Communicative Antecedents of Political Persuasion. The Roles of Political Discussion and Citizen News Creation • Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu, University of Vienna; Matthew Barnidge, University of Vienna; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna • For quite some time researchers have paid attention to how media and interpersonal discussion influence the way people persuade others politically. Recent academic efforts have been geared toward better explaining the mechanisms by which digital media technologies have afforded people new ways to persuade others. Within this context, a vibrant yet less explored area entails not only political discussion, but also the creation of news and public affairs content online. This study seeks to shed more light on how communicative behaviors lead to attempted political persuasion. Using two-wave panel survey data, we find that political discussion and citizen news creation mediate the relation between news use and political persuasion attempts. Furthermore, strength of partisanship moderates the relationship between content creation and attempted persuasion.

Asserting Credibility in a Crisis: How Journalists, Activists and Police/Government Officials Used Twitter During Ferguson • Amber Hinsley, Saint Louis University; Hyunmin Lee, Saint Louis University; Christopher Blank, Saint Louis University; Ricardo Wray, Saint Louis University; J.S. Onesimo Sandoval, Saint Louis University; Keri Jupka, Saint Louis University; Claire Cioni, Saint Louis University • This study examines the validity of Becker’s (1967) classic credibility model in today’s social media landscape. Interviews with activists, journalists and government/law enforcement officials explore how they used acts of journalism to establish their own credibility and assess the credibility of others via Twitter following Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson. Though their “truth” often was different, they applied similar measures of credibility. Crises like Ferguson that are influenced by social media necessitate a revised hierarchy of credibility.

A Comparison of Journalistic Roles by Visual Journalists: Professionals vs. Citizens • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Yung Soo Kim, University of Kentucky; Seungahn Nah • Using a Web-based survey targeting visual professionals, this study examines their professional role conceptions along with their views on emerging visual citizen contributors’ roles. While participants’ ratings of the two roles were generally correlated within each group, few correlations resulted between the two groups. Further, visual professionals rated their roles as significantly more important for all five roles. When assessing views on citizen-contributed visuals, it was clear that participants did not welcome citizens’ visual contributions.

News and Local Information on Reddit: An Online Ethnography of Collective Gatekeeping • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri School of Journalism • This study explores sharing and discussion of news and information on Reddit from the perspective of gatekeeping theory. Although Reddit is primarily an entertainment platform, “redditors” also use the site to share and discuss news and local information. Although they share mainstream news media content on the site, they vote for higher placement of stories in a way that seems to reflect more libertarian or socially liberal views than those reflected by traditional news media.

Spreading the News – Examining College Students’ Awareness of Their Participatory News Habits • Jennifer Cox, Salisbury University • A recent study of what news items college-age students post on Twitter revealed they largely focus on national/international news topics rather than items that affect them locally. The study also showed these college-age Millennials preferred softer news topics, including sports, entertainment/celebrity, and lifestyle items, as well as topics that contained elements of oddity/novelty and conflict. This study builds on that research to reveal whether students are aware of their preferences when posting news. A post-test survey was administered to students to compare what types of stories students thought they posted with the ones they actually did post. Students’ awareness of their news preferences could help researchers understand disparities in their self-reporting and their perceptions of their own online personas. The results indicate students overestimated the amount of hard news topics and local news items they posted, suggesting the image they think they are portraying online may not be accurate. This study also asked students to assess their news knowledge and habits as a result of tweeting the news. Students reported being more knowledge about news and believed the activity to be valuable in helping them understand their news habits.

To whom are they speaking? The imagined audience of online news commenters • Jisu Kim, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities • As the first study examining news commenters’ perceptions of imagined audience, this study attempts to expand the boundary of news commenting research. Through interviews with 12 news commenters, we find that they usually perceive their audience as those having similar backgrounds, journalists, or politicians. News commenters who primarily comment on news websites perceive their audience as public and broader in scope, while news commenters on Facebook consider their audience as being more connected with themselves.

Assessing the impact of citizen publishing on Freedom of Information laws • Jodie Gil, Southern Connecticut State University • This exploratory study looks at proposed changes to Freedom of Information laws in 10 states to explore whether citizen publishing prompts attempts to restrict access to records. Privacy was cited in 69 of 138 law proposals, and a majority of those proposals sought to protect “personal information.” The data in the sample points to clear concerns about personal information being shared, a practice that can more easily happen with unrestricted publishing on the Internet.

Where Did You Get That Story? An Examination of Story Sourcing Practices and Objectivity on Citizen Journalism Websites • Kirsten Johnson, Elizabethtown College • A content analysis of 560 articles from 56 citizen journalism websites based in the U.S. showed more than a quarter of the stories didn’t use sources. When they were used, traditional media and press releases were often cited. More than 90% of the stories did adhere to the traditional journalistic norm of objectivity since many stories were sourced from mainstream media reports and press releases. Stories reported most often included event, political, and business stories.

Metrics, Clickbait, and the Anemic Audience: Audience Perceptions and Professional Values among News Aggregators • Mark Coddington, Washington and Lee University • Journalists have long been dismissive of their audiences, but the rise of online metrics and participatory journalism have challenged that attitude. This study examines that challenge by looking at aggregators’ audience perception, exploring its influence on their news judgment and the role of metrics in their work. It finds that the audience weighs heavily on aggregators’ work, but their conception of it is thin and non-participatory, mediated largely through the professionally contested tool of metrics.

Digital pitchforks: Latent publics and justice-gone-wrong narratives • Nathan Rodriguez • This study examines online discussions of justice-gone-wrong narratives in popular culture. To date, fan studies have not analyzed online collectives that are organized around true-crime narratives. This paper uses grounded theory to approach 8,900 user comments on a highly trafficked website regarding the Netflix miniseries, Making a Murderer. Results from the study contribute to the growing academic discussion of the suasive force of latent publics, particularly within the context of justice-gone-wrong narratives in popular culture.

Networked: Social media’s impact on news production in digital newsrooms • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado • This study examines social media usage by journalists through the prism of actor-network theory and the hierarchy of influences model. Utilizing interviews with 53 digital journalists, it identifies the actors playing a role in producing news through social media. It finds that journalists, opinion leaders, audience and extra-media organizations impact news production. It calls for a revisiting of the hierarchy of influences model to understand on what levels of influence the audience impacts news production.

“It’s like a bar journalists hang out at:” Social Media’s erosion of walls between journalists and their Twitter followers • Rich Johnson, Creighton University • While journalism does not fit the traditional definition of a profession, recent scholars, such as Lewis (2012) and Singer (2003) suggest that professional boundaries may be a reason journalists struggle to engage with their audience on social media. Although journalists often are early adopters of new platforms, they often use them for traditional practices. Using qualitative in-depth interviews and constant comparative analysis, this study identifies three walls that block journalists from engaging in the Internet’s facilitation of personal connectivity, engagement, and a true community forum. Although a wall of objectivity has somewhat been broached by Twitter use, walls of storytelling and routine and traditional news values continue to hold strong.

A hit on American football: Bottom-up framing in op-ed reader comments • Travis R. Bell, University of South Florida; Jimmy Sanderson, Clemson University • Dr. Bennet Omalu, who is credited with discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), wrote a New York Times’ op-ed story on December 7, 2015 and presented reasons why parents should not let their children play American football. This fueled national debate and this research, which used bottom-up framing to examine 114 reader comments connected to Omalu’s story. A mixed methods approach, including linguistic analysis, reveals new conversation points afforded by this new concept of media effects.

2016 Abstracts

What Works at Work: An Analysis of Micromanagement in the Workplace • Christina Jimenez Najera, California State University, Fullerton • Research has shown that good or poor management can deeply influence the culture of a company and its success.  The purpose of this research was to analyze perceptions and effectiveness of micromanagement as a management style.  The results of this research provide insight into individuals’ preferences of the concept of micromanagement through their experiences and knowledge of this management style.  Furthermore, the results of this research explored the prevalence of micromanagement in the workplace.

Help Wanted:  Expanding Social Media, Mobile and Analytics Skills in Journalism Education • Debora Wenger, University of Mississippi; Lynn Owens, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Identifying the most commonly required journalism job skills and attributes within the profession is essential for creating relevant curricula.  More than eleven hundred job postings from the top ten newspaper and broadcast journalism companies in the U.S. were part of a content analysis conducted over a three-month period in 2015.  Researchers identified gaps in journalism education, particularly related to social media, mobile and audience analysis or engagement skills.

The use of LinkedIn as a recruitment tool in the UAE: An evaluation • Swapna Koshy, University of Wollongong in Dubai; Iman Ismail • This study looks at the use of LinkedIn in the United Arab Emirates. In–depth interviews with representatives of five organizations and five recruitment companies based in the UAE were conducted to evaluate the use of LinkedIn as a recruitment tool. The study showed that LinkedIn is a cost effective recruitment tool. It is efficient when looking for candidates at the senior level or for those with specialized and unique skills. Recruitment agencies also see it as a competitor. The study concluded that to use LinkedIn effectively organizations should have a clear social media strategy.

2016 Abstracts

Typology of Digital Social Advocacy Strategy in the Boundary of Public Relations • Ah Ram Lee, University of Florida • Public relations has expanded its boundary broadening its functions to diverse organizations and incorporating new media technologies. Advancement in digital technologies has allowed numerous nonprofit organizations and agents to practice strategic communications as public relations management and goal fulfillment. A great deal of social media campaigns were planned and executed by activists and advocacy groups for positive social change, demonstrating these digital social advocacy campaigns as an important branch of public relations practices. However, there has been little consensus about the expansion and demarcation of public relations, whether public relations need to consider digital social advocacy campaigns as a part of its domain. The goal of this research is to enhance understanding of digital social advocacy campaigns and communication efforts within the public relations. This paper provides functions and purposes of public relations practices throughout the history and extension with digital social advocacy campaigns. This paper suggests a typology of digital social advocacy campaign strategies. There are four types of digital social advocacy campaigns—urgent-interactive, pressing issue, viral, and intriguing-inactive, which were conceptualized based on public relations campaigns and activism literatures. The goal of this paper is to establish a foundation for future study on digital social advocacy campaigns by integrating the existing research on communicative efforts through new media technologies for positive social change.

Netflix Versus the Cable Box: Media Substitution, Cord Cutting, and the Adoption of Streaming Television • Alec Tefertiller, University of Oregon • This study sought to better understand what factors best predict consumers’ intention to cut the cord on cable television and adopt streaming as their primary source of television. Based on media substitution theory, this study utilized a nationwide survey to find that it was the perceived advantages streaming applications offer over traditional television coupled with streaming technology’s ability to provide companionship that best predicted intentions to cut the cord on cable and adopt web streaming.

What is Beneath the Facebook Iceberg? Revealing the Relationship between Rational Fatalism and the Online Privacy Paradox • Amy Fowler-Dawson, Southern Illinois University; Wenjing Xie; Anita Tvauri • “Previous has revealed the privacy paradox, which suggests that though people are concerned with their online privacy, they still reveal a large amount of personal information and don’t take measures to protect personal privacy online. Using data from a national-wide survey, this study takes a psychological approach and uses the rational fatalism theory to explain the privacy paradox on the Internet and the social networking sites (SNSs). The rational fatalism theory argues that risks will become rational if the person believes he or she has no control over the outcome. Our results support the rational fatalism view. We found that people with higher level of fatalistic belief about technologies are less likely to protect their privacies on the Internet in general, and the SNS in particular. Moreover, such relationship is stronger among young Internet users compared with older users.

Conceptualizing the Bolivarian Revolution: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Chávez’s Rhetorical Framing in Aló Presidente • Ayleen Cabas • The present study examines the mediated discourse of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to identify and analyze the rhetorical frames he employed to characterize the Bolivarian Revolution in his weekly television and radio show Aló Presidente. A critical discourse analysis of 40 Aló Presidente episodes led to the conclusion that historical, socio-economic and religious rhetorical frames helped the president promote the revolution as a transcendent, patriotic and desirable governance manifesto for Venezuela.

Beyond Transparency: Linking CSR Authenticity to Organizational Trust • Baobao Song • This study proposes that consumers’ perceived authenticity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) could overturn their skepticism and raise their overall trust towards the organization. Experimentally, this study examined the effects of the two operational dimensions of authentic CSR – distinctiveness and social connectedness on consumers’ perception of CSR authenticity, and its effect on organizational trust. Results indicate that with higher perceived social connectedness, embedded CSR will be evaluated as more authentic than peripheral CSR, which further leads to stronger organizational trust. Whereas, with low perceived social connectedness, there will be no significant difference in stakeholders’ perception of CSR authenticity and organizational trust between embedded and peripheral CSR programs.

The Establishment of Psychological Contracts in Online Fan Marketing in China – Based on the Psychological Continuum Model • Bingjing Mao • This article researches on the new-emerged online fan marketing in China, through analyzing the consumers’ psychological characteristics in the method of participant observation and find out the formation mechanism of fans’ psychological contract based on the psychological continuum model. According to different four phases, the marketers, which are the cyber celebrities both on social media and individual e-commerce platform, will conduct proper approaches, and the social media contributed to close the psychological distance between consumers and cyber celebrities.

God’s Authority! A Frame Analysis of Kim Davis’ Refusal to Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses • Burton Speakman; Nisha Garud • This study conducted a framing analysis of media discourse on the refusal of Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis to issue same-sex marriage licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriages. Analysis of articles published on the websites of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News showed that religion and values emerged as dominant frames. Davis and her decision to deny licenses were portrayed as her religious right whereas homosexuals and their rights were underrepresented. Analysis also showed that the media present a religious controversy in conjunction with political issues. This study suggests that in spite of the recognition of legal rights of homosexuals, the media still do not provide equal coverage to homosexuals at least in situations where there is another potential opposition. The study recommends that journalists should give more attention to homosexuals and not politicize religious issues.

Uses and Gratifications of Space • Carl CLark, Texas State University; Jeremy Mullins, Texas State University; Qian Yu, Texas State University; Colin Woods, Texas State University • NASA has enjoyed overall support from the American people. This does not translate to active engagement, with NASA’s communications efforts, by a majority of the public (Launius, R. 2003). NASA would benefit from knowing what new segments of the population might be reached. A focus group discussed these communication issues framed in uses and gratifications. The broad implications of the focus group were the problems of relevance and availability which NASA has yet to overcome.

Not agreeing with Nat: major party hegemony, minor party marginalization in the UK Election debate • Ceri Hughes, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The 2010 UK General Election saw televised leaders debates enter UK politics. The 2015 election continued this development, expanding the roster to seven party leaders. The debates were sold as an equitable televised agora beaming rational-critical debate into households. This research questions whether the debates achieved such a normative aim, finding instead that the debates more likely served to reinforce the existing hegemony of the major parties while marginalizing the smaller parties.

The Framing of Online Commenting: Commenting Effects on Audiences’ Perceptions of a Public Health Issue in the Context of Social Media • Chang Bi, Bowling Green State University • This study investigated the persuasive effects of commenting on public health issues—specifically the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine—via Facebook. A survey-based experiment with a 2 (support vs. attack comments) × 2 (support vs. attack prior information) fully crossed factorial design were conducted to examine such effects. The results demonstrate that exposure to supportive comments following a CDC Facebook post in favor of MMR vaccination led to increased source credibility, while exposure to attack comments led to decreased source credibility. In addition, the study shows strong and consistent pre-existing attitudes toward MMR vaccination cannot be easily altered.

Differential effect of SNS use and social capital during life transition: A survey of mainland China students in Hong Kong • CHUN YANG, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong • This study explores differential SNS uses of overseas students, and their impacts on social capital and adjustment to life transition. A survey of 221 mainland China students studying in Hong Kong reveals that social searching activities on SNS positively predict bridging social capital. Public interaction activities contribute to both bridging and bonding social capital. Bridging social capital reinforces life satisfaction. Bonding social capital moderates the relationship between bridging social capital and feeling of homesickness.

Complexity Theory and State Emergency Preparedness • Claire Tills, University of Maryland • While it may seem that preparedness communication falls under the purview of risk and crisis communication scholarship, the existence of organizations that solely focus on preparedness and preparedness communication efforts indicates that this communication may have unique challenges and characteristics that are yet unexamined. This explanatory case study used in-depth interviews, social media content, and archival reports to understand how a state emergency management agency plans for, conducts, and evaluates a National Preparedness Month (NPM) campaign. Perspective from both emergency management and crisis communication scholarship were used to guide this research including chaos and complexity theories, planned agility, and evaluation standards from both public relations and emergency management. Results indicate that these campaigns are still in the early stages of developing strategic goals and methods for evaluation while still succeeding in reaching audiences and meeting surface-level objectives. From these findings, theoretical implications for preparedness communication and the extension of complexity theory are discussed.

Silicon Valley and the New Gatekeepers: A Conceptual Model of Risks and Potential Benefits for Journalism • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri School of Journalism • Digital media platforms owned by Silicon Valley companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter have changed the relationship between journalism and citizens. This paper offers a conceptual model for understanding that transformation. In the legacy media model, a direct reciprocal relationship, expectations between journalism and citizens were relatively clear. However, with audience preference for getting news from digital platforms, journalism and citizens now engage in an indirect reciprocal relationship, increasing risk for news media.

Turning off or tuning in? Testing two competing mechanisms of expressive behavior in online discussion • Hyesun Choung; David Coppini; Jessica Schmidt, UW-Madison; Yiping Xia, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Moonhoon Choi, University of Wisconsin Madison; Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study uses an online experiment (N=415) that manipulates opinion climate around a local issue to test the mechanisms of two competing theories: spiral of silence and corrective action. Results of the interaction between opinion climate and personal opinion provide stronger support for the corrective action hypothesis. In addition, our findings identify willingness to self-censor as a moderator of expression based on corrective action. Theoretical implications are discussed.

A case study examining how reporters deal with the challenges of the economy and technology • Jenny Dean, University of Oregon • The technology behind journalism has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and it has affected how reporters do their jobs, as well as how they approach storytelling. With the demand for multimedia presentations on newspaper websites, reporters need to be able to tell stories on different platforms. In addition, as the media world has downsized due to economic turmoil in the field, the reporters who remain employed have taken on extra duties as their colleagues have been laid off. This results in a dramatic change in their job descriptions. There has always been a competitive need to get the story first, but now that means getting it online first even if it is only an initial paragraph or two, which will not even go through the copydesk. The complete story follows later. The challenge is that newspapers compete against a much larger media world with bloggers and citizens reporting the same stories. The newspaper’s goal is for it to be the most accurate, complete, and timely record of news. The purpose of this study is to understand reporter routines, given the current state of the media industry over the past decade. To explore this issue, 18 interviews were conducted with reporters at a large paper in the U.S. Even though reporters may or may not be expected to use technology, the question is whether they use it and how.

Student Perceptions of Teacher Power and the Relationship with Engagement and Social Presence • Joseph Provencher, Texs Tech University; Adam Testerman • Findings from a survey to undergraduate students suggest prosocial perceptions of power have a greater impact on social presence than antisocial power. Perception of prosocial power has a significant and positive relationship with student engagement r(86) = 0.400, p < .01 (1-tailed), explaining 16% of the variance in student engagement. Our findings also establish a significant and positive relationship between perception of prosocial power and social presence in face-to-face communication r(86) = 0.429, p < .01 (2-tailed), which explained 18% of the variance in face-to-face social presence.

Clarifying the Concept of Journalistic Integrity: A concept explication • Kimberly Foster • The ambiguous definition of journalistic integrity in literature does little to address the conceptualizations of what journalistic integrity involves. Following Chaffee’s (1991) outline for concept explication, this essay provides an empirical definition of journalistic integrity premised on four key components: the information is useful; the information is factual, reliable, and timely; the journalist or organization behaves consistently over time and in accordance with socialized morality; and the journalist or organization treats others with fairness.

A Comparative Examination on Haze-related Content on Traditional Media and Social Media in China: Using the Extended Parallel Process Model and Network Agenda-setting • Liang Chen, Nanyang Technological University; Weijie Zheng • The current study aims to explore hazed-related content on between traditional media and social media in China. Specifically, we not only examined the nature of haze-related messages based on the extended EPPM, but also identified the central components in the networks of attributes of haze (i.e. EPPM components). Besides, the correlation between the interrelationships among attributes of haze on People’s Daily and Weibo was examined based on the network agenda-setting theory. The results revealed that while there were more than half of the total messages on both media reflecting EPPM components, either threat or efficacy, a greater number of messages mentioned threat than efficacy on Weibo. Moreover, limited messages on both media contained severity components. Furthermore, according to social network analysis, response efficacy and collective efficacy played central roles in haze-related content on People’s Daily, whereas the most central role was susceptibility on Weibo. Finally, the results from Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) indicated that the interrelationships among attributes of haze on People’s Daily were positively associated with that on Weibo.

Where Should We Eat? A Content Analysis Examining What Factors Yelp Users Perceive Useful When Picking Restaurants • Mark Tatge, University of South Carolina; Alex Luchsinger, University of South Carolina • This research examines the characteristics of experiential online reviews to see what factors are perceived to be most useful by consumers after evaluating the ratings, views and information offered by individuals publishing restaurant critiques. The study investigated reviews written by restaurant patrons and published on Yelp.com (N=600) in two major U.S. cities – New York and Chicago. The analysis examined key variables appearing in the review – tone, price, service, cleanliness, cost, perceived value and star rating. Scrutiny was also given to heuristics such as reviewer’s social activity, friend count and number of reviews published. The study found socially active reviewers were perceived to have greater expertise, prompting restaurant goers to assign greater weight to these social active reviewers’ assessments when deciding where to eat.

How Socially Supportive are Online Support Groups? Examining Online Interactions for Managing College Stress • Ren-Whei Harn • College experience is a major life transition causing immense stress for many students. Unmanaged stress creates health problems and can cause lasting effects of depression and anxiety within an individual. This study observed a publicly available support group for college students. Content analysis examined the common topics of distress and how social support is enacted in response. The research study found that complexity of message and topics of distress enact certain types of social support.

Guilt by Association: Barry Goldwater, the Anti-Communist Fringe, and CBS’s Thunder on the Right • Rich Shumate, University of Florida • This study explores the origins of the perception of liberal media bias by analyzing a 1962 CBS Reports program, Thunder on the Right, as a case study on how elite media covered the emergence of movement conservatism in the early 1960s. Using a scene sequence analysis of the program’s 10 scenes, this paper posits that the program’s skillful conflation of mainstream and extreme strains of conservatism did a disservice to CBS viewers and helped fuel the belief among conservatives that the media have a liberal bias, which colors American politics to this day.

Social Media as a Resource in Social Movements: An Online Resource Mobilization Study of the formation of Social Movement Organizations • Samuel Tham, University of Missouri – School of Journalism • 65% of Americans use social media for its utility. The social networks formed through social media has allowed social movement organizations to utilize it as a resource to fuel their causes. This study traces the formation of an SMO through a case study, utilizing social media as a resource to fuel their cause. The alacrity of the organization’s formation revealed characteristics about how social media as a resource that can effectively mobilize an organization.

The social value of Snapchat: An exploration of motivations for Snapchat use • Taj Makki; Julia DeCook; Travis Kadylak; Olivia JuYoung Lee • The present study proposes that undergraduate students’ use of Snapchat is driven by several factors related to affiliation motivation: playfulness, subjective norm, trust, critical mass (Technology Acceptance Model constructs), and the assurances, openness, and positivity (Relational Maintenance behaviors) that users can enact through the medium. Highlighting the social value of Snapchat, findings reveal affiliation motivation as a significant predictor of Snapchat use, with general relational maintenance and critical mass found to be the strongest motivators.

Online credibility, media use and past experience of health information on social media in China: factors that impact health-related behavioral intention • Zhaomeng Niu; Chan Chen, Washington State University • Social media is a new form that provides online health information. A survey of Chinese adults (n=452) was conducted to examine predictors of intentions to use the health information on the social media site. Two constructs of the TPB with three additional variables (perceived credibility, media use and past experience) significantly impacted intentions to use health information on social media. Perceived credibility acted as a mediator between social media use and health-related behavioral intention.

2016 Abstracts

Transitioning: Visibility and Problematic Practices in U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Transgender Issues • Anna Hornell; Patrick Howe, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo • This content analysis compares U.S. newspaper coverage of transgender issues in the year 2009 to 2014. The study examines the visibility of transgender issues and the incidence of media practices deemed problematic by the LGBT rights group GLAAD. Results show visibility rose based on both volume of stories and on the prominence of transgender issues within them. Problematic practices decreased markedly; 10 of 11 examined practices appeared less commonly in 2014 than in 2009.

Confessing Caitlyn: A Textual Analysis of the Verbal and Visual Constructions of Gender, Family, and Patriotism in the Bruce Jenner/Diane Sawyer Interview • Jennifer Huemmer, Texas Tech University • This paper examines the Bruce Jenner/Diane Sawyer interview through the lens of Foucault’s confession to understand the elements used to construct a case for or against Jenner’s transgenderism in the minds of the American audience. Specifically, this paper dissects the visual and discursive elements that are used to construct meaning. Results indicate that underlying elements of the interview serve to argue that Jenner’s transition will not disrupt traditional gender boundaries or the heteronormative family structures.

Space, Otherness, And Public Intimacy: An Observation Of The Current Lgbt Activism In Mainland China • Li Chen, Syracuse University • In this essay, I start from my own observation of a specific event of LGBT activism in China. I then use the concept of public intimacy instead of the public sphere to analyze this event’s context and particularities. Finally, I come to a tentative conclusion about the pros and cons of the contingent public intimacy created by the LGBT activism of mainland China. I want to argue that, under the context of mainland China, with extreme authority and government control, the normative public sphere cannot be built up from vanity. However, the development of social movements needs a public space that partly functions as the public sphere. Hence, commercial spaces such as the coffee house assume the responsibility of public discussions and create a new type of public intimacy.

The way she looks: Media, social discrepancy and lesbian women appearance • Lizhen Zhao; Carol Liebler • The present study aims to understand how lesbian women experience and construct their physical appearance in the context of American society, and how media may affect these experiences and constructions. In-depth interviews were conducted to address the research questions. Self-discrepancy theory (SDT) (Higgins, 1987) was adopted as the theoretical. Findings show patterns: lesbian women employ “double evaluation processes” to obtain a holistic picture of their own appearance; and three major discrepancies also emerged.

Transitioning Together: Negotiating Transgender Subjectivity with Family and Other Trans People on Reality Television • Minjie Li, LSU • Through an intersectionality-guided discourse analysis, the present study investigates how reality television programs represent 1) the main transgender characters, 2) family relational negotiation process, and 3) negotiation with other transgender people in relationship to transgender subjectivity. I found that while the main trans characters still reflect the White womanhood and heteronormativity, presenting the negotiation processes with family members and other transgender people demonstrate transgender subjectivity that are oftentimes programmed to disappear.

Pride and Prejudice: Anita Bryant, Same-Sex Marriage, and “Hitler’s View” in The Miami Herald • Rich Shumate, University of Florida • To create the perception of balance in coverage of LGBT issues, the media in the past included inaccurate, stereotypical, and defamatory charges leveled by anti-LGBT forces. Using a content analysis of news coverage in The Miami Herald, this study explored whether, and to what extent, the media had abandoned inclusion of such “Hitler’s view” frames in coverage and also how terminology used to describe LGBT people and issues changed over time. The results showed statistically significant decreases in the use of pejorative frames and a shift to terminology preferred by the LGBT community.

Journalism Values Undermining Valuable Journalism: How Modified Morality Politics Influenced News Framing of Same-Sex Marraige Backlash • Shawn Harmsen, University of Iowa • “This research looks at how local television news framed the efforts in Iowa in 2010 and 2012 to unseat Iowa Supreme Court Justices whose 2009 ruling in the case Varnum v. Brien made Iowa the third state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. By looking at relevant news packages and interviewing journalists, news directors, and spokespersons, I traced the way the traditionally ignored judicial retention votes became a top political story, and how particular frames entered the news. I found that despite a well-meaning intention to cover the story in a professionally acceptable fashion, traditional news values and reporting rituals blinded journalists to how their attempts to provide “balance” ultimately accomplished the opposite.

Evidence studied here suggested that morality politics was the dominant frame throughout most of the coverage, with the civil rights aspects of the issue mostly relegated to the day after each election rather than in the weeks prior. Political science literature defines morality politics as a campaign strategy that relies upon arguments based on “morality,” “values,” or even “sin” to motivate supporters. In the Iowa case, this concept gets modified because while the conservative campaign engaged the logics of morality politics, they also felt the need to couch their campaign in issues like “judicial activism.” I conclude the ability to get news coverage of the anti-retention campaign and to get this modified morality politics framing as dominant in that coverage reveals an exercise of political and social power in defense of the hegemonic heteronormative cultural matrix.”

Queering Facebook: Exploring the role of Facebook groups among the LGBTIQ community in India • Sreyoshi Dey • This paper explores the role of the social media platform of Facebook Groups for the LGBTIQ community in India against the backdrop of the societal taboos, lack of legal support and infrastructural loopholes like education and technology. Following from the social identity model of de-individuation effects (SIDE), this qualitative research analyzes interviews conducted with Indian citizens who identified as LGBTIQ members of active Facebooks groups and focuses on the identity formation for the community using computer mediated communication.

2016 Abstracts

Gendered Discrepancies in Educational Messages on Television Channels Targeted at Boys vs. Girls • Adriane Grumbein, University of Kentucky; Kyra Hunting, University of Kentucky; Maria Cahill, University of Kentucky • While research has been done on the educational potential of television for children, how television for children depicts education and educational settings has not been considered. This paper establishes that education and educational settings an important theme in children’s television but how prevalent this topic is varies significantly from one channel brand to another. We found that whether looking at general school themes, STEM, or humanities themes, channels targeted at girls were significantly more likely to discuss education then channels targeted at boys. This discrepancy is notable because it mirrors gender discrepancies observed by researchers into educational performance and attitudes.

Sex, drugs and sports ‘n’ divorce: How TMZ satisfies its audience • Angelica Kalika, U of Colorado; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado • TMZ remains one of the most popular destinations for people searching for news on the web. However, this news is of the celebrity kind. This study, utilizing textual analysis, examines all stories published on the site during a one-month period (N=1,002). We illustrate the types of content the site publishes (paparazzi-based content; document-based reporting; sports-themed material; and reader polls) and the results are interpreted through the lens of market theory for news production.

Enjoying celebritization of politics: Construction and validation of a scale to measure political influence of celebrities • Azmat Rasul, Florida State University; Betsy Becker, Florida State University • Political parties and candidates are deeply interested in securing support from media savvy personalities such as entertainment-industry celebrities, spin-doctors, and famous journalists to attract undecided young voters. Considering the importance of celebrity-laden entertainment media, we introduce a new measure, Political Influence of Celebrities Scale (PICS) in this article, and examine the psychometric properties of this scale specifically designed to explore the extent to which celebrities politically inspire their fans. We explored the factor structure, internal consistency, and the relationship between assorted dimensions of PICS. We confirmed our results employing a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which examined the three-factor construct and found sufficient evidence confirming the validity and reliability of the scale. Another question motivating this study concerns the relationship between attitude towards celebrities, enjoyment associated with the presence of celebrities in election campaigns, and the influence of celebrity endorsement on political participation of young voters. The study yielded significant results and validated our scale that dependably measured political influence of celebrities.

The Message of Meals: What YouTube Commercials Tell Us About Our Lives • Carol Pardun, University of South Carolina; Marcie Hinton, Murray State University; Anan Wan, University of South Carolina • This study analyzed 38 commercials hosted on YouTube, representing 43 of the world’s most valuable brands. Commercials that included some form of meal time were included in the sample. The study argued that the creative use of food in commercials is a meaningful message strategy portraying families interacting, connecting and negotiating their days. The textual analysis revealed five overall themes: crossroads of tradition and transformation; gendered food; family makeup; food as caring; and healthy, happy and home-grown. The study also discusses the importance of analyzing content of online advertising as well as the importance of YouTube as an advertising channel.

The Effects of Sexually Provocative Programming: A Preliminary Study about the Effects of Sexually Provocative Programming and Sexual Risk and Responsibility • Elise Stevens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Diane Francis; Jeannette Porter • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People campaign aims to reduce unintended pregnancies by 10% by 2020. The present study is a preliminary survey of young adults in the south, a region of the U.S. that is high in unwanted pregnancies, and the effects of sexually provocative programming. Using a structural equation model, results showed a significant positive relationship between watching sexually provocative programming and perceived vulnerability to pregnancy. Perceived vulnerability to pregnancy led to increased intentions to use condoms, visit a doctor for sexual health, and talk to one’s partner about sexual health. Interesting, watching sexually provocative programming had a direct inverse relationship with condom use. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Television’s Masculinities: “New Man” Portrayals in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” • Erika Engstrom, UNLV • This paper examines how the NBC comedy series “Parks and Recreation” utilizes alternative forms of masculinity as embodied in its male characters to counter traditional notions of the male identity familiar in mass media, those that idealize what it means to “be a man.” Working from the context of hegemonic masculinity, the current study analyzes the commonality and differences in the portrayal of the male characters in “Parks and Recreation” Unlike other comedic treatments in which effeminate male characters remain unrewarded for breaking with the form of masculinity that espouses emotional inhibition, the men of “Parks” show their true selves. The friendships and open communication presented by the “New Men” portrayed hence add to other mediated versions of counterhegemonic portrayals, which have the potential to become positive hegemony regarding the performance of manhood.

Redefining the News Journalist for the Millennial Generation: College Women’s Relationships with Celebrity News Personalities • Halie Wenhold, University of Michigan • “This study investigated the association between college women’s perceptions of their favorite female TV news personalities and the way they envision their own future journalistic careers and professional values. College women pursuing media-related degrees (N = 138, average age 19.58 years) selected a favorite TV news personality (TVNP) and completed survey measures of personal work values, perceived work values of their TVNP, engagement with their TVNP, and wishful identification with their TVNP. The TVNPs selected by respondents included both journalists and non-journalist celebrities (e.g., Kim Kardashian), indicating generational change in the way aspiring journalists define journalism. Controlling for age, race, and parents’ education, respondents’ perceived extrinsic work values of their TVNPs were correlated with their own work values both intrinsically and extrinsically. Discussion focuses on the importance of assessing journalism and media students’ perceptions of TVNPs as they envision and formulate their own career plans and expectations.

I Vape, Therefore I Am: Construction of Electronic Cigarette Users’ Identity through Entertainment Social Media • Joon K Kim • E-cigarettes have become a popular alternative to traditional tobacco products. Although people are motivated to use Instagram for entertainment, e-cigarette users could construct and display their identity on Instagram. This study investigated e-cigarettes posts to understand e-cigarettes users’ perceptions of e-cigarettes. The use of textual analysis revealed three themes: vaping e-cigarettes as a fun activity, sharing a moment of daily life with e-cigarettes, and building an identity as an e-cigarette user through hashtags and captions.

What Happens on Snapchat Stays on Snapchat? A Content Analysis of Themes in Screenshots • Kaitlyn Skinner • Snapchat offers an instant messaging feature where content disappears after being viewed. This paper analyzes what content is being sent and “screenshotted,” which is important, since many users choose Snapchat because their content disappears. The research examines what content users screenshot and post online through a content analysis of a sample of Snapchat screenshots. While Snapchat has a negative sexting connotation, results showed there are many reasons users send and screenshot snaps.

Ideological and Cultural Boxes: Blacks in Super Bowl Commercials • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina; Ernest L. Wiggins • While there has been significant change in the racial context on the football field during the Super Bowl, such as increased presence of Black head coaches and quarterbacks, this textual analysis of Super Bowl commercials from 1989 to 2014 found limited portrayals of Blacks that fall into two ideological and cultural boxes — as athletes and entertainers in one box, and as workers and individuals within a fairly narrow spectrum in the other box.

Just One More Episode: Developing and Testing a Binge Viewing Index • Larry Webster, University of South Carolina • This study proposes an index to measure the binge viewing phenomenon. Previously, binge viewing has been defined as watching two to six episodes of a show at one sitting. The Binge Viewing Index is based on scales measuring binge drinking behavior and includes the differences in duration of binges, frequency of binges and number of binges over time. The study then uses the index to explore the correlation between binge viewing and parasocial interaction.

Perfecting Fatherhood: Gender Discourse on Reality TV in China • Li Chen, Syracuse University • “This project used textual analysis to analyze a popular reality TV show in China, “Dad where are we going?”. Five episodes of the first season of this show were transcribed and translated by the researcher and coded through the qualitative analyzing software DeDoose. Through the poststructuralist lens, this feminist cultural analysis project examined the binary oppositions of gender discourses embedded in the text of this reality TV show. Meanwhile, the project identified the flexibility of the binary oppositions of men/women in this media text to explore the possibility of deconstruction. Major themes like “perfecting fatherhood, silencing motherhood”, “ boys as small men, girls as small beauties”, and “negotiations” emerged through the analysis.

The War on Drugs: An Audience Study of The Netflix Original Series Narcos • Maria Cano • Netflix has adopted an emerging subgenre, narcodrama, in the production of their new original series, Narcos. This study investigates what motivates Colombian and American audiences to watch Narcos and examines the uses and gratifications for each audience when it comes to violence in television shows. Results show that Colombian and American audiences differ on four variables related to their viewing habits: 1) information seeking, 2) social learning and development, 3) social contact, and 4) diversion.

Eudaimonic Motivation to Entertainment Media Influences Entertainment Education in Prescription Drug Abuse Intervention • Ming Lei • Prescription drug abuse is a problem among U.S. college students. Results from the current experiment suggest that a communication strategy called entertainment education with medical dramas can help students receive treatment. Further, the results reveal that the effectiveness of entertainment education may be influenced by an audience characteristic called eudaimonic motivation to entertainment media. The process through which eudaimonic motivation influences the effectiveness of entertainment education may be via the attention to entertainment education contents.

Animated aggression across the ages: A content analysis of violence and aggression in animated content • Nicholas Scott Smith, Wayne State University • This study is an initial look at the use of aggression and violence in cartoon content. This article is a first step into the understanding of just how pervasive the aggressive communication and violent actions are in animated content. This is done by conducting a content analysis of cartoons from all five of the American cartoon era’s in attempt to describe the content in this genre and provide some insight into how this content has progressed through the different eras.

Border Crossing: Sean Penn’s Interview with El Chapo • Oray Egin, University of Maryland; Alexander Quiñones, University of Maryland; Linda Steiner, U of Maryland • Sean Penn’s interview with the infamous drug lord El Chapo in Rolling Stone was highly controversial for many reasons. We analyzed critiques in 58 articles published in English and Spanish language news outlets. Some U.S. journalists accepted his self-definition as a journalist; nearly everyone agreed his celebrity status was what accounted for his access. Critics were unanimous that he violated journalistic standards. Mexicans were outraged Penn would ignore how dangerous covering drugs is for journalists.

“Jamming” the South Asian Color Line: Comedy, Carnival, and Contestations of Commodity Colorism • Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University • Challenging the racist commodity stories of skin-lightening cosmetics that peddle dark skin’s abject status in India’s burgeoning consumer landscape, media activists and progressive cultural entrepreneurs deploy the techniques of “culture jamming,” defined as the playful critique and subversion of mainstream hegemonic culture, in their short amateur comedic YouTube video productions and in satirical cyber-images and narratives. My analysis of the scope and potential of these artistic media contestations of colorism, which mimic and parody skin-lightening commercials, will draw from Bakhtinian concepts of “carnival” (folk reversals of the social order), theoretical formulations of counter-publics, and writings on transnational practices of cultural citizenship that exceed the logics of sanctioned official nation-state models of citizenship. How do these amateur digital media productions make “strange” the normality of pervasive colorism and racism in India? How do they cross-pollinate the rhetorical strategies of anti-racist activism birthed in western contexts with resistance towards commodity colorism in South Asia? The paper will argue that these modest mediated articulations of dissent against the skin-lightening industry’s commerce in pigmentocracy encourage active “recognition” of skin color discrimination in a culture that has willfully ignored entrenched and abiding forms of oppression based in domestic skin color distinctions and global racial divisions.

Privileged gay man: The intersection of race, gender and sexuality in network television sit coms • Robert Byrd, University of Memphis • This essay argues that white gay characters in primetime network television programs are given a pass from white male privilege. This pass comes not only by way of their sexual minority status but also through the symbolic annihilation of people at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. The discourse then places white gay men as stand-ins to represent all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people despite race and/or gender identity.

Man Down: Fandom and White Male Anxiety in Popular Narratives of Professional Football • Thomas Oates, University of Iowa • Building on recent scholarship about white male identity politics in and around contemporary sport, this paper argues that mainstream narratives of National Football League (NFL) fandom articulate anxieties about white masculinity in the United States. The paper offers a close reading of two symptomatic texts: the television series The League and the 2009 film Big Fan, arguing that they present cultures of fandom characterized by deep ambivalence about fandom’s potential to deliver hegemonic identities.

Black Panther and Black Agency: Constructing Cultural Nationalism in Comic Books Featuring Black Panther, 1973-1979 • William Schulte, Winthrop University; Nathaniel Frederick, Winthrop University • This study looked at ways cultural nationalism manifested in comic books featuring the character Black Panther between 1972 and 1978. As politics and agency became goals for the African American collective, agency and strength were presented as an actualized reality in the character, Black Panther. This study explored the ways creators of the Black Panther comic books interpreted and navigated the dynamics of the Black Power Movement. The primary method for this study was textual analysis to examine narratives and visuals within the context of the genre. Overall, this study found the medium was able to take several abstract feelings and notions and give them voice. However, in doing so they ended up reinforcing stereotypes associated with African Americans and the Black Power Movement. The book’s creators facilitated an interpretation of the black aesthetic and cultural nationalism to acknowledge their positive influence but relied on stereotypes to achieve those goals.

Race, Media, Nation: American Sniper and the Construction of the Racio-Religioscape • Zachary Vaughn, Indiana University • In this paper I build on Appadurai’s timeless insights of the five scapes originally proposed as lenses with which global cultural flows are marked. To do this I offer a definition of the racioscape as well as the religioscape, and I argue that these two scapes have been collapsed into a single theoretic. The racio-religioscape is a tension between national identity and global cultural flows. The racio-religioscape racializes people of color as different, and through this difference they are imagined as un-American in a perspectival sense. Once racially marked, these individuals are perceived to belong to a mytho-essential prehistory. The racio-religioscape can be seen as an anchor that moors a people to primitive and barbaric lands. For my purposes, I investigate how audience reception on the IMDb message boards to American Sniper produces a racio-religioscape of Arab-Americans in the white hegemonic racial order. The racio-religioscape visualizes “the enemy within” at the same time it elides their presence ideologically, if not phenotypically. Further, it allows us another lens through which we can critically examine identity and difference.

Play between love and labor: Gold farming in China • Zixue Tai, University of Kentucky; Fengbin Hu, Fudan University • This research interrogates the widespread practice gold farming in China through two years of field research conducted in 13 gold farming studios across five cities involving 64 participants. The analysis offers insight on the rationales, motivations, and perceptions of gold farming through the insiders’ perspectives of gold farming studio owners, managers and players. The discussion contributes to the understanding of China’s youth-led game culture in general, and the variegated intricacies of the trade of gold farming in particular.

2016 Abstracts