Online Coverage of Brittany Maynard’s Death: Visual and Verbal Information • Kelsie Arnold; Kimberly Lauffer • This study examined textual and visual elements in web-based coverage of Brittany Maynard’s decision to exercise Oregon’s right to die in order to understand how the media framed their coverage using multimedia components. The authors used a qualitative perspective and a quantitative data collection instrument to synthesize data and key themes that emerged from the research. Culturally embedded frames, loaded language, and graphic elements were all deemed essential to telling the story of Brittany Maynard.

Attributes of Likable Organizational Logos: An Exploratory Study using Q Methodology • Angie Chung; Dennis Kinsey • Logos have a big impact on how people feel about an organization. The goal of this research is to identify the subjective perceptions when people evaluate logos and explore what elements affect the likability of organizational logos. This exploratory research used Q Methodology to quantitatively and qualitatively examine subjective preferences for different types of logos. Forty participants sorted 50 organizational logos (Q sample) from “most appealing” (+5) to “most unappealing” (-5). Three different factors emerged from the correlation and factor analysis—the first group expressed the importance of color, the second group thought logos with living creatures were appealing and the third group were attracted to logos suggesting dynamic movement. Findings are discussed in terms of practical implications for how organizations can choose logos that can be received more positively.

A reciprocal-networked model of the photojournalistic icon: From the print-television news era to the present • Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; David Perlmutter, Texas Tech University; Natalia Mielczarek, Virginia Tech • Millions of news images have been created, but only a relative few have become the fabled “icons” of photojournalism that have been popularly ascribed with extraordinary powers to mobilize national opinion, start or stop wars, or at least capture “decisive moments” in history. Since most of the photoicon era occurred when news was a wholly industrial (via print and then broadcast and cable) enterprise, media gatekeeping has been a critical component of the process of icon creation, distribution, and maintenance. Traditionally, news photographs became iconic, in large part, through their purposive, industrially defined, and prominent placement on elite newspaper front pages and lead position in broadcast/cable news across the globe. But as we rapidly move away from print news and towards a digital/internet/social news environment, what is the effect on the formation of iconic imagery? We argue that it is both a changed reality of news delivery formats and the democratization of news production and dissemination via social media that predicates a theoretical shift in the formation of iconic imagery. Using the historical research method, we draw from current theoretical tenets of iconic image formation and leading research on iconic imagery to present propositions of a model of iconicity that we term the “reciprocal-networked model of iconicity,” which presents four central and related stages: creation, distribution, acceleration, and formation. We conclude this philosophy of images with some speculative predictions about the development of photoicons within the evolution of our reciprocal-networked model, arguing that several trends are predictable.

Fire, ice or drought? Picturing humanity in climate change imagery • Kim Sheehan; Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon; David Morris II, University of Oregon • Despite scientific evidence of climate change, Americans continue to minimize its importance. At the same time, research suggests that advocacy campaigns and news media coverage of climate change—both text and images—do not necessarily resonate with audiences. The current study brings together existing theory on the knowledge-deficit model and research findings on both climate change imagery and story personification to explore in a 3x3x2 experiment how photographs relating to climate change have the best potential to connect with people regarding emotion and engagement.

Resignifying Alan Kurdi: News photographs, memes, and the ethics of visual representation • Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Iowa • The Turkish photojournalist Nilufer Demir’s photograph of the drowned refugee child Alan Kurdi attained worldwide recognition as a media spectacle, initially prompting humanitarian responses and political action, but later morphing into online memes and inciting public backlash as “war porn.” I argue here that the ethical motivations of photojournalism and memes are oppositional with regard to their representations of embodied vulnerability. While photojournalistic depictions of vulnerable bodies are motivated by an ethics of care intended to generate empathy and progressive social change, memes disrupt those affective connotations through processes of mimicry and replication. By means of a comparative semiological analysis, this paper examines the way the sign system of Demir’s photograph was mutated into a meme, radically changing the ethical connotations of the former. The differing ethical affordances of news photos versus memes, and their relationship, may help to explain the reversal of the cosmopolitan humanitarianism initially sparked by the Alan Kurdi photograph and tell us more about the ethical frictions and contrapositions at work in the contemporary media environment.

Access, deconstructed: An analysis of metajournalistic discourse concerning photojournalism and access • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado; Ross Taylor, University of Colorado • This study examines metajournalistic discourse published surrounding the intersection of photojournalism and access. Researchers conducted a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse published in articles by The Image, Deconstructed from 2011 to 2017 (N=70). Findings suggest that photojournalists define access differently than scholars. They obtain access through purposeful body language and verbal communication, clarity of intent and persistence. These findings are interpreted through the lens of the theory of metajournalistic discourse.

Using Angle of Sight to Confirm Media Bias of a Political Protest • Michael Friedman, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga • The study sought to understand if photographic media bias of political protest could be detected by applying the photographic principle of angle of sight to the pictures of the event. The investigation focused on the photographic news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests from two competing and politically opposite New York City tabloid newspapers. The purpose of the study was to determine if there were any differences in the selection of angle of sight photographs, which could act as a subtle cue to either glorify or condemn the protests. Results show strong statistical support that both papers chose the angled photograph that matched with their political opinion of the protest and is relevant to other researchers who seek to understand our legacy of media coverage of political protests.

Professional Photographers and Platforms and the Perceived Credibility of Photographs on the Internet • Gina Gayle; Andrew Wirzburger, Syracuse University; Jianan Hu; Honey Rao • As the use of amateur journalists in place of professionals to photograph current events has begun to shape news content (Pantti & Anden-Papadopoulos, 2011), and people assign varying levels of credibility to the sources of news content (Bracken, 2006), understanding the effects of “professional” labels is growing increasingly salient. This study sought to investigate differences in perceived credibility of photographs on the internet depending on whether or not a professional had taken the photograph and whether or not it had been published by a professional media outlet. Definitions for the dimensions of perceived photograph credibility were adapted from previous research into general internet credibility (Metzger, 2007). The researchers hypothesized that people provided with information that the photograph was somehow “professional” would perceive it to have higher credibility. The study was designed as an experiment with four groups that evaluated photographs using a self-administered online questionnaire; each group was provided with different information about the photograph to stimulate differences between groups. Results produced no significant differences between groups for the concept of credibility but did yield significance for “authority,” one dimension of credibility. These results may be due to the influx of citizen journalism as well as diminishing public trust in mainstream news media.

Chaos, Quest and Restitution Narratives of Depression on Tumblr • Ali Hussain, Michigan State University • This paper studies how visuals from Tumblr might be used to evoke narratives of depression. Fourteen patients with moderately severe depression were interviewed using photo-elicitation method. Findings encompass three types of narratives: chaos, quest and restitution. Chaos narrative describe experiencing illnesses with no cure or unreliable treatments. Quest narrative are about patients’ fighting back. Restitution narrative points toward the belief that health is restorable. Study offers implications to use images during depression counseling sessions.

Show me a story: Narrative, image, and audience engagement on sports network Instagram accounts • Rich Johnson, Creighton University; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • Social media is a growing space for interpersonal and masspersonal communication and the shared image that often accompanies these messages has become a factor in increasing audience engagement. This study seeks to understand what types of images generate more engagement from social media audiences. A group of communication scholars argue that narrative is the most basic form of human communication and therefore messages with strong narrative themes more easily connect the message from the communicator to the audience. This study performed a content analysis of nearly 2,000 images shared by Sports Networks on Instagram. Operating under Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) methodology for determining narrative in image, the study found that images that contained narrative or metacommunicative messages (Bateson, 1951) resulted in greater interest and engagement by audiences through the manifestation of likes and comments. The study offers a methodology for organizations seeking greater engagement from social media audiences.

Cognitive Effects of Emotional Visuals and Company–Cause Congruence in Visual CSR Messages • Sun Young Lee, Texas Tech University; Sungwon Chung, Fort Hays State University • Using the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP), associative network theory, and expectancy violation theory as theoretical frameworks, this study seeks to explore the cognitive effects of two aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages: emotional visuals and company–cause congruence. We employed a 2 (emotional tone of visuals: positive vs. negative) × 2 (company–cause congruence: low vs. high) within-subjects experimental design. We tested these factors using three CSR issues: hunger in Africa, water shortage in Africa, and an environmental issue. The results showed interaction effects between the two factors for recognition sensitivity (d′) to company logos, ordered from being the highest when using a negative image and high company–cause congruence, to a negative image and low company–cause congruence, a positive image and low company–cause congruence, and a positive image and high company–cause congruence as the lowest. For cued recall of company names, we found that there were two main effects, with no interaction effects, and negative images were more effective than positive images: high company–cause congruence was more effective than low company–cause congruence. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Sleight of Hand, Slight of Truth: Deceptive Editing of Documentary Footage in The Look of Silence • Thomas Mascaro, Bowling Green State University • Abstract: The documentary film The Look of Silence conceals editorial sleight of hand involving a 1967 NBC documentary The Battle for Asia, Part III: Indonesia: The Troubled Victory. The editing, which is not disclosed to audiences, misrepresents the original report and contravenes documentary practice. This case illuminates libel law, with regard to DVD and interview statements accompanying a film’s release, and worrisome trend of “poetic” films eclipsing empirical reporting in documentaries.

Solutions in the shadows: The effects of incongruent visual messaging in solutions journalism news stories • Karen McIntyre, Virginia Commonwealth University; Kyser Lough, The University of Texas at Austin; Keyris Manzanares • This experiment examined the impact of story-photo congruency regarding solutions journalism. We tested the effects of solution and conflict-oriented news stories when the photo paired with the story was congruent or incongruent with the narrative. Results revealed that a solution-oriented story with a congruent photo made readers feel the most positive, but surprisingly readers were most interested in the story and reported the strongest behavioral intentions when the story was paired with a neutral photo.

The dead Syrian refugee boy goes viral: Funerary Aylan Kurdi memes as tools for social justice in remix culture • Natalia Mielczarek, Virginia Tech • The picture of the 3-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi, whose dead body washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015, became iconic after it went viral on social media. Within hours, Aylan was a symbol, a hashtag and a meme. This project analyzes the most popular funerary Aylan memes to understand their meanings and functions as they proliferated cyberspace. Through visual rhetorical analysis, the project expands the functions of memes from the typically theorized visual jokes and social commentary to tools of social justice. The case study demonstrates how memes get deployed as rhetorical statements to subvert and re-negotiate reality, in this case to create a ‘better ending’ for the dead boy and to seek atonement for his death. The project also analyzes the paradoxical relationship between a news icon and its digital appropriations, suggesting a new metric for iconicity in digital participatory culture.

What Makes a Meme a Meme? Five Essential Characteristics • Maria Molina, Pennsylvania State University • During the 2016 presidential elections (December 2015-2016), the term “meme” had a higher search interest in the U.S. than the word “election” (Google Trends, 2016). But what makes an Internet meme a meme? And what attracts users to not only view memes, but also create and share them? This article reviews the existent literature, explicates this form of user-generated content, and provides a set of characteristics to differentiate Internet memes from other type of content also shared online. The goal of this exercise is to provide the study of Internet memes with an integrated definition, encompassing the mutually understood set of characteristics of memes. As Chaffee (1991) describes, a concept explication plays a vital role for the advancement of a field as it helps uncover the different components of the term, provides a description of the studies that have been done in the field, and postulates areas of future research and how to move in a cohesive direction. More specifically, it will provide a tool, or measure for the analysis of the uses, motivations, and effects of this new media trend.

The Graphicness of Renowned Imagery: A Content Analysis of Pulitzer Prize Winning Photography • David Morris II, University of Oregon; Nicole Dahmen, University of Oregon • An ongoing journalistic debate centers on the extent of acceptability of graphic imagery in the news media. In order to provide a more complete understanding of this ongoing debate, it is essential to conduct research that provides insight into the content of such imagery, especially renowned imagery. The current research uses a content analysis to explore the visual themes and type of graphicness present in the census of 763 Pulitzer Prize winning photographs from 1942 to 2015.

Closing the Gap Between Photojournalist Research and Photojournalism Practice: Exploring the Motivations of the Subjects of Sensitive Photo Essays • Tara Mortensen; Brian McDermott; Daniel Haun, University of South Carolina • There have always been challenges to pursuing photo essays, including the wariness of potential photo subjects who are often in the midst of personal hardships themselves, as well as a commitment of months or years to a single story. But contemporarily, there is a shrinking number of photojournalists and resources in the newsroom, as many have been replaced with iPhone-armed reporters and the abundance of citizen-shot photography (Allan, 2013; Hartley, 2007; Örnebring, 2013; Stelter, 2013; White, 2012). Citizens are more willing than ever to share thousands of photos a second on Snapchat and millions of photos on instagram every day (Biale, 2016; Schlosser, 2016), but an irony to this phenomenon and additional blow to photojournalists who are struggling to maintain their professional status (Gade & Lowrey, 2011; Mortensen, 2014) is that these same people are often hesitant allow professional photojournalists to tell their story (McDermott, 2012). This study is the first to inquire about the factors that influence peoples’ willingness to allow professional photojournalists tell their story, including topics such as sexual assault in the military, a woman’s struggle with losing her legs, and a mother’s struggle with losing a child. Guided by uses and gratifications theory, ten in-depth interviews with subjects of peer-judged contest winners from 2014 – 2016 in the multiple picture story categories of the NPPA Monthly Clip Contest, the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Contest, and the World Press Photo Contest were conducted and analyzed using a constant comparative method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Priming effects on Instagram: An analysis of how pictures on Instagram affect individuals’ risk perceptions and information seeking behaviors • NIcole O’Donnell • This research explored how images on Instagram affect individuals’ information processing and seeking. Participants viewed Instagram posts that discussed the natural flavors added to processed foods. Individuals in a science-image condition had higher risk perceptions than individuals in a health image condition; however, this effect was moderated by nutrition label usage. Additionally, 45% of participants choose to seek further information on the topic. Implications for the integration of priming effects and information processing theories are discussed.

Profile Pictures and Political Expression: The Perceived Effectiveness of Avatar Activism (an Austrian Case). • Judith Schossboeck, City University Hong Kong • This paper investigates the phenomenon of avatar activism (AA), understood as changing one’s profile picture in a social media (SM) or online social network (OSN) for political reasons or a good cause from a quantitative perspective. Specifically, the effectiveness of avatar activism as perceived by users engaging in this practice, as well as its relation to factors like age, participation in OSNs, online social capital and political engagement are investigated. An online questionnaire of n = 210 was distributed before the Austrian Presidential Elections in December 2016, and the topic AA was placed within the context of the elections, but also addressed other examples of AA. After increasing the variable perceived effectiveness of AA along several levels related to cognitive or actual impact, results show that most people do see this activity as a good form of self-expression, but doubt the actual political impact. Age, participation in OSNs and online social capital could not be identified as influencing factors of perceived effectiveness of AA. However, engagement in AA is related to other forms of political engagement. The limitations of the study and possible further directions are discussed.

Networked photographic repertoire and capital: Prosumption of selfies among Taiwanese gay men on Instagram • Hong-Chi Shiau, Shih-Hsin University • This study attempts to illustrate identity performance and consumption by Taiwanese gay men through their behavior of posting and commenting on selfies. This study selects a gay community on Instagram as a site for fieldwork because millennials are quitting Facebook, once Taiwan’s most popular social networking site, but now in a steep decline. The prosuming of selfies on Instagram is analyzed as a particular form of speech community, adjusted to the orientation of users towards initiating social bonding, corporal aesthetic regulation, or even sexual encounters. Through ethnographic interviews with 17 gay male college students from Taiwan and textual analysis of their correspondence though texting on Instagram, this study contextualizes how the rituals and social processes engaged in on Instagram help constitute a collective identity pertaining to Taiwanese gay men on Instagram. The prosuming of selfies is examined as an identity-making process involving three nuanced types of cultural capital. These uploaded representations of the self are referenced to the collective past. Three typological personae are identified to illuminate the notions of cultural, aesthetic and emotional labor. The conclusion offers an alternative sociological intervention that goes beyond the notion of digital narcissism to help understand how the labor of presenting selfies is invested and reproduced.

‘Sight Beyond My Sight’ (SBMS): Concept, Methodology, and a Tool For Seeing • Gabriel Tait, Arkansas State University • Sight Beyond My Sight (SBMS), a new visual research method, aims to empower individuals to participate in the photographic communication and social science research process. This introductory study examines local people taking pictures to share knowledge about topics. This SBMS case study of photos from eleven participants (eight men and three women) between the ages of 18-65 from Liberia, West Africa, explains the method, discusses the participants, highlights some photographs taken, and offers an encapsulated analysis of what was learned from Liberians about Liberia. Advancing the participatory research methods of “Photovoice” (Wang and Burris 1994) in public health communication education, “Shooting Back” (Hubbard 2009) in photojournalism, and “Autophotography” (Ziller 1990) social psychology, SBMS bridges a gap in communication and social science research practices.

The evolution of story: How time and modality affect visual and verbal narratives • T.J. Thomson, University of Missouri • A majority of Americans distrust the news media due to concerns over comprehensiveness, accuracy, and fairness. Since many interactions between journalists and their subjects last only minutes and can be published within minutes, if not live, research is needed to explore how journalists’ understandings of their subjects’ narratives evolve over time and how much time is necessary to avoid surface-level coverage. Also, since people are now exposed to more image-based rather than text-based messages, additional research is necessary to explore how the verbal narratives spoken by subjects compare to their nonverbal narratives as captured by news photographers in visual form. Through a longitudinal, interview-based approach, a photojournalist working on a 30-plus-day picture story was interviewed weekly for six weeks over the course of his project to track perceptions of how his subjects’ verbal narratives changed. At the conclusion of the projects, the photojournalist’s subjects were also interviewed to explore how their verbal and nonverbal narratives compared. Informed by literature in role theory, narrative, and visual journalism, the findings explore how news media narratives can be more nuanced and how people shape their visual and verbal narratives consciously and unconsciously.

Parsing photograph’s place in a privately public world • T.J. Thomson, University of Missouri; Keith Greenwood, University of Missouri • Billions of personal cameras exist globally that capture more than one trillion images each year. In contrast to studies that focus on cameras in a particular industry or field, such as body cameras in law enforcement or diagnostic imaging in medical settings, this study adopts a comparative and integrative approach using the public-private distinction to explore 1) how people in different social spheres perceive cameras and those who operate them, 2) what factors influence those perceptions, and 3) how technological convergence, camera access, and digital dissemination ease are impacting social life. Through in-depth interviews with individuals in the public and private spheres, an understanding of camera operators as primarily disruptive or primarily affirmative emerged and participants and factors that influenced their perceptions were gathered. Participants also said more cameras and converged technology are blurring the lines between public and private, that exposure in public seems to reduce inclination for private exposure, that cameras are shifting the nature of experience, and that cameras are becoming increasingly regulated.

Location, Location, Location: Visual Properties and Recognition of Video Game Advertising. • Russell Williams • Videogame placements are important for advertising and there is limited cognitive capacity available to players during a game to notice these ads. This is a quasi-experimental study using a commercial videogame and the Limited Capacity Model as an exploratory mechanism. It demonstrates that positioning in the focal visual block enhanced recognition, and that integrated ads and landmarks are better recognized than interruptive advertisements. Practical implications are discussed.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Two Sides of the Chinese Sports Media Story: Contrasting State-Owned and Commercially-Sponsored Chinese Websites by Nation and Sex of Athlete • Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Qingru Xu; Mingming Xu, Beijing Sport University • This study utilizes social cognitive theory to content analyze news coverage of two state-owned and two commercially-sponsored Chinese sports websites over a 14-day period, focusing on issues of nationality and biological sex. Examining 3,417 news stories and 2,327 news images, this study uncovered fruitful, substantial, and significant results, indicating that the online sports coverage on state and commercial media can be largely divergent, with the former prioritizing party-state ideology and the latter pursuing commercial profits. Compared to the state websites, the commercial websites tended to provide foreign athletes or teams more coverage; whereas the sexualization of women athletes on commercial websites was significant, yet virtually non-existent on state websites. Implications and further research directions are also offered.

How Athletes’ Health-related Messages on Social Media Affect Exercise Attitudes and Behaviors • Jan Boehmer; Galen Clavio • Improving dietary and exercise habits is one of the best ways to reduce cardiovascular disease and improve general public health. However, despite increased academic and professional interest in the promotion of healthy behaviors, recent years have seen a decline in individuals’ adherence to healthy lifestyle choices. And even if individuals start exercise regimens, high rates of attrition are common across many programs. This study investigates two major elements that could help deliver health messages to underserved audiences and increase their likelihood to exercise: athletes and social media. More specifically, we investigate how athletes’ health-related messages on social media affect individuals’ perceptions of athletes as role models, as well as exercise attitudes and behaviors. Results of Structural Equation Modeling suggest that exposure to health-related messages is related to increased perceptions of athletes as role models, which in turn predicts more positive attitudes towards physical exercise and subsequent exercise behavior.

Contributing to the Decline of the American Male: Bottom-up Framing of Pop Warner Safety Policies • David Cassilo, Kent State University; James Sanderson • This research explored bottom-up framing in response to U.S. youth football organization Pop Warner eliminating kickoffs in its three youngest age divisions. Data were obtained from 1,043 Facebook comments posted to news articles covering the policy announcement. Through thematic analysis, participants framed the policy as: (a) Effect on the NFL; (b) Overreaction; (c) Competitive Disadvantage; (d) Negative Effect on Masculinity, (e) Evidence of America’s Decline; and (f) Policy Legitimization. Results reveal that the public has complex and divergent interpretations of health and safety initiatives and sport, equating these changes with declining American social structures. Consequently, health and safety initiatives in football are likely to be with strong resistance, as people seek to protect the sport from elements they perceive to be weakening American society.

The Making of Social Sports Fans: Factors Affecting Sports Consumption on Social Media • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida; Min Xiao; Lisa-Charlotte Wolter, Hamburg Media School • With the goal of investigating sports fans’ social media behavior in more depth and incorporating consumers’ overall media consumption habit in the process, this study explored how various sports fandom and media platform factors influence sports consumption on overall media and social media. From the perspective of motivation and behavior driver for overall sports media use, the finding suggests the importance of information and socialization. From the perspective of consumer media habits, a reliance on TV and mobile phone seems to be most relevant to one’s level of sports media consumption. Comparatively, sports consumption on social media is affected by a slightly different set of variables. It was found that the negative aspect of “cutting off reflected failure” promotes a more active fan engagement on social media as consumers try to handle the disappointment. Information acquisition is also more likely to motivate higher engagement level when consumers use social media for sports. The analysis of moderators suggests that prosocial behavior enhances the social-identify driven fan behavior in terms of engagement levels on social media platforms, especially from the perspective of CORFing in all aspects and both BIRGing and CORFing for the higher-level engagement of social writing. Prosocial behavior boosts the value of information and escapism when consumers actively co-create content on social media for sports purposes.

From 1996 to 2016, two decades of NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage • Roxane Coche, University of Memphis; C.A. Tuggle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Scholarly literature about gender issues in sports coverage supports two main conclusions: women’s sports receive little coverage in the media compared to men’s sports, and the little media coverage they receive rarely focuses on female athletes’ athletic skills. Media coverage during the Olympic games is the one exception to these rules. The Olympics offer female athletes the opportunity to shine on the biggest stage and media tend to cover women’s sports more and better during those events. The 1996 games in Atlanta were called the “Olympics of the women” mainly because of the unprecedented amount of media exposure some female athletes got. Since then, five more summer Olympic games have taken place and during each of these, NBC was the Olympic network in the US. How has its primetime Olympic coverage evolved throughout the years? The study is a quantitative content analysis of NBC’s United States primetime broadcast coverage of the 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 summer Olympic games for gender equality. Results indicate that while NBC’s coverage of women’s sports has increased, it has also become increasingly less diverse, focusing on only five major sports, all deemed “socially acceptable” per stereotypical gender norms (gymnastics, track and field, beach volleyball, swimming and diving). Meanwhile, competition involving physical power or hard body contact is almost never featured in primetime. Furthermore, NBC uses more male speakers than it does female speakers and sources are more likely to be men, unless they are friends or family members of an athlete.

Concussions, the Emerging Public Health Crisis and why Media Advocacy is Needed • Christian Dotson-Pierson • Health practitioners call concussions an emerging public health crisis, with over four million concussions reported annually in the United States. Former NFL players were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) during autopsies, spurring some current players to retire. This qualitative study interviewed concussion advocates to learn which communication channels they use to spread awareness. Findings reveal that traditional and new media are top choices to convey information to parents, athletes and coaches.

Sport for Development and Peace: Framing the Global Conversation • Virginia Harrison, The Pennsylvania State University; Jan Boehmer • This study seeks to understand news coverage of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) and Sport for Peace (SFP). A content analysis of 284 English-language newspaper articles from August 2013 to November 2016 was conducted using Iyengar’s (1991) thematic and episodic frames and Semetko & Valkenburg’s (2000) five generic news frames. Results indicate that coverage is often episodically framed and emphasizes responsibility and human interest. Recommendations were made for journalists covering this topic globally.

Life in Black and White: Racial framing by sports networks on Instagram • Rich Johnson, Creighton University; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • Research on racial framing in sports is a robust area of scholarship. Studies have shown that minorities are frequently framed along racial stereotypes. However, as social media platforms (SMPs) continue to grow in importance as a space for sports networks (SNs) to share news and information, the question emerges whether the images SNs’ social media accounts reflect racial framing found in news coverage on traditional platforms. The purpose of this study is to determine whether racial framing occurs in the everyday news coverage of the four major American sports networks ESPN, FOX Sports, NBC Sports, and CBS Sports. Researchers examined the content of images SNs shared on Instagram—a social media application that focuses on visual communication. Operating under framing theory (Goffman, 1974) and using a framework established by Hardin et al.’s (2002) study on framing of Olympic athletes in newspaper coverage, this study examine nearly 2,000 images shared by the SNs on Instagram and discovered that significant discrepancies exist between the way Black subjects and White subjects were framed. Specifically, Black subjects’ athletic achievements were overemphasized at the expense of their other virtues and skills. Ultimately, this study corroborates scholarship on race in sport.

Sponsor Advertisement Embedded in Instant Replay Video (AIRV): The Effectiveness of AIRV in Professional Tennis Events • Jihoon (Jay) Kim, University of Georgia; Joe Phua, University of Georgia • Despite increasing usage of instant replay video (IRV) in sport game broadcasts, no systematic research has been done on the effectiveness of an advertisement embedded in IRV (AIRV). The purpose of the current study is to test the effectiveness of AIRV and to explore how AIRV influences perceived brand attitude, behavioral intention, and brand trust of sport spectators. Details about the effects of AIRV on brand preferences are presented, and theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Effects of Social Media Use for Sports Events and Discussion Network Heterogeneity on College Students’ Identification and Collective Self-esteem • Bumsoo Kim, University of Alabama • Based on the perspective of social identity theory, this study focuses on the effects of college students’ social media usage for school sporting events and discussion network heterogeneity on psychological outcomes—college identification and collective self-esteem. The research empirically explores the direct effect relationships between social media usage for sports and discussion network heterogeneity and between network heterogeneity and collective self-esteem/college identification. The moderating effects of ethnicity (White vs. other ethnic groups) on the relationship between discussion network heterogeneity and the two outcome variables were also examined. Finally, the indirect effect of social media usage for sports on college identification/collective self-esteem through discussion network heterogeneity was tested. The results support the direct and indirect effect relationships among the variables, but only a significant moderating effect of ethnicity was discovered in the relationship between network heterogeneity and college identification.

Gender Differences in Sports Media Consumption • Daniel Krier • This study investigates whether increases in sports team identity and sports media involvement correlate with increased amounts of daily sports media consumption. In addition, antecedents to involvement are incorporated into the research model to determine which discrete motivations show significant relationships with changes in involvement and time spent consuming. An investigation into significant gender differences in motivations to consume as predictors of consumption per day is carried out via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).

Twitter and Olympics: Exploring Factors which Impact Fans Following American Olympic Governing Bodies • Bo Li, St Ambrose University; Olan Scott, University of Canberra; Steve Dittmore, University of Arkansas; Sheng Wang, University of Sussex • Guided by economic demand theory, researchers aimed to examine how Olympic audiences utilized Twitter to follow American National Governing Bodies during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. After studying 33 NGBs’ Twitter accounts, researchers found that team’s performance and the number of tweets had positive relationships with increasing the number of NGB’s Twitter followers. The researchers expect that the results will help communication practitioners of Olympic sports have a better understanding of fans’ social media usage.

Parental perceptions of USA Football’s Heads Up campaign • Judson Meeks, Texas Tech University; Harper Anderson; Alexander Moe, Texas Tech University; Mary Norman, Texas Tech University; Trent Seltzer, Texas Tech University College of Media & Communication • USA Football’s Heads Up campaign was established to address the concussion epidemic in youth football and teach adolescents good foundational skills. Parents must perceive the USA Football campaign as trustworthy and credible for the program to be successful. Through a series of interviews with parents, we assessed parental trust in the campaign. Findings indicate that most parents are unaware of the campaign but would feel safer if their children participated in Heads Up football leagues.

Just how they drew it up: How in-house reporters fit themselves into the sport-media system • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin • Drawing on perspectives on professionalism that view it as a process of defining boundaries and building relationships, this paper uses interview data and content analysis to examine how in-house reporters locate themselves within the sports-media production complex. In-house reporters accentuate professional similarities to journalists and use this to define their roles in sports organizations’ corporate structures. Their view of professional authority has implications for sports journalism and study of the sports-media production complex.

Bleeding the Team Colors: An Examination of Fan-Team Emotional Brand Attachment and Identification on Instagram • Hollie Deis West, University of Wyoming; Cindy Price Schultz, University of Wyoming • Because of social media, brands can better understand how their consumers are responding to messages. This study found that fans who were digital natives and followed their favorite professional athletics team on Instagram had greater brand attachment and identification with the team than non-followers, and could more strongly identify brand messages. This held true for Facebook and Twitter followers. Therefore, sports marketers must provide meaningful digital content for fans to enhance brand attachment and identification.

Off the record: The popularity, prevalence, and accuracy of unnamed sources in NBA trade coverage • Sada Reed, Arizona State University; Guy Harrison, Arizona State University • The following study examines the prevalence of unnamed sources in National Basketball Association trade stories; cross-references unnamed sources’ claims of a potential trade with the NBA’s official transaction log in order to determine if the trade actually happened (and the unnamed source’s information was accurate); and scrapes Twitter in order to determine how frequently stories using unnamed sources were shared and if such stories were shared more frequently than stories with named stories.

Challenging a Boy’s Club: Reputation management and the case of pay inequity in professional women’s sport • Terry Rentner, Bowling Green State University; David Burns, Salisbury University • Media attention regarding the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Championship and the U.S. women’s hockey team boycott have put pay inequity in sports in the spotlight. While the debate itself is not novel, it is clearly unsettled. This paper explores how sport organizations may face a reputation crisis due to growing equal pay demands. The paper addresses discrepancies and impact of media rights, sponsorships, and culture. Best practices, communication strategies, and reputation management are discussed.

Sometimes It’s What You Don’t Say: College Football Announcers and their Use of In-Game Stereotypes • Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi School of Journalism; Mary Sheffer, University of Southern Mississippi; Nathan Towery • A content analysis of live college football broadcasts was conducted during the fall of 2016 to analyze the comments of the game announcers. The analysis sought to determine whether such announcers (play-by-play persons, color analysts and sideline reporters) used stereotypes and how such stereotypes were used. A random sample of games (one per week for each of the 13 weeks in the season) revealed that announcers still rely on racial stereotypes, especially regarding the skill of the players. Stereotypes related to masculinity and aggression were not as prevalent. Implications of this trend were analyzed and discussed.

Gender, Parasocial Interaction, and Nonverbal Communication: Testing the Visual Effect of Sports Magazine Cover Models • ben wasike, university of texas rio grande valley • An experiment examined gender, parasocial interaction, and nonverbal communication regarding sports magazine cover models. Correlation exists among parasocial interaction, nonverbal communication, and gender. Female cover models elicited larger effects. However, gender did not correlate with parasocial interaction or nonverbal communication among subjects, contradicting literature. Parasocial and nonverbal scales positively correlated. In conclusion, static images are reliable experimental stimuli for parasocial interaction studies and nonverbal scales, and sports magazines are better served by featuring more women.

It’s Going to Be Our Year! Examining Online Engagement Behaviors Among Sport Fans • Brandi Watkins; Stephanie Smith, Virginia Tech • Understanding sport fan engagement is an essential for developing effective strategic communication plans. Karjaluoto and Salmi (2016) suggest investigating communication strategies organizations can implement to connect with fans. This paper answers that call by following a cohort of sport fans during a season to determine how team involvement and expectations for the team influenced online engagement. Findings revealed sport fan online engagement is consistent throughout the season and offer insights into online fan engagement.

Gender Differences Through the Lens of Rio: Australian Olympic Coverage of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games • Qingru Xu; Olan Scott, University of Canberra; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Melvin Lewis; Stirling Sharpe • Forty-five broadcast hours of the Seven Network’s were examined regarding clock-time, name mentions, and descriptions divided by gender, finding that the Seven Network devoted nearly equal clock-time to men and women athletes, yet 14 of the top 20 most-mentioned athletes (70%) were men. In terms of word-by-word descriptors, gender differences were also uncovered on many levels relating to attributions of athletic success, failure, personality, and physicality. The findings of this study suggest that—at least within an Australian sports context—gender portrayals ranged from relative equality to significant differences depending on the metric employed. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Collaborative touchdown with #Kaepernick and #BLM. Sentiment analysis of Tweets expressing Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during national anthem and its association with #BLM • Joseph Yoo, Jordon Brown and Arnold Chung, The University of Texas at Austin • Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem caused heated debates on Twitter. Users expressed emotions by using the hashtags #Kaepernick and #BLM. Based on Papacharissi’s (2016) affective publics, this study conducted sentiment analysis to interpret the sentiment toward Kaepernick’s protest. The hashtag #BLM contributed to the formation of positive sentiments. While most tweets with negative sentiments criticized Kaepernick and his protest, others tweeted negative words to express their feelings about racism.

2017 ABSTRACTS

“Using Their Own Voice”: Learning to Tell Stories with Instagram • Robert Byrd, University of Memphis; Pamela Denney • This study explores the use of Instagram as a storytelling platform in journalism education. A post-only quantitative and qualitative questionnaire was used to assess an Instagram storytelling assignment in university reporting courses. The key findings include the overall success of the assignment in requiring students to creatively tell stories while problem solving in the field. Students completing the assignment honed skills in photography and interviewing as well as posting compelling stories to Instagram. These multimedia skills are critical in today’s media organizations.

The Trifecta: Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Among Journalism, Public Relations and Video Production Students in a Simulated Environment • Paul Ziek, Pace University; Katherine Fink, Pace University • Communications disciplines in higher education use experiential learning to bring together theory and practice. However, experiential learning settings often lack opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. This paper describes a simulation, dubbed “The Trifecta,” which brought together students in journalism, public relations, and video production courses to produce multi-platform communications in a fictional municipality. Students were then surveyed. Results show that the students learned about all three disciplines, and began to understand nuances about forming cross-disciplinary relationships.

How to Communicate University Reputation: In-depth Interviews of Parents to Understand Their Perceived University Reputation and Communication Behavior • Youngah Lee, Ball State University; Christa Burkholder, Ball State University • This study conducted in-depth interviews with 29 parents of prospective college students, who are a target public of university marketing efforts. We explored how university communication influenced parents’ attitudes, reputation perception, and communication behavior. The research findings are most relevant to small and medium-sized universities as they have less marketing budget, but their strong organizational identity and culture communicated through the internal stakeholder’s experience can significantly influence prospective parents’ favorable cognitive and behavioral intentions.

2017 ABSTRACTS

A lack of research in the classroom: Adopting evidence-based practices in both the journalism profession and education • Martin Smith-Rodden, Ball State University; Robin Blom, Ball State University; Christa Burkholder, Ball State University; Yuanwei Lyu • The best practices of many disciplines have been informed by empirical research that guides training and, ultimately, the practices within the field itself. Interestingly, the practice of journalism has seemed to escape the movement so far. This study should begin that important conversation as a stepping stone, because a survey of journalism educators indicated that they highly value scholarship, yet do not expose their students to such research to a high extent promoting evidence-based practices.

Differentiations in Motivation and Need-Satisfaction based on Course Modality: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective • Vince Filak; Kristine Nicolini, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh • Online education has grown exponentially over the past two decades, in large part due to its promise of flexibility and connectivity for students. However, this approach to pedagogy has remained relatively unexamined in regard to issues of motivation and intellectual thriving. Using Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; 1991; 2000, 2012) as a foundation, we assessed the degree to which course modality (namely online vs. face-to-face) led to psychological need satisfaction and quality motivation. Our survey of 240 (n=240) college students confirmed previous research in which higher quality motivation predicted the satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness, which in turn predicted course and instructor approval. However, in a series of matched-pairs t-tests, students reported lower levels of quality motivation, autonomy support, competence and relatedness in online courses than they did for face-to-face courses. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Grade Incentivized Peer Editing: An Account of Student Perceptions • Jessica Holt, University of Georgia • Peer editing has been integrated into writing courses to improve students’ ability to critically evaluate writing and provide constructive feedback. This study examined students’ perceptions of implementing grade-incentivized peer editing assignments throughout a semester in a journalism course. Data from 23 different students in the same class over two years were analyzed with qualitative methods to identify the themes and offer suggestions for future implementation and research.

Not exactly “common sense”: Measuring sports journalism students’ understanding of hegemonic masculinity • Sada Reed, Arizona State University • Critical scholars often use hegemonic masculinity as a framework for critiquing sports media and sports journalists. A 2015 pilot study (author identity redacted) explored how sports journalism instructors introduce rising sports journalists to the theory. The following study builds on the pilot study by surveying 151 sports journalism students enrolled in 10 American university’s sports journalism or sports communication programs about their understanding of hegemonic masculinity.

An exploration of student media in private schools • Erica Salkin • Research indicates that student media experience has a strong positive impact on students’ civic and academic development. This paper seeks to examine the opportunities private high school students have to experience that benefit by exploring student media and journalism education in U.S. private schools. Though not generalizable, the results of this study indicate a student media environment similar to public schools, and an engaged adviser population ready to contribute to the larger scholastic journalism community.

Journalists Don’t Do Math: Journalism Student Perceptions and Myths About Data Journalism • Amy Schmitz Weiss, San Diego State; Jessica Retis • Journalism programs today face the need to train their students in the latest applications and tools – including data journalism techniques. Despite several classes and programs developing in this subject area (Berret & Phillips, 2016), students are not actively enrolling in such classes. Using an epistemological approach and Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2005), this study of a national survey of journalism students identifies some key perceptions that highlight potential barriers to entry for enrollment in such courses.

Social Media, Newsrooms and Digital Skills: A Critical Intersection for Journalism Education • Elizabeth Smith, Pepperdine University • This study examined college journalists and their use of social media. The survey data from student journalists across the United States (N = 334). The findings demonstrated a positive significant relationship between the length of time a student has practiced journalism and the more a student “feels like a journalist,” in both the newsroom and on social media. Findings also demonstrated significant positive relationships between the use of social media and digitals skills.

Students’ experiences in an environmental journalism master’s program: An application of knowledge-based journalism principles • Bruno Takahashi, Department of Journalism, Michigan State University; Perry Parks • This study explores the educational and post-graduation experiences of graduates of a master’s program with a focus on environmental journalism. The study uses the framework of knowledge-based journalism to qualitatively examine the ways the competencies of journalistic skills, general and content-specific knowledge, learning communication theory, and developing journalistic values allowed graduates to develop a niche in their professional careers. Results show an overemphasis in journalistic skills and vagueness about the importance of theory courses.

Budget Cuts in Scholastic Media: A Focus Group Study of Oklahoma Journalism Advisers’ Survival Skills • Melanie Wilderman, Gaylord College, University of Oklahoma; Sohana Nasrin, University of Oklahoma • Scholastic journalism plays an important role in creating future professional journalists. Due to journalism’s place in a functioning democracy, journalism education is also tied to a democracy’s success. Many U.S. states have recently cut budgets severely for public education, which often disproportionately impact non core-education classes, like journalism. Researchers gathered focus group interview data from 14 scholastic journalism advisers in Oklahoma schools concerning how student publications function and will continue to function amid financial cuts.

Creating Journalistic Identity: An Ethnography of a College Newsroom • Christy Zempter, Ohio University • This ethnographic study of an independent college newsroom explores the ways professional identity and journalistic culture are expressed and negotiated by student journalists. Two key communicative themes emerged over the course of a monthlong observation that illuminate the role of newsroom-based interactions in these processes—overlapping relational and task-oriented communication and the socialization of new staff members by more experienced student journalists.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Digital Media Disruption and Islamic Religious Authority: Case Study of Online Contestations Over the Mawlid • Ibrahim Abusharif, Northwestern University in Qatar • This paper explores the relationship between digital media and religious authority in Islam, particularly how it relates juridical nodes of authority. The paper suggest a framework that centers on the notion (or theory) of “disruption” as a function of “mediatization,” principally as it relates to digital media and its challenge to traditional means of knowledge acquisition and conveyance. The case study presented here concerns the “Mawlid,” the controversial practice of celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad as an act of veneration and piety and how online contestations demonstrate a breach in traditional religious authority and speak to the qualification threshold common to the question of religious authority, sacred law, and media. The paper helps to explain, in part, how media disruption and its relationship with religion have affected the idea of authority. Research question: How has religious authority in Islam been affected by digital disruption at a basic level? And what interdisciplinary framework bests describes the phenomenon? And the choice of the case study that symbolizes this question pivots on the celebration of the Mawlid, as explicated below.

#Hijab or #Haram? Revealing Visuals and Semantics Associated with Muslim (Self-)Representation Online • Thomas Frissen, KU Leuven; Elke Ichau, KU Leuven; Kristof Boghe, KU Leuven; Leen d’Haenens, KU Leuven • The proliferation of social media has fed the rapid expansion of what some have called a ‘virtual umma’ (El-Nawawy and Khamis 2010), or a transnational Islamic public sphere (Allievi 2003; Anderson 2003). Blurring the lines between representation, participation and reception, social media have provided Muslims worldwide with spaces and tools for self-definition and community building (Eckert and Chadha 2013; Harris and Roose 2014, Kavakci and Kraeplin 2016; Mosemghvdlishvili and Jansz 2013). The purpose of this paper is to explore visual (self-)representations of Islam and Muslim religiosity in online social networks, with a focus on the leading image-sharing platform Instagram. This was done by means of an innovative multidimensional and quantitative content analysis method, that enabled us to study both visual representations as well as semantic associations, using a dataset consisting of n=1357 unique Instagram posts marked with the hashtags #Islam, #Muslim and #Allah. Our findings are threefold. First, despite the fact that Instagram is an image-sharing platform, the most prominent visual is text, i.e. quotes or inspirational texts. Second, even though very ‘general’ search queries (#Islam, #Muslim and #Allah) were used to compose our corpus, the vast majority of occurring visuals and semantics were strongly related to female religious identity, e.g. hijabs or #Muslimah. Third, and maybe most significant, based on the analysis of both visuals and semantics, we observe a field of tension between the representation of religious experience on the one hand, and religion itself on the other.

Interfaith Monologue: A study of UK-based interfaith work on Twitter • Sofi Hersher, King’s College London • This paper explores the relationship of social media and religion by examining the use of Twitter by interfaith organizations and professionals in the UK. It introduces the concept of ‘interfaith monologue,’ whereby interfaith practitioners use Twitter to disseminate ideas, distribute relevant information, identify with the ideals of interfaith cooperation and encourage contribution to the interfaith movement via one-to-many communication that specifically does not directly encourage conversation or dialogue.

God on our side: Presidential Religious Rhetoric, Issue Ownership and Competing Gospels • Ceri Hughes, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The US, despite official separation of church and state, is a country dominated by the Christian religion. This is evident in the unbroken ranks of Christians (and also white males) to be elected to the top political office in the land. Previous research illustrates how frequently Jefferson’s “wall” is breached in presidential discourse. This research adds to this evidence and investigates whether presidents appear to adopt religious language systematically in public addresses in a manner consistent with differing biblical interpretations – the Gospel of Wealth and the Social Gospel. The research also looks at whether religious discourse use in speeches conforms to expectations from issue-ownership theory. Content analysis of speeches from Reagan to Obama shows how presidents may use God to bolster support for issues of strength, in overarching political philosophy and also to trespass into opposition issues. This research provides further illustration as to how religion may be being employed at the very highest level of the US political realm.

Power and Politics: State Baptist Newspaper Coverage of Civil Rights, 1963-1965 • Vicki Knasel Brown, University of Missouri • This study explores how Southern Baptist media covered and responded to four civil rights events from 1963 to 1965 and the relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service, Baptist Press, and three selected state Baptist newspapers. Each approached news coverage and editorial response differently. The study contributes to understanding the role the editors, most of whom were also pastors, played in shaping a religious understanding of race relations among their Baptist readers

Visual media, radicalization and Islamic youth: Socially constructed meaning in Indonesia • Michael Longinow; Tamara Welter; Naniek Setijadi, faculty • This paper examines media, radicalization, and the changing role of Islam among young audiences within Indonesia’s multicultural society, as viewed through the lens of socially constructed reality and visual theory. It suggests connections between the digital visual media that young Muslims consume, the angst of their lives, and the choice of some to pursue violence—in their own country and in the Middle East—as an outworking of rage, frustration or connection to a cause that becomes a new identity.

The Islamic State in the News: Journalistic Differentiation between Terrorism and Islam, Terror News Proximity, and Islamophobic Attitudes • Christian von Sikorski; Jörg Matthes, University of Vienna; Desirée Schmuck • The present research examined the role of journalistic differentiation (between Muslims/Muslim terrorists) and proximity (place of terroristic act near/far away) for the effects of Islamic State (IS) terrorism news on islamophobic attitudes. Two experimental studies uniformly revealed that undifferentiated (compared to differentiated) IS coverage not clearly distinguishing between Muslim terrorists and Muslims in general activated negative Muslim stereotypes, thereby increasing islamophobic attitudes. However, proximity showed no effects on fear reactions, negative stereotypes, and islamophobic attitudes.

Whose “Boogie-man” is Given Flesh and Blood?: The Role of the Press in Realizing “Christianophobia” • Rick Moore • Is there really such a thing as “Christianophobia”? Given the fact that mass communication messages are typically thought to play a key role in the construction of reality, one would expect that if Christianophobia does exist, the mass media would include evidence of such. In this study, I use Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate coverage of Christianophobia in papers from around the world. In spite of the fact that many powerful people and agencies have attempted to bring the word into the common vocabulary, media usage remains low, and persistently so. The implications of this would seem to be very important for those interested in understanding the media and their power.

“Praised Be” Praised: Religious And Secular Magazine Coverage Of Pope Francis’ Climate Encyclical • Alejandro Morales; Ryan Thomas, University of Missouri • There is a paradox challenging our understanding of the interplay between media, religion, and secularization: decreasing commitment to organized religion alongside religion’s increased visibility. In view of this paradox, this study compared how secular and religiously affiliated publications expressed commitment toward religion. We implemented a discourse analysis of secular and Catholic magazine coverage of “Praised Be,” Pope Francis’s 2015 climate encyclical. Commitment toward Catholicism involved commitment toward Pope Francis, “Praised Be,” and the Catholic Church as an institution. Secular and Catholic magazines expressed commitment toward Pope Francis and “Praised Be,” but they differed in their commitment toward the Catholic Church. The role of tradition in understanding media, religion, and secularization is also discussed.

No Love for the Enemy: American Evangelicals and the Hostile Media Phenomenon • Brian Watson • As Election Day approached during the 2016 Presidential contest, the members of then candidate Donald J. Trump’s coalition of support became clearer. One group in particular, Evangelical Christians, transitioned from being largely skeptical of Mr. Trump’s candidacy during the Republican Primaries, to turning out at record rates in November. This study examines one factor that possibly laid the groundwork of Evangelical support for the Republican nominee in 2016: the Hostile Media Effect. Using survey data collected in 2010, I argue that Evangelicals were unique among American religious groups in taking offence from news television. Indeed, the probability of perceiving hostility from news television among Evangelicals rivals the independent effects of partisanship. I conclude by recommending a more contemporary replication of this study using the survey items available in 2010, as well as speculating about the implications of treating religiosity, among Evangelicals in particular, as a core identity as influential as partisanship.

2017 ABSTRACTS