Do Similar Brands ‘Like’ Each Other? An Investigation of Homophily Among Brands’ Social Networks on Facebook • Mohammad Abuljadail, Bowling Green State University; Gi Woong Yun, University of Nevada, Reno • The advent of internet and communication technologies enabled marketers of brands to have more ways to communicate with their audience; one of which is connecting with other brands. One of the most popular outlets that allows brands to connect with other brands online is Facebook. Brands on Facebook can establish an official fan page where they can interact with their fans as well as network with other brands’ official Facebook pages through “liking” them. This paper seeks to investigate the “liking” behavior among local and global brands (brand to brand) on Facebook in Saudi Arabia and whether these brands’ “liking” network is based on homophilous relationships. The results showed that both status, (e.g., geography and gender), and value (e.g., family ties and religion) homophilous relationships are in play. However, value homophily was a strong factor in brands’ network in Saudi Arabia for some brands in the absence of status homophily network. Although status homophily in general played a role, geographical proximity was not a strong factor compared to previous reports on social network analysis. The data for this study was obtained from 40 brands marketed in Saudi Arabia. Using Netvizz and Gephi, network structures were mapped to explore the relationships among the brand’s’ Facebook pages.

Predictors of Success in Entering The Journalism And Mass Communication Labor Market • Lee Becker, University of Georgia; Tudor Vlad, University of Georgia; C. Ann Hollifield, University of Georgia • As a talent industry, media industries are highly dependent on the quality of the labor force available to be hired. The entry-level journalism and mass communication labor market has been the subject of analysis over the years, leading to the general conclusion that the characteristics of the students who graduates as well as what they did while at the university help to predict success in the media labor market. The research has been based on limited measures of job market success and small samples, sometimes of students only at one point in time. This study revisits the question of what predicts success in the media labor market with a data set spanning 27 years and with multiple measures of job market success. The findings indicate that what the students bring to the educational environment influences what they do while at the university but also continues to have impact after graduation. The decisions students make at the university also matter. Specifically, women have more success in the media labor market than men, but they get paid less. Minorities have more difficulty in the market than nonminorities, but they get paid better if they find work. Selecting public relations as a major is an advantage, as is completing an internship. These relationships hold even after controlling for other factors, including the performance of the labor market for all persons 20 to 24 years old. The findings suggest that media industries still have critical labor management issues to address.

Facebook and newspapers online: Competing beings or complimentary entities? • Victoria Chen, The University of Texas at Austin; Paromita Pain, The University of Texas at Austin • In an attempt to engage more readers online, newspapers, today are adopting Facebook as a distribution platform. Focused on understanding the value of Facebook as a distribution platform for newspapers, this study shows that news engagement, where news that attracts and holds readers’ attention, on Facebook, increases the brand loyalty of newspapers and Faebook. Brand wise both Facebook and newspapers benefit when news is distributed through Facebook. The study challenges popular beliefs about the influence of Facebook on the business of journalism and shows that Facebook and newspapers are mutually beneficial in helping build the brand loyalty of both. It also shows that tie strength and not homophily encourages the sharing of news on Facebook. While these results may seem optimistic, the study further suggests that leveraging Facebook as a news distribution platform to engage audiences should be treated more cautiously.

Management of Journalism Transparency: Journalists’ perceptions of organizational leaders’ management of an emerging professional norm • Peter Gade; Shugofa Dastgeer; Christina Childs DeWalt; Emmanuel-Lugard Nduka; Seunghyun Kim; Desiree Hill; Kevin Curran • This national survey of 524 journalists explores how journalists perceive transparency, a recent addition to the ethics codes of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association, has been managed as a normative innovation, and the impact of management on its adoption in journalism practices. Results indicate journalists perceive transparency as not been well managed, and that how it is managed has a significant effect on the extent it is practiced.

Brand Extension Strategies in the Film Industry: Factors behind Financial Performance of Adaptations and Sequels • Dam Hee Kim • In the film industry, which is notoriously high risk, sequels and adaptations stand out as successful films. Focusing on adaptations and sequels as extended brands, this paper analyzed 2,488 films released from 2010 to 2013 in the U.S. to investigate films’ box office performance. Results suggested that adaptations from comic books and toy lines were successful, and those produced in sequels were even more successful. Industry factors behind brand extension strategies are also examined.

Rapid Organizational Legitimacy: The Case of Mobile News Apps • Allie Kosterich, Rutgers University; Matthew Weber, Rutgers University • This article examines the importance of legitimacy for the performance of new ventures in the emerging space of mobile news apps, which consists of players from both traditional news and technology. This creates a distinct challenge for survival and performance, further compounded by the short timeframe deemed acceptable for apps to succeed. A multi-faceted model of legitimacy is proposed and tested; findings underscore the vital role of communication-based legitimacy in the struggle for rapid success.

Transformation of the Professional Newsroom Workforce: An Analysis of Newsworker Roles and Skill Sets, 2010-2015 • Allie Kosterich, Rutgers University; Matthew Weber, Rutgers University • Transformation continues to impact news media; news organizations are adapting accordingly through shifts in required skills and prescribed roles of newsworkers. This research uses online public databases to trace employment histories of NYC-area newsworkers and explore processes of institutional change related to the professional newsworker. This case study highlights the applicability of quantitative research methods in furthering understanding of professional media dynamics and management challenges related to the emergence of new job roles and skills.

The effects of a TV network strike on channel brand equity • Shin-Hye Kwon, Sungkyunkwan University; Lu Li, Sungkyunkwan University; Byeng Hee Chang, Sungkyunkwan University • This article has attempted to outline the effects of a television channel strike from both the user and the company sides. In the direct effect of strike analysis, viewer ratings(MBC) were higher before the strike than during it. In the indirect effect of strike analysis, strike awareness had a negative influence on brand image for news, entertainment, and information, with especially high influence for information and news. Brand image also had a meaningful influence of brand loyalty mediated by brand satisfaction and awareness of brand quality. Thus, loyalty to MBC decreased as viewers learned about the strike. This study has several implications that a specific channel’s brand equity does not decrease until viewers become aware of a strike at the channel. In addition, we suggest different possible effects of a media strike on the brand image of a channel or network. Third, we infer the changes in viewer ratings to be a direct effect of media strikes. Another theoretical implication of this study is its explanation of how a strike at a specific company strike can affect competing companies using the concept of media deprivation and dependency theory. Lastly, This study’s results offer practical information for media companies’ strike management.

Consumer choice of mobile service bundles: An application of the Technological Readiness Index • Miao Miao; Xi Zhu; Krishna Jayakar • This paper asks whether consumers are rational in choosing the most appropriate mobile service bundle (combining voice, text and data), given their actual levels of usage. It also investigates whether psychological or demographic factors can predict the likelihood that a user will choose optimally. Using the Technological Readiness Index as a theoretical framework, this study finds that customers who are optimistic about technology are more likely to choose the optimum bundle, while those who are insecure about technology are significantly less likely.

Assessing News Media Infrastructure: A State-Level Analysis • Philip Napoli; Ian Dunham; Jessica Mahone, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University • This paper develops and applies an approach to evaluating the robustness of the news media infrastructure of individual states. Drawing upon the Cision Media Database, and employing a detailed filtering methodology, this analysis provides indicators that facilitate comparative analysis across states, and that could be employed to facilitate analyses over time within and across individual states. This assessment approach is derived from multivariate analyses of the key geographic and demographic determinants of the robustness of the news media infrastructure in individual states.

High Brand Loyalty Video Game Play and Achieving Relationships with Virtual Worlds and Its Elements Through Presence • Anthony Palomba • Based on a uses and gratifications and presence conceptual framework, this study considers high brand loyalty video game players’ levels of presence, and evaluates how virtual relationships and perceptions of brand personalities may moderate the relationship between high brand loyalty video game players’ gratifications sought and media consumption experiences. A national survey of 25-year-old to 35-year-old high brand loyalty video game players (N=902)was conducted. Theoretical contributions surrounding the importance of presence during video game play to reach desired gratifications as well as industry implications are discussed.

Content Marketing Strategy on Branded YouTube Channels • Rang Wang, University of Florida; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • As YouTube becomes a viable competitor in the media ecosystem, this study assessed top brands’ content marketing strategy on branded YouTube channels via content analysis. Using a consumer engagement conceptual framework, the study examined brand strategies addressing the interactivity, attention, emotion, and cognition aspects of engagement and explored the role of firm characteristics, including YouTube capability, financial resources, ownership, and product category, in strategy differentiation. Implications of utilizing YouTube in branding and engaging were provided.

Exploring Cross-Platform Engagement in an Online-Offline Video Market • Lisa-Charlotte Wolter, Hamburg Media School; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • In an ever-increasing fragmented media environment, the need for comparable metrics across online and offline platforms is intensifying. This study introduces the concept of engagement in an audience setting; discusses its role in today’s video consumption process, and elaborates on the rationale and approach of assessing engagement in online-offline environments. We will present results from a qualitative study of globally conducted in-depth interviews with 73 experts. Research implications and a cross-platform engagement framework are presented.

2017 ABSTRACTS

OPEN COMPETITION
Student Understanding and Application of Virtues in a Redesigned Journalism Ethics Class • David Craig, The University of Oklahoma; Mohammad Yousuf, The University of Oklahoma • This study examines how students in a journalism ethics class demonstrated their understanding and application of virtues when several class assignments were tailored to virtue ethics. It adds to the limited study on virtue pedagogy in media ethics. Findings showed most students showed at least a basic understanding of nine virtues and their relevance to journalism. The study suggests several insights and refinements for future assessment of learning about virtue.

Trust vs. evaluation: The interplay of ethics and participation in news • Katy Culver; Byung Gu Lee • Considerable research has pointed to declining levels of public trust in news media, as well as differences in trust based on political ideology. At the same time, the public has greater ability to participate in the processes of news, from commenting on stories to engaging through social media. This study explores the intersections of media trust, ethical performance, and participatory practices, as well as differences by ideology and chosen news outlets.

Weeding out the differences: Market orientation’s effects on the coverage of marijuana legalization • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado; Chad Painter, University of Dayton; Angelica Kalika, University of Colorado, Boulder • This textual analysis compares news coverage of Colorado Amendment 64, the 2012 ballot measure legalizing marijuana statewide, by the strongly market-oriented legacy newspaper the Denver Post and the weakly market-oriented online publication the Colorado Independent. Researchers found differences in storytelling, usage of stakeholders and sources, and coverage about the social and economic impacts of marijuana legalization. These findings are discussed through the theoretical lenses of market theory for news production and W.D. Ross’s duty-based ethics.

An Ethics-Based Investigation of Algorithmic Use of Social Media Data for News • Tao Fu; William Babcock • Using W. D. Ross’s prima facie duties as the theoretical framework, in particular non-maleficence, beneficence and self-improvement, combined with gatekeeping theory and the echo-chamber effect, this study examines the dissemination of fake news on Facebook and its news ranking and recommendation during the United States’ 2016 presidential election. The researchers argue that while Facebook employs algorithms as gatekeepers, it is unrealistic to consider algorithms have in and of themselves an ethics component. So while algorithms are amoral, without moral sense or principles and thus incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, how they are employed and by whom is the key ethics component to be considered.

The Devil is in the Details: Comparing Crime Coverage Credos in the United States, The Netherlands, and Sweden • Romayne Fullerton; Margaret Patterson, Duquesne University; Katherine Hoad Reddick, The University of Western Ontario • This paper compares crime coverage practices in the United States to those in the Netherlands and Sweden. In the former country, journalists routinely name and provide as many facts as they can gather about persons arrested and charged with serious crimes. In contrast, the latter two countries’ default is not to name or otherwise identify alleged perpetrators. All three countries share a belief in the presumption of innocence and the public right to know, but the Swedish and Dutch foreground the former, while the Americans elevate the latter. We do not posit one set of ethical practices as superior to another, but rather explore the advantages and disadvantages of each approach to consider what the differing practices of naming and specificity versus anonymizing and generalization mean in a broad cultural context, and to consider the importance of their preservation in a globalized age.

“I’m more ethical than you”: Third-person and first-person perception among American journalists • Angela Lee, University of Texas at Dallas; Renita Coleman, University of Texas at Austin • Extending first- and third- person perception to ethics, this study found that journalists at leading news outlets believe colleagues in the same organization act unethically significantly less frequently and act ethically significantly more frequently than those at other organizations and in other industries. The first- and third- person perceptions are a linear function of social distance, but are not the mirror image of each other. Suggestions for improving journalists’ ethics are offered. This study helps expand a field based in philosophy and media sociology by adding insights from social psychology to begin building a more mature scholarship of media ethics.

Playing the right way: In-house sports reporters and media ethics as boundary work • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin • Sports teams increasingly hire in-house reporters to produce news content for their own websites. Drawing on the construct of boundary work and using interview data, this paper finds these writers use ethical discourse to formulate a professional identity as journalists, redefining core normative concepts. It argues that in-house reporters detach journalism’s practices and conventions from its overarching normative orientation and concludes by calling for a normative account of in-house reporting rooted in mixed-media ethics.

Bringing Habermas into the newsroom: consensus or compromise and the rehabilitation of common sense • Laura Moorhead, San Francisco State University • Philosopher and media gadfly Habermas in the newsroom? This paper — through the frame of Habermas’s discourse ethics — highlights a path for debating ethics, including race and diversity, in journalism using rational-critical discussion, which can lead to consensus or compromise through a move from individual to collective community interests. The paper considers the rehabilitation of common sense, through emerging technology and an interdisciplinary approach. The point of debating ethics in journalism surfaces as the hope for solidarity despite increasing pluralism.

Taking the white gloves off: The portrayal of female journalists on Good Girls Revolt • Chad Painter, University of Dayton; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado • This textual analysis focuses on the portrayal of female journalists on the series Good Girls Revolt. Unlike many contemporary television series and films, the women of Good Girls Revolt generally are depicted positively. They are behind the scenes heroes and possess journalistic intangibles lacking in their male counterparts, who treat them in demeaning and dehumanizing ways. The researchers then explore the ethical implications of these portrayals through the lens of social responsibility theory.

Teaching Journalism Ethics Through “The Newsroom”: An Enhanced Learning Experience • Laveda Peterlin, University of Kansas; Jonathan Peters, University of Kansas • As documented in multiple fields, students taking ethics courses can benefit from alternative pedagogical approaches using television shows for learning. This research paper explores the journalistic ethics conflicts depicted in the first season of the HBO show “The Newsroom.” Those conflicts, brought to life through vivid and realistic storytelling, enable students to experience how ethical decisions can affect a newsroom and the audience it serves. This is a form of televisual ethnography that provides journalism instructors additional resources to use in the classroom and creates an innovative, rich learning experience for students.

The Evolution of the Potter Box in Mass Media Ethics • Matthew Reavy, University of Scranton • This paper examines the origins of The Potter Box, the most widely used model of decision-making in mass media ethics. The basic structure of the model is traced back to its roots in the work of Talcott Parsons and Ralph B. Potter Jr., through subsequent modifications and to its introduction in the field of mass media by Christians, Rotzoll & Fackler in 1983. Attention is given to variations of the model as they appear in current media ethics texts.

“The Times F’d up”: Responsibility, blame, and journalistic paradigm repair following the 2016 U.S. presidential election • Miles Sari, Washington State University; Elizabeth Hindman, Washington State University • “Through an ethnographic content analysis of 55 print and online newspaper articles and editorials, this paper considers the ways in which the American journalistic paradigm repaired itself in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using the concepts of paradigm repair and attribution theory as guiding frameworks, this study suggests that American news media engaged in first-order and second-order news paradigm repair discourses to identify unethical lapses in news media election coverage, as well as to pinpoint the broader threats of fake news and the Donald Trump administration to the legitimacy of the American journalistic paradigm.

Here’s What BuzzFeed Journalists Think of Their Journalism • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Cassie Yuan Wen Foo • This study seeks to compare BuzzFeed, a new entrant to the journalistic field, with traditional news organizations, from the perspective of BuzzFeed’s own journalists. Through in-depth interviews, this study finds that BuzzFeed’s journalists think they are more attentive to audiences and more willing to experiment than those from traditional news organizations. But at the same time, they also value the same ethical standards in journalism. Thus, BuzzFeed seems to engage in both differentiation and de-differentiation.

News in the Peace Process in Northern Ireland: Reconciliation Isn’t Sexy • Charis Rice, Coventry University; Maureen Taylor • This research explores if and how the media help or hinder democracy in a post conflict nation. In this paper the explicit question about media’s role in democracy has, at its core, an implicit question about media ethics. We interviewed 15 community leaders who are active in ‘cross-community’ organizations in Northern Ireland. The findings suggest that community activists perceive the media to be contributing to the conflict and constraining debates about the way forward in Northern Ireland.

Falsity, fakery and carbon monoxide: A typology of fake news and an ethical approach • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • Deciding what to do about the epidemic of “fake news” requires both a definition of fake news and an understanding of why real news is valuable. Drawing on the philosophical distinction between lying (Bok, 1978) and bullshit (Frankfurt, 2005), this paper seeks to categorize the potential impacts of different varieties of fake news and to suggest an ethics-based framework for how to counter them. The practice of journalism can address some of these challenges as a craft and some as a profession; the paper concludes by suggesting that journalism and its audiences would gain from addressing the fake news problem on both fronts.

A history of media ethics: From application to theory and back again • Lee Wilkins, Wayne State University • This paper focuses on practical issues that lead to ideas worth considering across disciplines. By discussing the evolution of four concepts, truthtelling, privacy, the impact of technology and moral development, it outlines the historic development of these ideas in the field of media ethics. Its central assertion is that media ethics has had something to contribute to philosophy and political philosophy as well as to working professionals. This contribution centers as much as in does in philosophy and political philosophy as it does in the more accepted domain of applied ethics

CAROL BURNETT AWARD
Spotlight: Virtuous Journalism in Practice • Yayu Feng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • This paper uses the movie Spotlight as a case study of virtuous journalism. It interprets Spotlight by textual analysis with key concepts from virtue ethics theory—arête, phronesis, and eudaimonia—to discuss journalistic virtues, journalists’ practical reasoning, and how journalism profession can contribute to human flourishing through its professional goal of questing for truth. The paper also hopes to contribute a relevant case study to demonstrate the value of virtue ethics theory to journalism ethics.

Ethical, moral, and professional standards in journalism practice: A baseline definition of journalistic integrity • Kimberly Kelling • What does it mean for a journalist to have integrity? How does that concept differ from the integrity of the journalist or journalistic institution? Conceptualizations of the term vary among industries and philosophical definitions are just as scattered. Exploring the usage of the term “integrity” in journalism discourse, this paper identifies micro-, meso-, and macro-level applications of journalistic integrity based on a metadiscourse analysis of newsroom codes of ethics and journalism trade publications. Providing a baseline definition of journalistic integrity enables professionals and the public to communicate about press responsibilities and performance with similar expectations.

An Emotional Approach to Risk Communication • Shiyu Yang • The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that emotions are an important, if not integral, aspect of risk communication, and that using emotional appeals in risk communication is not inherently unethical; rather, whether the emotional appeals used in a risk message are ethical or not should be judged based on the context. To achieve this goal, I first establish that emotions can facilitate well-informed and ethically sound risk-related decision-making, by reviewing extant research literature on the dialectical tension between emotion and rationality. Then I advance the notion that emotions are an important aspect of risk communication, by applying the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) and providing a brief discussion of how various kinds of emotions may aid our risk interpretations and help balance various ethical considerations about risks. Next, I proceed to review some of the potential benefits as well as possible negative outcomes of employing emotional appeals in designing risk messages. I further illustrate these points by conducting an ethical critique of a public health campaign, the “war on obesity”. Finally, I reaffirm the thesis statement that emotions are important in risk communication and that emotional appeals should and can be ethically applied to enhance the effectiveness of risk communication.

SPECIAL CALL FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION ETHICS
The Use of Influence Tactics by Senior Public Relations Practitioners to Provide Ethics Counsel • Marlene Neill, Baylor University; Amy Barnes, University of Arkansas at Little Rock • Senior public relations practitioners prefer non-confrontational approaches such as asking questions and dialogue when raising ethical concerns to more senior leaders. Through in-depth interviews with 34 members of the PRSA College of Fellows, this study provides new insights regarding successful and unsuccessful attempts at providing ethics counsel. The role of ethical conscience in public relations was explored through the lens of organizational power and social influence theories. Implications for practice are discussed.

2017 ABSTRACTS

OPEN COMPETITION
Beauty ideals and the media: Constructing the ideal beauty for Nigerian women through music videos • Aje-Ori Agbese • The research examined how Nigerian music videos objectify and define beauty for Nigerian women. The contents of 100 music videos with a love/romance theme were analyzed. The study found that Nigerian music videos defined beautiful women as thin/skinny, light-skinned and smiling. Several videos also featured white women as the ideal. The paper also discusses the impact of such messages on a country where women had the world’s highest rates for skin bleaching in 2012.

Framing Blame in Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Attribution in News Stories about Sexual Assault on College Campuses • Ashlie Andrew; Cassandra Alexopoulos • The current study is a quantitative content analysis examining media coverage of sexual assault on US college campuses. In particular, we focus on the language that journalists employ to tell these stories and assign attribution of sexual assault to the people involved. Drawing on two different theoretical perspectives, Attribution Theory and Media Framing, we analyze how frequently the language in news stories on sexual assault implicitly assign attribution (or minimize attribution) to either the victim or perpetrator in sexual assault cases.

The Social Dimensions of Political Participation • Soo Young Bae • This study investigates the social dimensions of political engagement, and explores the underlying mechanism of the relationship between social media use and political participation. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, this study reveals the growing significance of the source factor in the online information environment, and tests whether varying levels of trust that individuals have toward the information source can meaningfully relate to their engagement in politics.

The Role of Media Use and Family Media Use in Children’s Eating Behaviors, Food Preferences, and Health Literacy • Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama; Kim Baker, University of Alabama; Xueying Zhang; Kailey E. Bissell, The University of the South (Sewanee); Sarah Pember, University of Alabama; Yiyi Yang, University of Alabama; Samantha Phillips, University of Alabama • The relationship between the individual and social factors that might predict a child’s health behaviors specific to food consumption and eating is quite complex. A growing body of literature suggests that external factors such as media use, use of media while eating, and the home eating environment certainly could predict factors such as a child’s preference for specific food, nutritional knowledge, and even the ability to identify food products in food advertisements. Using a survey of children in 2nd and 3rd grade, this study examined questions about how much or if general media use, media use while eating, and familial media use during mealtimes related to a child’s general understanding of health specific to nutritional knowledge, food preferences, understanding of food advertising, and self-perception. Results indicate that media use by each child and by the parent—in general and in the context of eating—were related to lower scores on the nutritional knowledge scale, a stronger preference for unhealthy foods, an inability to correctly identify food products in food advertisements, and self-perceptions. Further results indicate that children’s ability to correctly identify food products in food advertisements was especially low, especially in children who reported spending more time with different types of media. These and other findings are discussed.

Assimilation or Consternation? U.S. Latinos’ Perceptions of Trust in Relation to Media and Other Factors • Ginger Blackstone, Harding University; Amy Jo Coffey, University of Florida • Among the U.S. Latino community, even documented workers are nervous about the future. What role might Internet news exposure, television news exposure, newspaper exposure, radio news exposure, age, whether one was born in the U.S., or–if not—length of time spent in the U.S. be relevant to feelings of trust in the government, trust in others, and U.S. immigration policies? How do Latinos’ feelings in these areas compare to non-Latinos? Using the most recent American National Election Survey data available, the authors conducted a series of regressions and other statistical tests in search of answers. It was found that Latino respondents were more likely than non-Latinos to trust that the U.S. government will do the right thing. Television news exposure was a positive factor. Non-Latino respondents were more likely than Latino respondents to trust others. Internet news exposure, radio news exposure, and newspaper exposure were positive factors, while television news exposure was a negative factor. Trust in the government did not correlate with trust in others for Latino respondents; however, it did for non-Latinos but the effect was weak. Regarding U.S. immigration policy, difference between Latino respondents and non-Latinos were significant; however, a majority of both groups indicated support for an immigration policy that allowed undocumented workers to remain in the U.S. under certain (non-specified) conditions. Internet news exposure and radio news exposure were factors in some comparisons. Overall, no clear patterns were found; however, the findings correspond to the literature and provide an opportunity for future research.

Toxic Peers in Online Support Groups for Suicidal Teens: Moderators Reducing Toxic Disinhibition Effects • Nicholas Boehm, Colorado State University; Jamie Switzer, Colorado State University • This paper describes the results of a study that examined if moderated online peer support groups for suicidal teens differ compared to non-moderated online peer support groups for suicidal teens in terms of the frequency of pro-suicide response and the frequency of uncivil and impolite response given by peers. Findings suggest pro-suicide, uncivil, and impolite responses are significantly more likely to occur in the non-moderated peer support group, as explained by the online disinhibition effect.

Exploring Third-Person Perception and Social Media • John Chapin, Penn State • Findings from a study of middle school and high school students (N = 1604) suggest most adolescents are using some form of social media, with texting, Instagram, and Snapchat currently the most popular. Most (67%) have some experience with cyberbullying, with 23% saying they have been victims of cyberbullying and 7% acknowledging they have cyberbullied others. Despite the heavy use of social media and experiences with cyberbullying, participants exhibited third-person perception, believing others are more influenced than they are by negative posts on social media. Third-person perception was predicted by optimistic bias, social media use, age, and experience with various forms of bullying. Third-person perception may provide a useful framework for understanding how adolescents use social media and how they are affected by it.

“Defensive Effect”: Uncivil Disagreement Upsets Me, So I Want to Speak Out Politically • Gina Chen • This study proposed and tested a mediation model called the “defensive effect” to explain the influence of uncivil disagreement online comments on emotions and intention to participate politically. An experiment (N = 953) showed uncivil disagreement – but not civil disagreement – triggered a chain reaction of first boosting negative emotion and then indirectly increasing intention to participate politically, mediated through that emotion burst. Findings are discussed in relation to affective intelligence theory.

Facts, Alternative Facts, and Politics: A Case Study of How a Concept Entered Mainstream and Social Media Discourse • Moonhee Cho, University of Tennessee; Giselle Auger, Rhode Island College; Sally McMillan, University of Tennessee • Adopting agenda setting as a theoretical framework, this study explored how the term ‘alternative facts’ was covered by both mainstream and social media. The authors used Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio and WordStat to analyze 58,383 total posts. The study follows the development of news story and examines some similarities and differences in top words and phrases used by mainstream and social media. The term ‘alternative facts’ had negative valence in both media types.

Television, emotion, and social integration: Testing the effect of media event with the 2017 US Presidential Inauguration • Xi Cui, College of Charleston; Qian Xu, Elon University • This study empirically tests the social integration effect of media event and its psychological mechanism in the context of the live broadcast of the 2017 US Presidential Inauguration. A national sample (N=420) was drawn to investigate the relationships among television viewing of the live broadcast, viewers’ emotion, and their perceived social solidarity measured by perceived entitativity. In general, viewing the inauguration live on television positively predicted viewers’ emotion. Emotion also interacted with viewers’ national identity fusion to influence perceived entitativity. A significant indirect effect of television viewing on perceived entitativity through emotion was discovered. The same effects were found among non-Trump voters. For Trump voters, television viewing did not have any significant influence on any variable. Through these findings, this study shed light on the psychological mechanisms of media event’s social integration effect at the individual level, explicated the visceral nature of social identification related to media event, and argued for the relevance of this mass media genre in contemporary media environment and social zeitgeist.

New media, new ways of getting informed? Examining public affairs knowledge acquisition by young people in China • Di Cui; Fang Wu • This study examined acquisition of public affairs knowledge as an effect of media use and interpersonal discussion in China, where there is a fast transforming media environment. This study examined public affairs knowledge in both mainstream and alternative forms. Findings showed that attention to traditional sources, exposure to new media sources and face-to-face discussion were correlated with public affairs knowledge. Use of new media sources was correlated with alternative public affairs knowledge. Implications were discussed.

Multi-Platform News Use and Political Participation across Age Groups • Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Matthew Barnidge, University of Vienna; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna • News consumption in today’s media environment is increasingly characterized by multi-platform news; people now consume news across several multi-media devices. Relying on a nationally representative survey from the U.S., this study develops an index of multi-platform news use, and tests its effects on age-group differences in the way people participate in politics. Results show that Millennials are more likely to rely on multi-platforms for news, which is positively related to alternative modes of public engagement.

Read All About It: The Politicization of “Fake News” on Twitter • John Brummette; Marcia DiStaso, University of Florida; MICHAIL VAFEIADIS, Auburn University; Marcus Messner, Virginia Commonwealth University; Terry Flynn, McMaster University • This study explored the use of the term “fake news” in one of the top news sharing tools, Twitter. Using a social network analysis, characteristics of online networks that formed around discussions of “fake news” was examined. Through a systematic analysis of the members of those networks and their messages, this study found that “fake news” is a very politicized term where current conversations are overshadowing logical and important discussions of the term.

News, Entertainment, or Both? Exploring Audience Perceptions of Media Genre in a Hybrid Media Environment • Stephanie Edgerly, Northwestern; Emily Vraga, George Mason University • This study uses two experimental designs to examine how audiences make genre assessments when encountering media content that blends elements of news and entertainment. In Study 1, we explore how audiences characterize three different versions of a fictitious political talk show program. In Study 2, we consider whether audience perceptions of ‘news-ness’ are influenced by shifts in headline angle and source attribution. The implications of audience definitions of news and its social function are discussed.

A new generation of satire consumers? A socialization approach to youth exposure to news satire • Stephanie Edgerly, Northwestern • This study explores how adolescents—at the doorstep of adulthood—are developing the exposure habit of news satire exposure. Using national survey data consisting of U.S. youth and one associated parent, the paper specifically examines: 1) the prevalence of youth exposure to news satire across a range of media devices and compared to other forms of news, and 2) the socialization factors—parents, school curriculum, and peers—that predict news satire use among today’s youth.

Socially-shared children coming of age: Third-person effect, parental privacy stewardship, and parent monitoring • Betsy Emmons, Samford University; Nia Johnson, Samford University; Lee Farquhar, Samford University • There have been multiple discussions about Facebook’s privacy policies; discourse about parental privacy stewardship has been minimal. As the first generation of socially-shared children become social media users, the collision of privacy with what has already been shared by parents occurs. This study, grounded in third-person effect, asked parents about stewardship of their children’s privacy, and whether other parents were observant. Results affirmed third-person effect for both social media monitoring and privacy among parents.

Journalists primed: How professional identity affects moral decision making • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado; Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Erin Schauster • Utilizing identity priming, this study examines whether professional journalists apply ethics differently when primed with occupationally identity. This between-subjects experiment (N=171) administered both conditions the Defining Issues Test, a much-used instrument that measures moral development. The results show identity priming does not affect how journalists apply ethics. The study also found that journalists are potentially far less ethical than they were 13 years ago. These results are interpreted through the lens of social identity theory.

Hydraulic Fracturing on U.S. Cable News • Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University; Oluseyi Adegbola, Mr.; Jennifer Huemmer • Hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, is a drilling technique that accesses previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves. Although the process could aid U.S. energy independence, it is controversial and public opinion is divided. Guided by agenda-setting and framing, this study content analyses news coverage of fracking (N = 461) across cable networks (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC). Results show issues discussed and sources used vary ideologically, but all networks failed to provide factual information about the process.

Self-Presentation Strategies’ Effect on Facebook Users’ Subjective Well-being Depending on Self-Esteem Level • Wonseok (Eric) Jang, Texas Tech University; Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Janice Cho, Texas Tech University • The current study examined the consequences of different types of self-presentation strategies on Facebook users’ subjective well-being, depending on their level of self-esteem. The results indicated that people with low self-esteem became happier after updating their Facebook status using strategic self-presentation rather than true self-presentation. Meanwhile, people with high self-esteem exhibited similar levels of happiness after updating Facebook using both strategic and true self-presentation.

“Aging…The Great Challenge of This Century”: A Theory-Based Analysis of Retirement Communities’ Websites • Hong Ji; Anne Cooper • By 2040, the large over-65 population will change “religion…work…everything” according to an expert on aging. CCRCs are one health care/housing option for the final years of life. This study of 108 CCRC websites found a self-actualized photo population –smiling, wining/dining, and engaged in various fulfilling pursuits. The disconnect with reality — more males, minorities and healthy people than actually live at CCRCs — has implications for source credibility and the image of ideal aging.

The Role of Social Capital in the United States’s Country Brand • Jong Woo Jun, Dankook University; Jung Ryum Kim, City of Busan; Dong Whan Lee, Dankook University • This study explores antecedents and consequences of social capital. Using Korean college students as research samples, survey research was implemented measuring U.S. media consumptions such as TV drama, Hollywood movies, POP music, advertising, and magazine. As results, American media consumptions influenced social capital elements such as interpersonal trust, institutional trust, network, and norms. Also, interpersonal trust, network, and norms influenced attitudes toward the United States which in turn lead to strong beliefs about the United States. This study extended the usability of social capital to country branding settings, and could provide significant managerial implications to academicians and practitioners.

In the Crosshairs: The Tucson Shooting and the News Framing of Responsibility • Matthew Telleen, Elizabethtown College; Jack Karlis, Georgia College; Sei-Hill Kim • This research adds to the framing literature with a content analysis of media coverage following the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Analyzing 535 items from the month after the shooting, it was determined that coverage of the Tucson shooting focused more heavily on societal issues like political rhetoric than on individual issues like mental illness It was also discovered that coverage varied from medium to medium and along political associations.

Tweeting the Election: Comparative Uses of Twitter by Trump and Clinton in the 2016 Election • Flora Khoo, Regent University; William Brown, Regent University • “Social media are increasingly becoming important means of political communication and essential to implementing an effective national election campaign. The present study evaluates the use of Twitter by presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Results indicate substantial framing differences in the tweets released by the two candidates. These differences are discussed along with implications for future research on the use of Twitter for political campaigns.

The Role of Reanctance Proneness in the Manifestation of Psychological Reactance against Newspaper Editorial • HYUNJUNG KIM • This study investigated the role of trait reactance proneness in the affective and cognitive reactance processes in the context of organ donation in South Korea. A web-based survey experiment using a sample of South Korean residents was conducted. Findings demonstrate that an editorial advocating organ donation from ideologically incongruent media is perceived as more biased than the same editorial from other media. The perceived bias is linked to perceived threat to freedom, which, in turn, is related to affective reactance, leading to unfavorable attitudes toward organ donation, particularly for high trait-reactant individuals. These findings suggest that trait reactance proneness may moderate a psychological reactance process in which affective and cognitive processes of reactance operate separately.

Pride versus Guilt: The Interplay between Emotional Appeals and Self-Construal Levels in Organ Donation Messages • Sining Kong; Jung Won Chun; Sriram Kalyanaraman • Existing research on organ donation has generally focused on message types but ignored how individual differences—and possible underlying mechanisms—affect the effectiveness of organ donation messages. To explore these issues, we conducted a 2 (type of appeal: pride vs guilt) X 2 (self construal: independent vs interdependent) between-subjects factorial experiment to examine how different self-construal levels affect emotional appeals in organ donation messages. The results revealed that regardless of self-construal levels, autonomy mediated the relationship between emotion and attitudes toward organ donation. Also, pride appeal messages generated more autonomy than guilt appeal messages, leading to more positive attitude toward organ donation. Furthermore, after controlling for autonomy, those participants primed with an independent self-construal preferred pride appeal messages more than they did guilt appeal messages. These findings offer important theoretical and applied implications and provide a robust avenue for future research.

“Feminazis,” “libtards,” “snowflakes,” and “racists”: Trolling and the Spiral of Silence • Victoria LaPoe; Candi Carter Olson, Utah State University • Using a mixed methods Qualtrics survey of 338 Twitter and Facebook users, the authors explore the impact that the 2016 election had on people’s political posts both before and after the election and whether or not people actually experienced harassment and threats during the election cycle. This article argues that the internet constitutes a digital public sphere. If trolling causes people—particularly women, LGBTQIA community members, and people who identify with a disability—to censor themselves because they feel their opinion is in the minority or that they will be attacked for stating their ideas, then it would follow that trolling is changing our public sphere, which is affecting our political conversations in a profound way.

Coverage of Physician-Assisted Death: Framing of Brittany Maynard • Sean Baker; Kimberly Lauffer • In 2014, Brittany Maynard, 29, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, moved from California to Oregon, one of only three U.S. states with legal physician-assisted death, so she could determine when she would die. This paper examines how mainstream U.S. media framed Brittany Maynard’s choice to use physician aid in dying, arguing that although frames initially focused on the event, they transformed into thematic coverage of issues underlying her choice.

Do Political Participation and Use of Information Sources Differ by Age? • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; An-Pang Lu; Yitsen Chiu, National Chengchi University • Most studies on the connection between offline and online political participation either focused on young citizens or treated age as a continuous variable. Many of them also used a limited local sample. This survey study employed a national sample to examine the effects of age and information sources on offline and online political participation. The relationship between age and offline/online participation does not appear to be linear, which has important implications for future studies.

Discussing HPV Vaccination: Ego-centric social networks and perceived norms among young men • Wan Chi Leung, University of Canterbury • This study examined the role of social norms in influencing young men’s support for the HPV vaccination. A survey of 656 young adult males in the United States indicated that the perceived injunctive norm was more powerful in predicting support for the HPV vaccination for males than the perceived descriptive norm. The average tie strength in their ego-centric discussion networks for sexual matters, and the heterogeneity of the discussants significantly predict the injunctive norm.

The effects of message desirability and first-person perception of anti-panhandling campaigns on prosocial behaviors • Joon Soo Lim, Syracuse University; Jiyoung Lee • The current research examined the third-person effect (TPE) of anti-panhandling campaign messages. It tested both perceptual and behavioral hypotheses of the TPE. A survey was administered to 660 participants recruited from Mechanical Turk’s Master Workers. The results demonstrate the robustness of third-person perceptions for persuasive campaign messages. We also learned that the magnitudes of TPP for anti-panhandling campaign messages could be moderated by message desirability. Analyzing the behavioral component of TPE, the current study adds empirical evidence that presumed influence of positive social campaign on oneself can make the audience engage in prosocial behaviors as well as promotional behaviors.

The third person effect on Twitter: How partisans view Donald Trump’s campaign messages • Aimee Meader, Winthrop University; Matthew Hayes, Winthrop University; Scott Huffmon, Winthrop University • A telephone poll of Southern respondents in the United States tested the third person effect by comparing partisan perceptions about Donald Trump’s tweets during the 2016 presidential election. Results show that the third person effect was strong for Democrats who viewed the tweets as unfavorable, but diminished for Republicans who viewed the tweets as favorable. Additionally, Republicans’ estimation of media influence on themselves was comparable to Democrats’ perceptions, but estimations of Democrats varied by Party.

‘Where are the children?’: The framing of adoption in national news coverage from 2014 through 2016 • Cynthia Morton; Summer Shelton, University of Florida • Pilot research explored three specific questions: 1) what frames are represented in print news stories about adoption?; 2) which frames are most prevalent in their representation?; and, 3) what implications can be made about the effect of combination of the news frames and their frequency on audience perceptions? A qualitative content analysis was conducted. The findings suggest that print news’s coverage of the child adoption issue leans toward legal/legality and child welfare/work frames. Implications on adoption perceptions and the potential impact on individuals influenced by adoption are discussed.

Exemplification of Child Abduction in U.S. News Media: Testing Media Effects on Parental Perceptions and Assessment of Risk • Jane Weatherred, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina • Despite decades of research, public misperceptions persist about the threat of child abductions in the U.S. Because prior research reveals that parental perceptions of child abduction are mediated by news coverage, this study offers one of the only experimental designs that found links between media coverage and parental perceptions of child abductions, advancing the literature on exemplification theory. This study advances our understanding of how media coverage can impact public perceptions of crime.

Sharing Values vs. Valuing Shares: A Communication Model a Social-Financial Capital • Paige Odegard; Thomas Gallegos; Chris DeRosier, Colorado State University; Jennifer Folsom, Colorado State University; Elizabeth Tilak, Colorado State University; Nicholas Boehm, Colorado State University; Chelsea Eddington, Colorado State University; Cindy Christen, Colorado State University • Emphasizing the shift in priority placed on social, financial, and professional capital in an era of technological growth, this paper proposes the Communication Model of Social-Financial Capital (CMSFC). The paper discusses the effects of innate and acquired identities, and values on preference for social, financial, and professional capital, which in turn affect preference for social media platforms. Finally, the paper discusses how the model is applicable in realistic settings and suggests next steps for empirical validation.

Understanding antecedents of civic engagement in the age of social media: from the perspective of efficacy beliefs • Siyoung Chung; KyuJin Shim; Soojin Kim, Singapore Management University • This study examines three efficacy beliefs— political self-efficacy, political collective efficacy and knowledge sharing efficacy—as antecedents of social media use and civic engagement. Employing more than one thousand samples in Singapore, we empirically test (a) a conceptual framework that can provide an understanding of the relationship between the three types of efficacy and civic engagement and (b) the underlying mechanism through which the three types of efficacy beliefs affect civic engagement via social media. The findings suggest that the current civic engagement is characterized by excessive use of social media. Also, the study implicates knowledge sharing efficacy was found to play an important role in mediating the relationships between social media and political self-efficacy, political collective efficacy, respectively.

Online Surveillance’s Effect on Support for Other Extraordinary Measures to Prevent Terrorism • Elizabeth Stoycheff; Kunto Wibowo, Wayne State University; Juan Liu, Wayne State University; Kai Xu, Wayne State University • The U.S. National Security Agency argues that online mass surveillance has played a pivotal role in preventing acts of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11. But journalists and academics have decried the practice, arguing that the implementation of such extraordinary provisions may lead to a slippery slope. As the first study to investigate empirically the relationship between online surveillance and support for other extraordinary measures to prevent terrorism, we find that perceptions of government monitoring lead to increased support for hawkish foreign policy through value-conflict associations in memory that prompt a suppression of others’ online and offline civil liberties, including rights to free speech and a fair trial. Implications for the privacy-security debate are discussed.

Audiences’ Acts of Authentication: A Conceptual Framework • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Richard Ling, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Oscar Westlund; Andrew Duffy, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Debbie Goh, Nanyang Technological University Singapore • Through an analysis of relevant literature and open-ended survey responses from 2,501 Singaporeans, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to understand how individuals authenticate the information they encounter on social media. In broad strokes, we find that individuals rely on both their own judgment of the source and the message, and when this does not adequately provide a definitive answer, they turn to external resources to authenticate news items.

Committed participation or flashes of action? Bursts of attention to climate change on Twitter • Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University; Luping Wang, Cornell University • We explore participation in bursts of attention to the climate issue on Twitter over a period of five years. Climate advocacy organizations are increasingly focused on mobilizations of issue publics as a route to pressure policy makers. A large Twitter data set shows that attention to climate on Twitter has been growing over time. However, we find little evidence of a “movement” on Twitter: there are few users who participate in online mobilizations over time.

Is the Tweet Mightier than the Quote? Testing the Relative Contribution of Crowd and Journalist Produced Exemplars on Exemplification Effects • Frank Waddell, University of Florida • What happens when journalist selected quotes conflict with the sentiment of online comments? An experiment (N = 276) was conducted to answer this question using a 3 (quote valence: positive vs. negative vs. no quote control) x 3 (comment valence: positive vs. negative vs. no comment control) design. Results revealed that online comments only affect news evaluations in the presence of positive rather than negative quotes. Implications for exemplification theory and online news are discussed.

Ideological Objectivity or Violated Expectations? Testing the Effects of Machine Attribution on News Evaluation • Frank Waddell, University of Florida • Automation now serves an unprecedented role in the production of news. Many readers possess high expectations of these “robot journalists” as objective and error free. However, does news attributed to machines actually meet these expectations? A one-factor experiment (human source vs. machine source) was conducted to answer this question. News attributed to robots was evaluated less positively than news attributed to humans. Attribution effects were invariant between individuals scoring low and high in anthropomorphic tendency.

Express Yourself during the Election Season: Study on Effects of Seeing Disagreement in Facebook News Feeds • Meredith Wang, Washington State University; Porismita Borah; Samuel Rhodes • The 2016 election was characterized by intense polarization and acrimony not only on the debate stage and television airwaves, but also on social media. Using panel data collected during 2016 U.S. Presidential election from a national sample of young adults, current study tests how opinion climate on social media affect ones’ political expression and participation. Result shows disagreement on Facebook encourages young adults to express themselves and further participate in politics. Implications are discussed.

Won’t you be my (Facebook) neighbor? Community communication effects and neighborhood social networks • Brendan Watson, Michigan State University • This paper examines the effect of neighborhood social context, specifically the degree of racial pluralism, on the number of residents who use Facebook to connect with their local neighborhood association to follow issues affecting their community. Analysis is based on a new “community communication effects” approach, replacing the city-wide analysis of prior studies with an analysis of neighborhood data more likely to influence users of newer, participatory communication platforms. Results suggest more complicated, non-linear effects than theorized by the existing literature. Some degree of neighborhood heterogeneity is necessary to create interest in neighborhood issues and spur mediated as opposed to interpersonal communication among neighbors. But too much heterogeneity is associated with a decline in following neighborhood associations on Facebook. The paper identifies where that tipping point occurs and discusses practical and theoretical implications.

The needle and the damage done: Framing the heroin epidemic in the Cincinnati Enquirer • Erin Willis, University of Colorado – Boulder; Chad Painter, University of Dayton • This case study focuses on the Cincinnati Enquirer’s coverage of the heroin epidemic. The Enquirer started the first heroin beat in 2015, and it could serve as a model for other news organizations. Reporters used combinations of episodic, thematic, public health, and crime and law enforcement frames in their coverage. These news frames are discussed in terms of how individualism-collectivism, geographic location, available resources, and social determinants inform journalistic and societal discussions of the heroin epidemic in terms of solutions instead of responsibility or blame.

Suicide and the Media: How Depictions Shape our Understanding of Why People Die by Suicide • Joyce Wolburg, Marquette University; Shiyu Yang; Daniel Erickson; Allysa Michaelsen • The contagion effect of the media upon suicide is well documented, given that suicide rates tend to increase following heavy news coverage of a death by suicide. However, much less is known about the influence that the media has upon attitudes and beliefs about suicide, particularly our understanding of why people choose to die by suicide and our tendency to lay blame for suicidal acts. Using text analysis, this study identifies and describes seven reoccurring themes across the entertainment media—in both drama and comedy—that address the reasons people die by suicide. Further analysis demonstrates how blame is assigned. Conclusions are drawn regarding the overall social impact, especially on the surviving friends, family, therapists, etc.

MOELLER STUDENT COMPETITION
How U.S. Newspapers Frame Animal Rights Issue: A Content Analysis of News Coverage in U.S. • Minhee Choi; Nanlan Zhang • Analyzing newspaper articles, this study explores how American newspapers have framed the issue of animal rights. Results indicate that news stories were more likely to present animal rights as a legal and policy issue, rather than a political and an economic issue, talking primarily about illegality of animal mistreatment and radicalized animal rights activists. Based upon the notion of frame building, this study also examines some factors that may influence the media’s selective use of frames.

Moeller Student Competition • Framing the Taxpaying-Democratization Link: Evidence from Cross-National Newspaper Data • Volha Kananovich • This study explores the relationship between the nature of the political regime and the framing of the construct of a taxpayer in the national press. Based on a computer-assisted analysis of articles from 87 newspapers in 51 countries, it demonstrates that the less democratic a country is, the more likely it is for the press to frame a taxpayer as a subordinate to the state, by discussing taxpaying in enforcement rather than public spending terms.

Moeller Student Competition • Who is Responsible for Low-Fertility in South Korea? • Won-ki Moon, University of South Carolina; Joon Kim, University of South Carolina, Columbia • This study investigated how South Korean newspapers have presented low fertility, specifically focusing on how newspapers attribute responsibility to society or individuals. Through a content analysis of South Korean newspapers (N = 499), we found that the newspapers were focusing heavily on societal-level causes and solutions when talking about low fertility. Among potential causes of and solutions for low fertility, insufficient government aids and financial incentives were mentioned most often.

STUDENT COMPETITION
Online Conversations during an Emergent Health Threat: A Thematic Analysis of Tweets during Zika Virus Outbreak • Alexander Moe, Texas Tech University; Julie Gerdes, Texas Tech University; Joseph Provencher, Texas Tech University; Efren Gomez, Texas Tech University • “Days after the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of Zika in Brazil a global emergency on February 2, 2016, United States President Barack Obama responded by requesting over $1.8 billion in Zika research and prevention funds from Congress. This event put the under-researched disease on the radar of American citizens. The present study examines a set of over 70,000 public Tweets during the days surrounding Obama’s request to understand how Twitter users in the States made sense of the emerging infectious disease.

Understanding why American Christians are intolerant toward Muslims: Christian nationalism and partisan media selection • Kwansik Mun • This paper seeks to explain the formation of political intolerance by reviewing theoretical arguments on Christian nationalism and selective exposure theories. Our analysis confirms the significant relationship between Christian nationalism and ideological news selection, and the mediated effect of ideological news media on both perceived threats and political intolerance toward Muslims.

The “Primed” Third-Person Effect of Racial Minority Portrayals in Media • Jiyoun Suk, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study explores how priming of different levels of media effects (either strong or weak) influences the third-person effect of media portrayals of African Americans. Through an online posttest-only control group experiment, results show that priming strong media effects heightened perceived media effects on in-group and out-group others, but not on the self. Also, it was the perceptions of in-group others, after reading the strong media effects message, that led support for media literacy education.

Beyond Passive Audience Members: Online Public Opinions in Transitional Society • yafei Zhang, The University of Iowa; Chuqing Dong • This study examined audience members’ online comments of a popular TV news program featuring controversial social issues in the contemporary Chinese society. Findings suggested that audience members expressed more negative comments, substantial cognitive recognition, and constructive suggestions towards the government, elite class, and media. The pluralistic and legitimate public opinions expanded the literature on online public discourse in transitional societies. Audience members as citizens in the formation of public spheres were also discussed.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Yoga for Every (body)? A Critical Analysis of the Evolution of Yoga Representation across Four Decades in Yoga Journal • Nandini Bhalla, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz, University of South Carolina • This paper examines 41 covers of Yoga Journal magazine, the most popular magazine for yoga enthusiasts in the U.S., from 1975 to 2016. Using visual and linguist frame analysis of magazine covers, this project critically examines how yoga representations have evolved from a mental discipline to a commercialized form of exercise. Themes of religion, art, exercise, spiritual connection, and (male Indian) expertise were prominent cover displays from the 1970s-1990s. However, in the 2000s, young, white, thin female bodies came to signify the practice of yoga, anchored to hegemonic notions of femininity, displayed on the covers in objectified and commercialized ways. Implications for the perceptions and practice of yoga in U.S. culture and beyond are discussed.

Urban Matters: The Convergence and Contrasts of Journalistic Identity, Organizational Identity, and Community Identity at a City Magazine • Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri • This study examines the perspectives of local journalists through an ethnographic case study of D magazine in Dallas, Texas. The study assesses how staff members discursively construct their journalistic identity within a geographically focused media organization, including the influences of their organizational roles, the company mission, and perceptions of their audience. The study also considers the relationship between journalistic identity and community identity by addressing how staff members describe their publication’s role within Dallas.

Exploring the Concept of Sustainability within the GD USA Magazine • Szilvia Kadas, West Virginia University; Bob Britten, West Virginia University • The American Institute of Graphic Arts (2010) suggested its members take ownership of their ethical obligations and design with societal, environmental, and economical consciousness. However, the graphic design field is lagging in adapting sustainable practices, and there are no sustainable design standards to rely on. This phenomenological research investigates the state of sustainability within a mainstream graphic design trade magazine to understand how sustainable design is communicated to graphic designers.

“The Nation’s Stamp of Approval”: The 1976 Women’s-Magazine Campaign for the ERA • Carolyn Kitch, Temple University; Urszula Pruchniewska, Temple University • In July of 1976, more than three dozen American women’s magazines – reaching 65 million women and ranging in nature from Girl Talk to womenSports – published articles about the Equal Rights Amendment as its ratification deadline approached. Coinciding with the nation’s Bicentennial, their argument enfolded the ERA within a broader discussion of democracy. This study offers textual and contextual analysis of this editorial campaign, which challenges conventional historiography of the relationship between women’s media and feminism.

Profiting from Gender Consumption: Examining the Historic Precedents of Lucky magazine • Gigi McNamara, University of Toledo • Lucky magazine, a once profitable title in the glossy world of fashion magazines, published from 2000-2015. A celebration of shopping and style, Lucky magazine occupied a specific space in the cluttered world of publishing. But what are the historical precedents and economic incentives for such a magazine? And how has Lucky not only embraced, but arguably been a forerunner of, magazines’ movement into the digital age and the revenue possibilities there? I will first briefly survey a history of consumer culture and magazines targeted to women’s consumption, and set up provide a broad overview of the Condé Nast publishing empire and Lucky magazine. To place Lucky in the modern magazine and advertising context, I will outline and discuss mission statements, press releases, media kits and rate cards, available financial data and information/interviews from trade journal articles. In addition, this article will focus on the political economy of Lucky by addressing the Lucky magazine demographic, circulation figures, advertising revenue and publishing history. Using the research methodology of close textual analysis and drawing on the theoretical framework of commodity feminism (Goldman, Heath and Smith, 1991); and postfeminsim (McRobbie, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009), this article will contextualize the contributions of Lucky magazine.

Queer Feminisms in the Chicago DIY Zine Community • Chelsea Reynolds, California State University – Fullerton • Self-published zines offer a forum for marginalized people to express themselves. They are self-representational magazine media that are easy to produce and inexpensive to disseminate. Although zines have been examined by scholars of feminist and queer theory, little research on zines has been conducted within the field of mass communication. This paper theorizes zine production and zinester identity within sociology of news and cultural studies frameworks, drawing on interviews conducted with eight LGBTQ and feminist-identified zine-makers living in Chicago.

“As Long As I Find Myself Adequate”: Effects of Exposure to Fashion, Celebrity, and Fitness Magazines on Disordered Eating • Shelby Weber; Miglena Sternadori, Texas Tech University • This study explored the relationship between the use of fashion, celebrity, and fitness magazines and eating disorder symptomology. One-hundred-and seven undergraduate students (62 female) at a Midwestern university participated in a quasi-experiment that asked them to evaluate images of underweight and normal-weight individuals. The participants also completed a questionnaire about their eating and exercise behaviors. Exposure to fitness, celebrity, and fashion magazines was positively related, at a statistically significant level, to distorted perceptions of normal weight and self-reported binge eating.

Love Your Mother: How the 1970s Launch of a News Magazine Defines Environmental Journalism • Carol Terracina-Hartman, Michigan State University • “This study examines the history of environmental news as it appeared in the inaugural editions of Mother Jones magazine 1976 — 1981. Launched during an era of environmental protection, this newsmagazine aligned civil rights, hazards, and justice in its definition of environmental news, suggesting that while mainstream media was flocking to cover newly minted environmental protection agencies and their failure to meet standards, Mother Jones writers were covering the corporations and the power the executives wielded then and now through deals, illegal trade, and often illegal experiments. The method was historical analysis of content, examining topics, bylines, funding, article placement, and treatment. Additional analysis examines sources throughout the entire dataset of articles as well as source usage by topic. Results indicate corporations not politicians are identified as power wielders and are the focus of much investigative articles. Results are precedent-setting and agree with prior literature on source usage in environmental journalism, but are inconsistent with research on environmental journalism that follows in mainstream media: dominating topics include “extreme hazard” and “food safety” with “citizen” and “government scientist” top sources. Graphics accompany 78% of content, with at least one photo or illustration. Nearly 70 percent of articles were cover stories or Front Lines (news briefs). Mainstream press initiated environment reporting five years later, but content analysis studies show the dominant frames or themes emphasize the capital value of nature and conservation in reporting and less emphasis on civil rights or justice.

On the Cover of the Rollin’ Stone: How Rolling Stone Magazine Frames Politics and News • Ashley Walter, Duquesne University • The Rolling Stone magazine is a significant artifact spanning throughout American pop culture; yet it has fought to be considered a legitimate news source in American media. This paper examines how Rolling Stone frames news and politics, and how the magazine portrays itself as being political, through its front covers. Research has shown that magazine covers “communicate,” “visually summarize” and work “as an advertisement to attract customers” (Kang & Heo, 2013). The purpose of this study is to examine how Rolling Stone presents itself as a legitimate news source and interrogates how its covers convey the publication’s identity. A mixed-methods content analysis was used to analyze both front cover artwork and front cover text. This research reveals how magazines can use their covers to establish legitimacy in American media.

2017 ABSTRACTS

Is Ellen DeGeneres a “DeGenerate?” How public support for same-sex marriage dictated news coverage of the TV’s first out lesbian • Cory Armstrong, University of Alabama; Jue Hou, Universtiy of Alabama; Kylie McLeod, University of Alabama • This study examines media treatment of Ellen DeGeneres over a 26-year period, focusing on how she served as a surrogate for the same-sex marriage debate during that time. The study suggests that coverage of DeGeneres followed a similar path to that of a protest group, challenging the status quo, and therefore, suffering critical and negative treatment from media. Findings indicated that even after common gender-related variables, such as female sources and mentions, were controlled, the major contributing variable was the level of public support for same-sex marriage. Implications for both protest-related literature and scholarship on public opinion were discussed.

Families in transition: News coverage of transgender lives and issues within a family context • Rhonda Gibson; Deborah Dwyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, AEJMC Member • This study involves a two-part content analysis featuring both quantitative and qualitative/critical analysis of news coverage of transgender issues from a family context. All news articles (N=91) from The New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal from 2002-2016 that addressed transgender lives and issues within a specific family-related context were analyzed using the theoretical frameworks of social constructionism and framing. After examining the topics, sources, and frames, researchers concluded that news coverage has increased over time in terms of quantity and reliance on transgender sources to tell their own stories. However, consideration of issues of gender identity, gender-role negotiation, and family structure remain superficial.

The Bathroom Boogeyman: A Qualitative Analysis of How the Houston Chronicle Framed the Equal Rights Ordinance • Shane Graber • In 2015, Houston, Texas voters defeated a bill that would have expanded civil rights to previously unprotected groups, including transgender people. Using a framing analysis, this paper investigates how the city’s daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, covered the debate over the bill. As such, this study identified four main news frames: (a) an LGBT frame; (b) a Red Tape frame; (c) a Religious Freedom frame; and (d) a Bathroom Boogeyman frame. Together they aligned to form a daunting challenge to an effort to protect one of society’s most vulnerable groups: the transgender community.

‘It’s like birth control for HIV’: Communication and stigma for gay men on PrEP • Joseph Schwartz; Josh Grimm • This study examines the role of communication during the process of adopting pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), focusing on how they learned about PrEP, how they discussed adoption with healthcare providers, and encountering stigma on social networks. Findings showed that participants rarely learned about PrEP from traditional news outlets, commonly experienced stigmatization by their healthcare providers, and encountered stigma in a variety of forms online. Given these results, strategies are suggested for improving gay men’s healthcare.

Performing the Host: A Textual Analysis of Lesbian Representation in The Ellen DeGeneres Show • Jasmina Lee • Ellen DeGeneres made headlines when she publicly came out on television in 1998, but her career quickly toppled under the weight of the heterosexual-dominated industry. Today, Ellen celebrates her enduring yet wholly unanticipated comeback as the lead of the longtime running daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. By analyzing the show’s visual content and written material, this paper argues that the show appeals to its target audience of women and children in order to maintain the popularity and positive regard of its host both on and off the air. It concludes with the assertion that although the show is often criticized and largely heteronormative in its representation of its host’s identity, it ultimately serves as a vehicle for positive social change.

How Narrative Focus of Mediated Homosexual-Heterosexual Intergroup Conflict Affects Prejudice Reduction: A Priming Approach • Minjie Li, Louisiana State University • Intergroup attitude change can occur when people are exposed to media depiction of outgroup members. However, there is little reach on how media depiction of the group conflict between ingroup and outgroup characters might influence people’s intergroup attitudes. The present study examines how television narrative focus of homosexual-heterosexual intergroup conflict primes people’s implicit and explicit attitudes towards the gay outgroup, attitudes towards same-sex family, and social dominance orientation. The findings demonstrate that the attitudes towards the gay outgroup are different from the ones towards gay marriage after exposure. Attitudes towards gay people and social dominance orientation varied depending on the narrative focus.

“You gay, bro?”: Representing the adolescent coming out narrative in The Real O’Neals • Miles Sari, Washington State University • Through the lens of rhetorical narrative theory, this paper will examine the representation of the coming out narrative of 16-year-old Kenny O’Neal, the main character in the ABC sitcom, The Real O’Neals. In particular, this paper will consider the ways in which the thirteen episodes of the first season — under the guise of authenticity — construct queer youth identity and culture, especially in relation to class, race, and gender. Additionally, this paper will offer a critique of how such representation frames a problematic, palatable narrative of the adolescent coming out experience that trivializes the struggles of queer youth to find community and acceptance in a heteronormative society. To situate this mediation of the adolescent coming out narrative within a broader cultural context, this paper will also analyze the discourses with which various news media have critiqued the show’s representation of queer subjectivity on major cable network television.

The “Dangle” Angle: Examining Incivility in Online Discourse About Transgender Rights • Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin • This study gauges incivility in online discourse and the factors that contribute to it through a content analysis and textual analysis of comments published underneath articles about transgender rights, an important and polarizing political issue. Results uncovered an overwhelming rate of incivility in the comments, with clear ties between incivility and quotes of transgender people, among other factors. This study contributes to research about incivility, deliberation and the public perception of the trans community.

2017 ABSTRACTS