, finding or sharing information, and engaging in a user-friendly format and a positive social environment.

The Antecedents of Interactive Loyalty through a Structural Equation Model • Anthony Palomba • Consumers engage in video game consoles by playing video games or accessing alternative entertainment options through them. Brand loyalty towards video game consoles may have several antecedents. Gender, genre of video games and network externality may impact brand loyalty, mediated by perceptions of video game console brand personalities. This study investigated these relationships by conducting a principal component factor analysis and testing a structural equation model.

Factors affecting CSR evaluation: Type of CSR and Consumer Characteristics • Young Eun Park, Indiana University; Hyunsang Son, University of Texas • This study, employing survey method with actual U.S. consumers rather than student samples, investigates the relationship between specific types of CSR activities (human rights, environment, labor conditions, anti-corruption) and consumers’ demographic (age, gender, and income) and psychological (involvement, need for uniqueness, and innovativeness) traits to anticipate consumers’ evaluation of CSR and behavioral intention (intention to subscribe telecommunication service). Results indicate involvement and need for uniqueness are positively related to CSR evaluation and subscription intention.

Added in Translation: Adapting Hollywood Movies to Bollywood • Enakshi Roy, Ohio University • This study uses the theoretical framework of Glocalization to compare three popular Hollywood movies Mrs. Doubtfire, Fatal Attraction and Patch Adams to their adapted versions which were made in Bollywood. The study uses textual analysis to examine the movies. It was found that family structure, emotions, religion, construction of a normative narrative and songs were used as cultural signifiers and were inserted in the storyline to make the movies acceptable to the Indian audiences. Moreover, within the familial set-up, an authoritarian patriarchal character was introduced to make the movies relatable to the Indian context.

Journalistic Values, A Concept Explication: Personal and Professional Norms, Entrepreneurship, and Media Innovation • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri/Missouri School of Journalism • Digital distribution has allowed entrepreneurs and innovators to capture revenues that traditionally supported journalism. In response, scholars have argued that journalists must become entrepreneurs. This paper offers an explication of “journalistic values.” A definition of journalistic values is offered as those ideal behaviors and beliefs that are commonly held by individual journalists in a culture. This proposed definition is discussed in the context of implications for research involving entrepreneurial journalism and media innovation.

Silicon Valley and Hollywood: Newspaper Coverage of Regional Business Clusters • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri/Missouri School of Journalism • This study examined coverage of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood entertainment companies in the San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. It found support for a connection between the presence of a strong regional industrial agglomeration such as Silicon Valley or Hollywood and business news content—and for an interest regardless of location in covering large technology companies, particularly Apple, Google, and Facebook, that are known as experienced frame-makers.

Tweeting Through the Good and the Bad: An Examination of the Spiral of Silence in the Age of Twitter • Annelie Schmittel, University of Florida; Kevin Hull, University of Florida • Researchers have examined how fan reactions change based on team success, but updated literature is lacking in the age of social media. This paper addresses how fans used Twitter during a rivalry game, and if the spiral of silence remains an appropriate framework when fans are online. Results demonstrate that fans do not go silent if their team is losing, and that traditionally recognized methods of celebration and disappointment are not occurring on Twitter.

Geoengineering: The Fate of the World or Humankind? A Framing Analysis • Yulia A. Strekalova; Angela Colonna • This study is a qualitative framing analysis that assessed the dominant frames of geoengineering in major U.S. newspapers then compared these frames to dominant U.K. frames found in a past study. A total of 48 articles were analyzed from a database of major American newspapers. The study found four dominant U.S. frames on geoengineering, and an overlap of the U.S. frames with the U.K. frames with subtle but distinct differences.

Stigmatizing Content and Missing Messages in Anti-Stigma PSAs on Mental Illness • Roma Subramanian, University of Missouri • Guided by the conceptual framework of stigma, a textual analysis of anti-mental illness stigma PSAs produced by prominent mental health organizations in this country over the past decade was conducted. It was found that the PSAs focused on changing individual- level attitudes toward stigma and ignored issues of structural stigma. The study raises questions about how the different forms of stigma interact, which in turn has implications for the design of anti-stigma interventions.

Mobile Health Apps Use: The Role of Ownership, Health Efficacy and Motivation • Yen-I Lee, Bowling Green State University; Dinah Tetteh, Bowling Green State University • This study explored motivation, health efficacy, mobile phone ownership, and demographic elements as factors to help predict use of mobile health apps among college students and the general population. Surveying participants from the Midwest United States, we found that ownership of mobile devices was not a predictor of health app use for both populations and that health efficacy was a predictor of health app use for the general population but not for the student population.

Melted: Iceland’s Failed Experiment with Radical Transparency • A.Jay Wagner • As information continues to digitize, governments are rethinking their information policies, from intellectual property to transparency. These reconsiderations are closely related to Appadurai’s notion that the strength of the nation-state is diminishing in the globalized world, with cultures moving to a more influential position. In the wake of a catastrophic financial collapse, Iceland adopted a slate of progressive media laws set to invert traditional ideas of government accountability. The laws taken together act as the reification of digital libertarian principles as proselytized by digital pioneer John Perry Barlow. The digital libertarian movement evolved out of the 60s U.S. counterculture as a response to the mass society of their parents’ generation. Closely tied with the tenets of Stewart Brand, his Whole Earth Catalog, and the Bay Area hippie scene, the nascent movement stressed finding personal fulfillment through independence. The following generation shared a distrust in authority, but also a skepticism of the counterculture’s idealism. Instead of fearing uniformity, they saw mass surveillance as their primary threat, and they looked to establish accountable measures to ward off increased state obstruction. This past spring, playing on a slow to rebound króna, the centrist Progressive Party would sweep into government and begin unraveling the populist gains. This paper explores Iceland’s experimentation with digital libertarianism, the concept’s cultural path, and its ultimate failure, while considering the political manipulation that assured that neither IMMI nor the populist constitution would ever be fully ratified, but instead used as another device of placation.

The Cognitive and Affective Effects of Country-of-Origin: How Consumers Process Country-of-Assembly and Country-of-Design for High and Low Involvement Products • Linwan Wu; ILYOUNG JU • A study was conducted to investigate how COA and COD information is processed by consumers for high and low involvement products. Results indicated that COA was more likely to be processed cognitively, while COD tended to be processed affectively. For high involvement products, the only presentation of COD with a positive image elicited the most favorable affective product evaluation. For low involvement products, no difference of cognitive product evaluation was detected.

To Approve or to Protest: The Influence of Internet Use on the Valence of Political Participation in Authoritarian China • Jun Xiang, The Univeristy of Arizona • Advances in technology have changed the way citizens participate in politics. Using latest data as part of the Asian Barometer, this paper explores the influence of the Internet use on the valence of political participation in authoritarian China. Specifically, this research explores whether use of the Internet correlates with lower levels of election participation as a way to approve, and higher levels of activism participation as a way to protest. This research also examines whether there are indirect effects of Internet use through trust in the Chinese government on the valence of political participation. Finally, the study examines whether these indirect effects vary by levels of satisfaction with democracy in current China. Results show indirect effects of Internet use through trust in government in both election participation and activism participation. This paper also shows that satisfaction with democracy moderated the indirect effects of Internet use.

2014 Abstracts

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender 2014 Abstracts

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Saying Goodbye to Men: Southern Feminists Publishing News While Challenging Patriarchy • Jose Araiza • In 1975, a lesbian separatist newsletter named Goodbye to All That (GTAT) was published in Austin, Texas, to challenge patriarchy in the left. This textual analysis guided by standpoint feminist theory analyzed how the women struggled to define feminism for themselves. While GTAT was similar to lesbian publications of the same era, GTAT covered the topics of sex, dyke separatism, and motherhood in a unique fashion that could be partially attributed to their Southern heritage.

“Look at Keelin and Caster Now!”: The Olympic Body In Resistance to Hegemonic Norms • Sim Butler, University of Alabama; Kim Bissell • Disability scholars (Lindemann, 2010; Longmore, 2003; Garland-Thompson, 2011; McRuer & Mollow, 2012) argue that the cultural articulation of which bodies are “normal” segregates, regulates, and demeans people whose bodies are deemed disabled, while elevating other bodies as most enviable. Keelin Godsey, a transgendered hammer thrower, and Caster Semenya, a sprinter whose identity as a female was officially and publically scrutinized, represent a pair of non-normative bodies with Olympic aspirations. The qualification process of Godsey and Semenya during the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games (LSOG) highlights one of the many challenges created in the construction, mediation, and reaction to athlete’s bodies and to society’s perceptions of able-bodiedness. This project seeks to examine the role of athletic competition as a means of resistance to normative constructions of the body through a critical/cultural rhetorical analysis of the qualification process of Caster Semenya and Keelin Godsey. Continuing the connections made by West (2010) and McRuer and Mollow (2012), we ask how narratives of non-normative body constructions might resist or maintain hegemonic constructions of athletic bodies within sport. Given that athletic competition stands as a public measure of ability, situations like those embedded in the 2012 LSOG could create spaces to call into question the social construction of able-bodiedness in a number of ways and is part of the impetus for the current project. These and other implications are considered.

Sport Journalists’ Framing of Gay NBA Player Jason Collins • Edward Kian, Oklahoma State University; Danny Shipka, Oklahoma State University • A textual analysis examined popular U.S. newspapers and websites’ framing of Jason Collins’ coming out as the first ‘active’ gay athlete in a popular U.S. professional men’s teamsport. Journalists framed Collins’ outing as historic and those criticizing Collins as antiquated outliers. Whereas Collins was praised as a hero, journalists noted he might never play again, mitigating his impact. Overall, media framed sport as an inclusive institution for gays, countering most scholarship on homosexuality in sport.

Incidental contact with same-sex couples in non-traditional news content: An examination of exemplification and parasocial contact effects • Jessica Myrick, Indiana University; Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • A news report about the lack of insurance availability for non-married couples, presented in news blog format, was manipulated to create versions differing in exemplar type (straight unmarried couple, same-sex unmarried couple) and story perspective (first person, third person). Readers evaluated the quality of the news article and estimated the number of American companies that offer health insurance benefits to domestic partners and the percentage of the population that identifies as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Respondents also completed measures of intergroup anxiety, empathy, social distance, and attitudes toward GLBT individuals, in addition to measures of behavioral intentions related to support for changes in health insurance public policy. Exemplification effects on estimates of the prevalence of sexual minorities were not found; however, those viewing same-sex exemplars were more likely to indicate willingness to take action to support changes in health insurance policy for domestic partners than were those viewing straight exemplars. Stories using straight exemplars and presented in the third person and those using same-sex exemplars and presented in the first person elicited higher levels of empathy than did third-person stories with same-sex exemplars and first-person stories with straight exemplars. Implications for journalists and public policy message creators are discussed.

Moral Panic in a Pandemic: A Historical Analysis of HIV Coverage and the America Responds to AIDS Campaign in 1987 • Chelsea Reynolds, University of Minnesota • This article presents a historical media analysis of the Reagan administration’s HIV/AIDS prevention efforts during 1987. It positions Reagan’s reticence surrounding HIV education within cultural, political, and mediated contexts using Cohen’s 1972 definition of moral panic as the driving framework. This paper argues that despite health authorities’ push for media to integrate risk behaviors into HIV prevention messages, Reagan and the CDC focused on scapegoat populations rather than on behavioral interventions.

Framing Same-sex Marriage in Taiwan: The Persuasive Appeal Frame • Mengchieh Jacie Yang; JhuCin Jhang, University of Texas at Austin • The current study focuses on how news media coverage same-sex marriage issues in Taiwan. With a framing perspective and news articles collected from Yahoo News Taiwan, the study found that international news stories significantly outnumbered those of the local news. Local news articles on same-sex marriage usually started with an episodic frame, but were supported by thematic quotes that rely heavily on several gender equality advocacy groups. The dominant frame the authors found in most news articles covering same-sex marriage in Taiwan was the Persuasive Appeal Frame. The Persuasive Appeal Frame includes three appeals based on Aristotle’s (Rhetoric) framework: the authoritative appeal, reasoning appeal, and emotional appeal. Implications and suggestions are also discussed.

Framing Gay Marriage in Leading U.S. Newspapers and TV Networks • Yue Zheng, University of South Carolina • Using a quantitatively analysis of 410 news stories from six newspapers and three TV networks from 2004 to 2013, this study explored how Mass media organized the gay marriage stories, what issue attributes they presented to support/oppose gay marriage, and what story tone it was. The study also examined the different visibility of the news frame between newspaper and television, between liberal and conservative newspapers, as well as across time period.

2014 Abstracts

Entertainment Studies 2014 Abstracts

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Da Ali G Show: A Critique on Identity in Times of Satiric Infotainment • Paul Alonso, Georgia Tech • This article explores how British comedian Baron Cohen used the journalistic and marginalized configuration of his characters (Ali G, a white, wannabe gangster from the middle-class London suburb of Staines who hosted a TV show; Bruno, an exhibitionist, gay Austrian fashion reporter obsessed with celebrity culture; and Borat, an anti-Semitic, sexist correspondent from Kazakhstan who violated social taboos with his outrageous viewpoints and behavior) to develop a postmodern structural critique on media spectacle, mediated-reality and identity in today’s western societies. This article goes beyond the notion of “satiric infotainment” as “fake news” to show how the “journalistic” component of Baron Cohen’s characters becomes an initial (but essential) departure to develop a complex, multilayered social critique.

Emotional Responses to Savior Films: Concealing Privilege or Appealing to our Better Selves? • Erin Ash, Clemson University • This research explores the effects of “White savior” films, best described as films in which a White character displays extraordinary acts of kindness and selflessness towards one or more minority characters. The study employed an experimental design (N = 149) to test which of two competing perspectives best explains how exposure to White savior narratives influences racial attitudes and perceptions of racial inequality. Specifically, it proposes a set of hypotheses that reflect critical arguments in which savior films produce negative effects by representing Black communities as morally deficient and by implying a state of racial harmony in our society. By contrast, a set of hypotheses representing the perspective of moral psychologists in which elevation elicits prosocial outcomes that may counter racism is tested. Finally, this study compares films portraying White saviors to those that feature Black saviors to explore (a) whether White privilege can be maintained even in the absence of White characters, and (b) how responses to these films may differ.

The Myth and Ritual of “The Room”: The birth of a cult classic • Jesse Benn • This paper traces the history of the film “The Room,” in an effort to understand how cult classics and movies that draw communal ritual participation come to be a part of pop culture. After this history, from its initial failure to its current status as a cult classic, an autoethnographic observation of the author’s attendance of a participatory ritualistic viewing of the film is presented. Finally, the film is considered in light of digital bullying.

How body, heterosexuality and patriarchal entanglements mark non-human characters as male in CGI-animated children’s films • Jessica Birthisel, Bridgewater State University • The lead characters in the CGI-animated children’s films produced by Pixar and DreamWorks Animation are overwhelming male, and more often than not, they are not human. This simultaneously reflects a long history of anthropomorphization in animated storytelling and a breakaway from Disney’s princess-centric female focus. Given these characters’ non-human status, how do animators map biological maleness and masculine gender norms onto these characters? This qualitative textual analysis of the studios’ films produced between roughly 2000 – 2010 suggests that these anthropomorphized characters were constructed as male and masculine through three simultaneous textual strategies: codes of bodily masculinity, sexual masculinity and social masculinity. The project considers the implication of these constructions of hegemonic masculinity for audiences of children, building on the premise that major global companies such as Pixar, Disney, and DreamWorks are “teaching machines” (Giroux, 1996) and “agents of socialization” that teach children the “right” way to conceptualize the self and others (Lugo-Lugo & Bloodsworth-Lugo, 2009).

The Princess: Heterosexism in Animated Films • Nichole Bogarosh, Whitworth University • Women are othered in current animated films in such a way that exhibits a sort of backlash or counter-narrative to gains made by the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s to early 1980s. Instead, a retro ideology is presented while non-substantiated nods to feminism are present. This paper explores the patriarchal ideology regarding the heterosexual romance-marriage-family priority for women that is presented in a sampling of the top-grossing animated films from 2000 to 2012 and how these messages work to continue the subordination and oppression of women.

Scandal and Sharknado Are Not Alike: Individual Factors Differentiating Social Media Opinion Sharers • Joseph Cabosky • Entertainment research has attempted to predict consumer behavior from the volume and sentiment of social media activity. Yet, real world examples imply that not all sharers are alike. After surveying four large Southeastern Universities (N= 3,079), this study found significant differences in sharing habits when considering valence, gender, race, platform, and relationship to an entertainment product, indicating a need for more nuanced measures that take individual and community factors into account.

Binge-Watching: Transportation into Narrative TV Content • Lindsey Conlin, The University of Alabama; Adam Sharples, The University of Alabama • The relatively new ability of viewers to choose to continuously consume episodes of TV shows changes the experience of watching TV narratives. The act of watching several consecutive episodes of a TV show is known as binge-watching, and the current study sought to investigate how binge-watching affected viewers. Using transportation theory, this study demonstrated that binge-watching increased transportation into a narrative; increased transportation results in increased enjoyment. Additionally, results indicate that different methods of watching a TV show also affects transportation, as viewers who binge-watched to catch up on old episodes of a TV show before watching new episodes week-by-week experienced more transportation than any other kind of TV watching experience.

Sand Dunes, Sajats, and CBS: Analysis of The Amazing Race in the Middle East • Tanner Cooke • This paper analyzes the popular factual entertainment television show The Amazing Race. Through a textual analysis of episodes that took place in the Middle East and North Africa, this study highlights problems of representation within the factual entertainment genre of television production. While previous publications have extolled the program for its ability to represent local people authentically, this paper argues that the Middle East and North Africa fall into the classic Orientalist tropes of representation through a supposed non-scripted reality television portrayal. Thus, this paper uses a framework of postcolonial studies and mimics previous research by Muspratt and Steeves (2012), which addresses issues of representation through the categories of erasure, agency, and hybrid encounters, and concludes with findings contradictory to the previous authors and attempts to argue that The Amazing Race problematically represents the Middle Eastern and North African regions, cultures, and peoples.

The Need to Achieve: Players’ Perceptions and Uses of Meta-Game Rewards for Video Game Consoles • Carlos Cruz; Michael Hanus; Jesse Fox, Ohio State University • Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation overlay meta-game reward systems on their video games. Little research has examined how players use these systems. Gamers participated in focus groups to discuss meta-game reward systems. Participants indicated meta-game reward systems succeed in giving positive feedback about game play and boosting self-esteem and social status. Though some research (e.g., self-determination theory) suggests that extrinsic rewards weaken players’ intrinsic motivation, our findings suggest players see these systems as intrinsically motivating.

What’s love got to do with it? Analyzing moral evaluations about love and relationships in Gossip Girl • Merel van Ommen; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Addy Weijers; Rebecca de Leeuw • The current study is based on qualitative interviews (N = 48), that aimed to provide insight in the grounds of moral evaluations of various types of mediated romantic relationships in an episode of Gossip Girl. The results demonstrate that the romantic ideal, even though almost all viewers formulated critical nuances, proved to be the most appealing for the majority of the viewers, regardless if their moral evaluation was primarily text driven or driven by personal characteristics.

Political Culture, Critique and the Girl Reporter in Netflix’s House of Cards • Trevor Diehl, The University of Texas at Austin • Netflix’s adaption of Michael Dobb’s political thriller, House of Cards (HOC) represents a contemporary incarnation of the paranoid-conspiracy style of politics in film. This paper shows how the fictional relationship between female political reporter Zoe Barnes and Congressman Francis Underwood appeals to the audience’s cynicism and distrust of politics and the news media. Through a narrative analysis of key settings, characters and themes, this paper finds that while HOC offers a dramatic critique of the political culture in Washington DC, its use of Hollywood cliché undermines any serious critique of the role of the press in politics. The series also offers a post-feminist orientation toward the role of women in journalism.

Media Genre Preferences Predicted by Current Mood and Salient Media Uses • Elise Stevens; Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolina • This study combines the hedonic motivations argued in mood management theory with the needs-oriented motivations argued in uses-and-gratifications approaches to explain self-reported media genre preferences. A survey of young adults (N=216) reported their current mood, their motivations for using media, and their liking of various media genres. People in depressed moods indicated little affinity for action/adventure. People feeling hostile were particularly favorable toward animation; liking animation also related to using media as a means of escape. People in positive moods indicated a liking of drama, as well as sports. Liking of comedy was related to using media for entertainment and relaxation, irrespective of mood state. Using media for social interaction was positively related to liking romance. Using media for arousal was related to liking sports. Findings are discussed in terms of preference formation, experience with media in fulfilling needs, and methodological considerations regarding bias in self-reports due to activation of current affect.

Market matters: How market-driven is The Newsroom? • Patrick Ferrucci, Bradley University; Chad Painter, Eastern New Mexico University • This study examines whether the news show depicted on HBO’s award-winning The Newsroom practices what McManus defined as market-driven journalism. McManus posited that organizations practicing market-driven journalism compete in the four markets he describes in his market theory for news production. This study found that The Newsroom depicts an organization that does indeed practice market-driven journalism, but journalists constantly fight to stop. These results are then interpreted through the lens of market theory for news production.

Postmodern Hybrid Identities: A Longitudinal Content Analysis of U.S. Top-Chart Hip-Hop Song Lyrics, 1980–2013 • Shawn Gadley, University of North Texas; Koji Fuse, University of North Texas • A longitudinal content analysis of top-chart hip-hop songs’ lyrics produced between 1980 and 2013 was conducted to investigate the degree and progression of the paradoxical juxtaposition, or postmodern hybridity, of oppositional modernist identities in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sexuality, and economic lifestyle. Although hybrid oppositional identities related to race/ethnicity and gender did not increase over time, those of sexual orientation, sexuality, and economic lifestyle increased over time. In addition, materialist identities positively affected the hybridity of identities related to sexual orientation and sexuality, but not that of gender- and race/ethnicity-related identities. Overall, the present research found increasing sexualization of hip-hop songs along with intensified materialism.

Increasingly Violent but Still Sexy: An Analysis of Female Protagonists in U.S. and Hindi Films • Jannath Ghaznavi; Katherine Grasso • The present study examined the depiction of female protagonists in promotional posters and trailers from top-grossing U.S. and Hindi films from 2004-2013, focusing on stereotypes, sexualization, and aggressive behavior. Hindi film protagonists tended to be more sexualized, physically fit, and less prominently featured compared to protagonists in U.S. films with no systematic changes in stereotypical portrayals over time. Female protagonists were similar in their roles as attractive love interests and increasingly aggressive behavior over time.

The Professional Fan Fiction of Chuck • Timothy R. Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • Chuck was an action-comedy show with science fiction influences and the product of a Generation X upbringing that represents media influences and social conditions. Movies like Tron, WarGames, Weird Science and Gotcha serve as the foundation for Chuck’s cool geek/spy main character. Influenced by the work of James W. Carey and Henry Jenkins, this study uses the concepts of ritual communication from American Studies and participatory fan culture of cultural studies to explain these influences.

Binge Watching Alone Together?: An exploratory study of college students’ motivations for marathon TV viewing • Geoffrey Graybeal, Texas Tech University; Nicholas Doherty, University of Hartford; Lynne Kelly, University of Hartford • This exploratory study, grounded in the Uses and Gratifications perspective, conducted focus groups with college communication students about binge viewing. We examined individual motivations for binge viewing, their binge viewing practices, and how they affectively experience binge viewing. Findings indicate binge viewing fulfills several key gratifications for college students, that genre and mechanism play important roles in determining what and how to binge watch, and that subjects engaged in binge viewing have mixed emotions.

‘Time Ladies’ and female fandom: User-Generated Content in the Doctor Who Universe • Jin Kim; Megan Readey • Over this past half-century, Doctor Who, a BBC’s hit drama has grown from a small, family oriented television series to an industry of its own. The most amazing aspect of this show however, is the fandom. While the show went through a 16-year hiatus, it was User-Generated Content (UGC) created by the fans that kept the stories and interest in Doctor Who alive. With the 2005 reboot of the show, it is the first time since 1963 that lifelong members of the fandom hold power as show runners, writers, and characters. This study aims to develop theoretical concerns in fandom study by exploring historical-cultural meanings of Doctor Who from contemporary cultural contexts. More specifically, with a survey of more than 100 Doctor Who fans and a textual analysis of UGC by the fans, we explore how seemingly marginalized fan group, women are participating and self-expressing in Doctor Who fandom.

Political Cynicism and the Shows around the News: Examining News Satire and Partisan Talk and their Relationship to Political Cynicism • Kate Renner, University of Central Florida; Rene Naranjo, University of Central Florida; Joseph Raditch, University of Central Florida; Jessica Hoffman, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • During the past decade, researchers have been exploring the effects of political satire on the attitudes of viewers in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to use the theory of cultivation as a framework for comparing exposure to satirical news shows like The Daily Show with exposure to cable opinion (partisan) talk shows like The O’Reilly Factor and examine their relationships to political affiliation, political cynicism, and attitudes toward government and media. This survey-based project involved a convenience sample of 404 college students who completed measures of media exposure, attitudes toward the federal government, perceptions of media credibility, and political cynicism. Results suggest that exposure to satirical news programs like The Daily Show were not related to negative attitudes toward the federal government or political cynicism. However, they were negatively correlated to perceptions of national media credibility. Conservative partisan talk program exposure was associated with negative attitudes toward the federal government but not media credibility or political cynicism. Independents were observed to report greater political cynicism than Democrats or Republicans. Implications are discussed.

The dual role of morally ambiguous characters: Examining the effect of morality salience on narrative responses • K. Maja Krakowiak, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Mina Tsay-Vogel, Boston University • Using social comparison theory as a framework, two 2×2 experiments examined the effects of a person’s self-perception on responses to characters with varying levels of morality. Study 1 found that individuals whose vices were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a morally ambiguous character (MAC) than one featuring a bad character. Study 2 found that individuals whose virtues were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a good character than one featuring a MAC. Findings thus indicate that morality salience is an important factor determining responses to different character types. Avenues for future research and theoretical implications of the dual role of MACs are discussed.

Active Viewing: Chinese Audiences’ Interpretation of American Television Dramas • Yang Liu • The cross-border flow of television programs has enriched audience reception research with integrating the active audience paradigm, which believes that the audience has the capability of interpreting foreign media contents in an active way. Two main theoretical approaches have been utilized by television studies of active audience paradigm. Audience-privileging approach focuses on television viewing through placing audience on the center. Text-centered approach pays attention to semiotic analysis of television texts. With more and more American television dramas having been introduced to China, Chinese audiences have initiated their active reception and interpretation of these exotic cultural products. Focusing on this phenomenon, this study explored Chinese audiences’ interpretation of American television dramas based on Roland Barthes’ elaboration on myth-making.

An analysis of femininity: How popular female characters in the media portray contemporary womanhood • Stephanie Roussell, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center; Lisa Lundy • The impact of the media on adolescent girls has received greater theoretical, legal and societal focus over the last few decades. Several studies link the development of female gender identities, healthy sexual activity and self-efficacy to how the media portray women. Restrictive or unrealistic themes of womanhood or femininity in the media can impact a young girl’s social construction of identity and provide limited examples of what it means to be a woman in today’s society. This study qualitatively examines femininity in contemporary media by analyzing—via textual analysis—how popular female characters embody, portray and promote different conceptualizations of femininity. Do these characters portray more traditional styles of femininity? Or do they embrace the gains of Third Wave feminism and promote more contemporary versions of femininity? Results suggest a shift toward contemporary femininity, but also reveal lingering stereotypes in a character’s emotional and cultural behaviors.

Man without a country: How character complexity primes racial stereotypes • Ben Miller, University of Minnesota • This study examined the role character complexity plays in racial attitudes of television viewers. Previous research suggests that stereotypes and counter-stereotypes play vastly different roles in how people process information. Stereotypes act as automatic cues that call up pre-made judgments upon exposure to them. Meanwhile, counter-stereotypes actually work on a conscious processing level, forcing viewers to think more deeply about individuals when presented with them, skipping the automatic recall mechanism all together. By layering counter-stereotypes and stereotypes together in the same stimulus, this study examined whether the existence of there would be an appreciable difference between viewers exposed to solely stereotypes or both using both implicit and explicit measures. To investigate the relationships between character complexity and racial attitudes, this study used a 2 x 2 factorial experimental design featuring 99 students and the data was analyzed using factorial ANOVAs. In addition to the character complexity variable, an additional exposure variable measured differences between single or repeated exposures of the stimulus videos. This experiment used an Implicit Association Test, a Positive Attitudes Towards Blacks scale and a Black Stereotypes scale to measure racial attitudes. Findings show there was no difference in positive, negative or implicit attitudes between the two complexity conditions. And furthermore, there was also no demonstrated difference between the single- and repeated-exposure conditions.

First Listen: Discovering New Music through Online Social Networks • Adam Monk, The Ohio State University; John Dimmick, The Ohio State University • This study examines the diffusion of new music through online social networks. Given the lack of theoretical research involving diffusion theory applied to online social networks, a research study was designed. A 32-question survey was administered to 460 undergraduate students enrolled in Communication courses at a large, Midwestern university. Results from data analysis provided evidence that individuals scoring higher on a new music opinion leadership scale will be more likely to listen to new music, discover new music, use electronic recommendation agents, acquire new music that is evaluated positively after sampling and give recommendations about new music.

The Caste of the Cast: The South Asian “Model Minority” on Broadcast Television Sitcoms • Jane O’Boyle, University of South Carolina • In the world of television entertainment, Americans of African, Hispanic and East Asian heritage have endured decades of representations that were marginalized or nonexistent. While minority characters are in overall decline on American broadcast networks, the South Asian immigrant from India is emerging as the most visible ethnic culture in television shows, at the expense of Hispanics, African Americans, and other Asian immigrants. There has been an increase in the number of South Asian characters on situation comedies, such The Office, Parks and Recreation, The Big Bang Theory, The New Girl and How I Met Your Mother. These representations provide new racist material for American entertainment purposes. This study examines the shift in minority characters in prime time television through textual analysis of three characters in current highly rated network comedy programs. These characters are well-educated and hard-working, but their “otherness” still keeps them from attaining the levels of class afforded white characters in these shows. These elements combine to make South Asians in the United States the “model minority:” successful enough to poke fun at their culture, but sufficiently alien to use these qualities against their achieving class parity. The way we frame this ethnic group may also deepen perspectives of all minorities in our society, as entertainment media is a prime source of information about other cultures and has proved to have effects on racist stereotypes in the real world.

He Said, She Laughed: Sex Differences in Joke Telling and Humor Appreciation • Patrice Oppliger • Past research has shown shifting trends in gender differences in the creation and appreciation of humor. We revisited the issue in light of women’s advancement in society and changes in the culture of female comedy. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the sex of the joke teller and in some cases the joke target. Overall, outcomes of the data analysis were much nuanced, rather than demonstrating straight forward sex differences. The content of the jokes (e.g., sexual tone, aggression level, and sexist stereotyping) appeared to have the most influence in terms of sex differences in humor appreciation. While males still prefer aggressive and disgust joke more than females, it appears in some cases, female comedians have gained ground on being rewarded for telling jokes beyond clever stories or self-disparaging jokes.

Getting My “V” Fix: Developing PSRs with HBO’s “True Blood” through Emerging Social Media Platforms • Harkeet Pannu; Lance Porter • Through this study, we attempt to discover how social media platforms increase parasocial interactions – a one-way interaction characterized by non-reciprocation of interactions – among viewers and television show characters. Specifically, we examined Twitter usage and the intensity of parasocial relationships between the viewer and characters of HBO’s vampire drama “True Blood.” A total of 169 social media users, predominantly females between the ages 18 and 32, answered questions through an online survey discussing their Twitter and viewing habits, the outlets with which these viewers engage to discuss the television show and how they feel about the show itself. The results show that those viewers who do engage in discussions online tend to have more intense parasocial relationships with the show and characters than those who use viewers who use Twitter less.

Law & Disorder: The Portrayal of Mental Illness in American Crime Dramas • M. Scott Parrott, The University of Alabama; Caroline Titcomb Parrott, The University of Alabama • A quantitative content analysis examined stereotypes and counter-stereotypes concerning mental illness in fictional crime-based dramas that aired on American television between 2010 and 2013. Reinforcing stereotypes, characters labeled mentally ill were significantly more likely to be perpetrators of crime and of violence toward themselves or others. Nevertheless, the analysis also found evidence of counter-stereotypes concerning physical appearance, socioeconomic status, and general behavior.

Dissolving the Other: Orientalism, consumption, and Katy Perry’s insatiable “Dark Horse” • Rosemary Pennington, Indiana University School of Journalism • Pop star Katy Perry is increasingly under fire for performance choices she makes. Most recently Perry stirred up controversy when she destroyed a necklace with “Allah” – the Arabic word for god – on it in her “Dark Horse” video. What received less attention was her destruction of Orientalized men of color. This qualitative textual analysis examines how Orientalism manifests in Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” video as well as what kind of imaginary Perry attempts to create.

A Cosmic Flop Revisited: Battlestar Galactica 1978 • Camille Reyes • In 1978, the original Battlestar Galactica was the most expensive show ever produced for television. It only lasted one season on ABC. This essay offers some explanations for its failure through cultural and industrial histories of American television. Using popular and trade publications of the period, the author first argues that an ill-timed business decision, coupled with the departure of programming legend Fred Silverman from the network, resulted in serious problems for the nascent series. The author critiques the executive decisions around special effects. Various narrative and genre expectations are also addressed. The essay also explores the tensions between censors and the networks, tracing influences on television content during the period. Television failures are common, yet this particular story has enjoyed a rich life after cancellation. In a self-reflexive passage, the author presents a portrait of the show’s popularity with children and offers cultural and economic reasons why the newly re-imagined series, airing from 2004 – 2009, fared so much better than the original.

Kaun Banega Crorepati: The Indian Gameshow and its Glocalization • Enakshi Roy, Ohio University • The game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) changed the entertainment scene in India. Using Textual Analysis in the context of “glocalization,” the study examines how cultural signifiers were used to localize the British gameshow Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? for India. Analyzing a sample of episodes through four seasons, the study identifies specific cultural references such as cricket, Bollywood, Indian history and mythology or religion; presence of famous movie stars as hosts, focus on contestants’ stories, and preaching, and examines how each of these elements made the show uniquely Indian.

Collaborative Starvation and the Invisible Podium: Using Twitter as a “How To” Guide to Eating Disorders • Stephanie Hovis, Kennesaw State University; Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • This thematic analysis is an exploration of one anonymous Twitter user’s documentation of her struggles with eating disorder(s) over the course of eight months. Examining the language and images in @Anaforlife55’s tweets, as well as her interactions with other anonymous Twitter users also battling food demons, the goal of this paper is to determine whether the notion that eating disorders can be considered a contagious disease has merit. Whereas eating disorders are not developed quickly through a sharing of germs in the classical sense of contagion, the ways in which the media, communication scholars, and the infected discuss the “whys” and, more importantly, the “hows” can spread just as easily. This paper examines the romanticized and competitive, yet simultaneously tight-knit, support system that encourages and enables eating disordered brothers and sisters to feed their disease via social media. @Anaforlife55 is quickly approaching her tenth year with an eating disorder, but this eight-month snapshot of her journey before and after entering rehabilitation provides support for the “contagious disease” argument. Themes are discussed in terms of language, relationships, and visual elements such as photos of various body parts.

Demographic Congruency, Advertisement, and Television Shows: The Effect of Advertisement Viewing on Television Show Evaluation • Jeremy Saks, Ohio University • This thesis examines demographic congruency between television shows and advertisements and the effects that it has on program evaluation. Two groups of college- aged participants watched the same popular television show for their age group but some saw commercials targeted at them while others saw advertisements for products and services for elderly people. Theoretically based on Mandler’s discrepancy/evaluation theory, results showed that individuals exposed to demographically incongruent advertisements explicitly evaluated the television show less favorably than those that saw congruent commercials. Additionally, an implicit associations test found marginally significant and contrasting results where the demographically incongruent advertisements led to a higher liking among those who viewed them along with the show. The results, as well as potential explanations, are discussed.

Is Grey’s Anatomy on the Wave? A Feminist Textual Analysis of Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang • Lauren Wilks, Trinity University • The traditional portrayal of women in the media concerns feminist scholars because of the repeated sexualization, subordination, and underrepresentation of females (Collins, 2011). This feminist textual analysis seeks to determine whether Grey’s Anatomy portrays female characters with more complex gender roles than those typically portrayed in media. This study finds that while there were more instances of third wave feminism overall, in crisis situations a post-feminist reversion to traditional feminine roles sometimes occurred.

Exploring the Interplay of Flow, Psychological Transportation and Presence in Narrative Advergaming • Lu Zheng • As one of the fastest-growing formats of branded entertainment, advergaming has been increasingly embraced by international marketers in their brand building endeavors. The current study seeks to simultaneously gauge the impacts of flow, narrative transportation and presence on one’s game attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention in the narrative advergaming context. The findings indicated that among the three psychological processes, transportation tends to play a decisive role in determining one’s affective and conative responses.

2014 Abstracts

Community Journalism 2014 Abstracts

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“You ARE Talking to the Man”: Female Newspaper Editors’ Career Paths in Appalachia • Candace Nelson; Bob Britten, West Virginia University • Although women continue to make gains in journalism, they remain a rarity at top editorial levels. In some rural areas, such as West Virginia, women are on par with the national average for such placement, despite the state tending to lag in other areas. Using grounded theory, this research investigates the influences of rural Appalachian culture among top-level female editors. It identifies a distinct understanding of Community in Appalachia and presents a model for explaining the boosts and barriers they experience.

Follow the leader: How leadership can affect the future of community journalism • Patrick Ferrucci, Bradley University • This ethnographic study examines the effect leadership can have on newsroom culture and, ultimately, how news is produced. Lowery and Gade (2011) argued that the future of community journalism will happen online, and Kaye and Quinn (2010) noted that the Internet allows for different funding models of journalism. Together, this means online community journalism will take many different forms over the next decade. This study examines one popular form of community journalism: the digitally native news nonprofit. The study illustrates that when a journalist, and not a business executive or executives, controls the entire news operation, the community journalism organization focuses on quality journalism more so than profits.

The CxP Typology: A New Understanding of Normative Deviance, Gatekeeping, and American Community Journalism • Marcus Funk, Sam Houston State University • Abstract: Structured interviews with community newspaper editors and publishers complicate current theoretical understandings of normative deviance and gatekeeping theory. Editors and publishers expressed a great deal of audience interaction and a clear emphasis on news about “regular people and routine events,” which offers a topical rebuttal to gatekeeping theory’s assertion that journalists are attracted to news about conflict and celebrity due to a lack of dialogue with media consumers. A deeper reading of the text, however, demonstrates that “regular people” and “routine events” remain rooted in conflict and celebrity. This study suggests a theoretical broadening of normative deviance and the adoption of a “CxP Typology” to comprehensively categorize normative deviance.

Building community through dialogue at NPR member stations • Joseph Kasko, University of South Carolina • This research is composed of 20 in-depth, qualitative interviews with managers at NPR member stations to examine how they are attempting to build community through the use of dialogue. The stations came from various market sizes and from different regions across the United States. The managers reported they are using many types of dialogue, including face-to-face, formal written and electronic communication, to engage their listeners. The findings suggest the stations are working to build a presence in the community through personal relationships, regular contact with listeners and by inviting regular feedback.

Seeing Community Journalism in Online News: Examining status conferral processes in digital media organizations • Myles Ethan Lascity, Drexel University • Many scholars have hailed blogs and citizens journalists as a means of upending the traditional journalistic structure, however, users appear to prefer to channel their input through established media outlets. Few have attended to the question of why audiences – citizen journalists or causal readers – share news with established organizations when they could easily distribute the information themselves. This paper will argue that the same processes at the heart of community journal can help explain why individuals choose to align themselves with organizations rather than strike out on their own.

Getting Engaged: Public Engagement on Online Community News Sites Has Tenuous Connection to Civic Engagement • Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher College • A content analysis of online community news sites was used to determine that activities to promote public engagement with the site was have a slight association with civic engagement activities such as voting and participation in community activities. This result shows weak support for the idea that engagement with the news sites is an articulation of cyber-democratic engagement.

Perceptions About Posting: A Survey of Community Journalists About Social Media Postings • Leigh Wright, Murray State University • Journalists long have been the gatekeepers of content for traditional media, but now with social media, does that role still stand? Although studies have focused on larger circulation newspapers, the literature suggests a gap among community newspapers’ judgment of news values and gatekeeping as applied to social media postings. A survey of 108 journalists working at newspapers with a circulation of 30,000 or less revealed insights into how reporters and editors perceive the traditional news values of timeliness, proximity, prominence, unusual nature, helpfulness, impact, conflict and entertainment/celebrity when posting to the social media sites Facebook and Twitter. The survey revealed that 60 percent of journalists said they strongly agreed that helpfulness is a news value when posting information to Facebook, and 66 percent ranked timeliness as the most important news value for posting stories to Twitter.

Local vs. Hyperlocal newspaper: Community actor perception, readership, and advertising effects • Gi Woong Yun, Bowling Green State University; SangHee Park; Claire Y. Joa; Jing Jiang; Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University; David Morin, Utah Valley University; Jongsoo Lim • This paper aimed to examine the dynamics of local and hyperlocal newspapers from a business and civic engagement perspective. To do so, we looked at the competitive and complementary relationship between local and hyperlocal newspapers in readership, the relationship of community engagement activities and newspapers readership, the perception of local and hyperlocal newspapers as community actors, and the perception on advertising effects of local and hyperlocal newspapers. Results indicated that the relationship between local and hyperlocal newspapers was complementary and the community actor perception of newspapers influenced readership. In the local and hyperlocal newspaper regression models, newspaper community actor perception predicted advertising effects. Respondents who were actively engaged in their local communities were more likely to purchase or visit businesses that ran advertisements in the newspapers.

2014 Abstracts