Social Media, Religious Authority, and the Arab Gulf Crisis • Ibrahim Abusharif • On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates declared a severing of diplomatic relations with the State of Qatar. In addition to the breaking of ties, a land, sea, and air blockade against the country was enforced. The Arab Gulf, since then, has become embroiled in what is arguably the most severe crisis to have beset the region in the modern era. Immediately upon the initiation of the blockade, social media platforms became inundated with texts that commented on the crisis to various degrees of civility, poise, and partisanship. This paper presents sample case studies of social media texts generated by Kuwait-based scholars and influencers in response to the Arab Gulf crisis and analyzes them through an analytical framework of religious authority. In the important case studies presented here, the discourse analyses examine texts for the usage of language that implicitly or explicitly reference scriptural sources of Islam and normative ethics and precepts rooted in Islamic sacred law, often to excoriate or simply support the various sides or divisions created by Arab Gulf crisis. Researchers are increasingly recognizing the relevance of the online public sphere as a venue for communication and manipulation of information and preferences. This study contributes to the academic literature with this regard.

Faith in the White House: Public perceptions of U.S. presidents’ communicative performance of spiritual leadership • Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • American citizens rarely, if ever, personally interact with the president; therefore, the public’s imagined relationships with and understandings of presidential leadership are derived primarily from his communication with the people – both directly, through his speeches, and indirectly, through political news. Using survey data (N = 374), this study assessed public perceptions of six U.S. presidents’ communicative performances of spiritual leadership – ranging from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump – and explored those perceptions in relationship with respondents’ own beliefs, identities, and engagement with political news and presidential communication. These findings suggest, first, that the president already performs as a spiritual leader in ways scholars have generally overlooked – not necessarily by invoking a traditional ideology, but rather by summoning narratives of collectivity through a compelling, unitary vision and uniquely “American” values. But despite a relatively strong normative understanding of the office of the president performing spiritual leadership, this study suggests that in reality, the office-holder does matter: Perceptions of spiritual leadership across the six most-recent presidencies have ebbed and flowed. Aspects of political identity clearly emerged as the strongest predictors of respondents’ perceptions of all six presidents’ performance of spiritual leadership. However, among Republican presidents specifically, patriotism dominated as a predictor variable – with the exception of Trump, for whom nationalism took its place.

Washington, DC-based Religious and Secular Media Coverage of the District’s Death with Dignity Act • Sean Baker, Department of Journalism, Central Michigan University; Kimberly Lauffer, Ball State University, Department of Journalism • In 2016, the District of Columbia passed the Death with Dignity Act, allowing physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medicine to terminally ill patients. A framing analysis of religious and secular media coverage of the passing of the medical aid-in-dying bill, called the “Death with Dignity Act” was conducted. Four frames were found and varied by media type: in the coverage: Preserving Rights, Culture War, Potential for Abuse, and Good Death vs. Bad Death.

Religiosity as a Concept in Communication Research • Taisik Hwang • Religiosity has been increasingly understood as a multidimensional concept across diverse research areas, including journalism and mass communication studies. This paper attempts to conceptualize and operationalize this construct by conducting a systematic review of extant literature and executing reliability and validity tests. This study identifies three basic aspects of religiosity: belief, practice, and affect dimensions. The use of our scale that consists of multiple indicators representing each dimension is recommended. The results of correlation tests that examined the relationships between religiosity and other central variables, including media skepticism, are also presented.

The Impact of Religion in Situational Crisis Communication Theory: An Examination of Religious Rhetoric and Religiosity • Jordan Morehouse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Lucinda Austin, School of Media and Journalism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study examined recommended crisis response strategies, based on the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), with and without religious rhetoric to explore impacts on stakeholder’s skepticism, attitudes, trust, and supportive intentions. Crisis communication scholars have not fully explored religious organization crises, including impacts of religious rhetoric in crisis responses or stakeholder’s religiosity. Results provide support for SCCT strategies and suggest that, overall, no religious rhetoric resulted in more supportive attitudes towards the organization.

Semantic and Visual Primes of Stereotypes of Muslim Women: Evaluative and Behavioral Consequences • Alex Tan; Anastasia Vishnevskaya; Heena Khan • Cultivation and Social Learning theories predict the more intense the prime, the more negative the stereotypes. Activation Control Theory predicts that the most negative stereotypes will result from moderate primes; high intensity primes will trigger less negative stereotypes. We tested these predictions in a one factor randomized experiment. The factor was prime intensity: low, moderate, and high. Results support predictions from Activation Control Theory. Stereotypes and evaluations were consistently highest in the high prime condition.

< 2019 Abstracts

Is India Authentic or Progressive? American Media Framing of India Decriminalizing Gay-Sex from a Colonialism and Post-Colonialism • Noura Al-Duaijani • This study looks at American media framing of India’s ruling to decriminalize gay-sex from a colonialism and post-colonialism perspectives. A content analysis of articles compared America’s coverage of the Indian ruling with the 2015 coverage of U.S. legalizing gay marriage, and also compared it with  how the Indian media framed the ruling. A colonial perspective emerged through emphasizing the opposing stance of local India’s religion institutes, and the negative circumstances of the Indian LGBTQ community.

Changing Body Ideals of Marginalized Identities and the Proliferation of Social and Entertainment Media • Cristina Azocar; Ivana Markova • A survey of 565 male undergraduates examined the effects of exposure to social networking sites and entertainment media on young men’s body image. Exposure to social and to entertainment media was found to have negative effects on men’s body satisfaction, social comparison, and thin ideal internalization. Findings indicated significant differences in those men who were more exposed to social and to entertainment media than those who were not as exposed. Consistent with past studies, gay men were found to be more dissatisfied with their bodies than straight men. Gay men compared themselves to other better-looking individuals and internalized ideal body types seen in media significantly more than their straight counterparts. Surprisingly, straight men seem to care as much about their physical attractiveness/appearance as gay men do, but only in public settings such as at the beach, at athletic events (including gyms) and social events. Although on average ethnic groups were more similar than different, small but significant differences occurred with Asian men indicating significantly higher body dissatisfaction than White/European men and Middle Eastern/Arab men their counterparts. The study increases our knowledge about SNS and entertainment use and its associated body image and body satisfaction affects among low-income ethnic minority men.

Is Anyone Surprised? How Journalists Frame the Coming Out of Women Athletes • Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University • Sports journalism coverage of the coming out announcements of Women’s National Basketball Association superstars Sheryl Swoopes and Brittney Griner were analyzed via a two-dimensional measurement scheme for examining media frames. Results found an overall lack of coverage and that journalists framed the two announcements similarly in terms of time and space dimensions. But, compelling differences were found when comparing the results to those of studies examining the coming out stories of gay male athletes.

What’s in a name?: Cultural meanings of the X-marker • Michelle Dreiling, University of Oregon • In 2017, Oregon began issuing driver’s licenses which bear the X-marker for sex, as opposed to M or F. This study uses critical and feminist poststructural discourse analysis to examine newspaper reporting of this policy change. I find that, though the policy change regards sex, reporting of the change shows the term “gender” subsuming “sex.” Additionally, institutional discursive power is magnified through local and national newspapers picking up AP coverage rather than producing original reporting.

Co-constructing a Media Narrative: Interviews with LGBT Activists from the 1960s and 1970s in New Zealand • Linda-Jean Kenix, University of Canterbury; Suvojit Bandhopadyaya • This paper examines how New Zealand activists in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community of the 1960s and 70s worked to create their own media representation and production. Through the memories of 29 activists who were active in the LGBT political movement of the time, this paper explores how LGBT communities used potentially harmful media stereotypes to their own advantage and how they worked to purposefully manage their representation as well as media production. Activists depended upon diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing to amplify, extend, bridge, and transform what it meant to be LGBTQ in New Zealand. At the time, the media represented a very mainstream, and conservative, vision of the LGBT community. These media frames and media representations were systematic processes to reaffirm social, economic and political power. Media narratives of the time were created to project an intended reality. This is, of course, still the case. However, the early work of these activists managed to change that intended reality through dogged determination.

Learning to be Inclusive? Testing the Effects of Media Diet on Attitudes  toward LGT Equality • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Gary Hicks, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville • This study analyzed a large national survey to identify the predictors of attitudes toward the equal rights of lesbians, gay men, and transgender individuals. Egalitarian attitudes are associated with being female, younger, more liberal, less Republican, having a higher income and a lower level of fundamentalist religiosity, as well as consuming a wider variety of news media. Also, media diet mediates the effects of political ideology on support for the LGT community.

Getting Bi: An Analysis of Bisexual Characters’ Depiction on the Television Network the CW • Lyric Mandell, University of Houston; Francesca Ervin, University of Houston • “This study aims to understand the depiction of bisexual characters on the popular television network the CW. Through a combination of textual and visual analysis of two episodes of each of the television shows Riverdale and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (four episodes total). It explores the portrayal in modern television of bisexual characters, a subset of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community.

Results from a follow-up Pilot of Patient Self Advocacy Workshops for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals • Richard Mocarski, University of Nebraska at Kearney; Sim Butler, University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences; Nathan Wooduff; Robyn King; Debra Hope; Natalie Holt; Sarah Price, University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences; Jody Kellas • The long-term objective of our research team, Trans Collaborations, is to reduce health disparities for individuals identifying as transgender or gender diverse (TGD) in underserved areas. To do this we are taking a multi-prong approach at the provider, patient, and policy level. This manuscript reports on a pilot of a patient intervention. Specifically, we tested a one day workshop to increase patient self-advocacy through narrative techniques in the TGD population. The ultimate goal is to develop the first evidence-based training program to empower TGNC individuals to self-advocate in health care settings to help reduce health disparities they face. Ideally responsibility for providing culturally sensitive care should reside with health care professionals. Until then, we have developed a self-advocacy skills workshop based on state-of-the-art forensics and communications theory. Preliminary data from an urban sample (36) is reported here and suggests participants have increased self-efficacy following the workshop. Planned follow—up data will test for increased health care utilization and satisfaction.

Information Seeking and MSM’s Attitudes Toward HIV and Condoms • Joseph Schwartz, Northeastern University; Josh Grimm, Louisiana State University • This study examined how frequently men who have sex with men (MSM) used a selection of sources for HIV information and whether MSM’s attitudes toward safer sex could be predicted by the source they used. MSM (N = 969) were surveyed online. Results showed that respondents obtained information most often from HIV/LGBT organizations and dating/hookup apps, particularly the app “Scruff.” Respondents’ attitudes could be predicted by their use of specific sources of HIV information.

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From Employers’ Perspective: The Relationship Between Internship Performance and Employment Intention in Communication Context • Fei Fan, Hong Kong Baptist University • Fresh university graduates, today, face more severe competition in job market compared with those at old days as the number of university graduates keep boosting. For instance, the number of fresh university graduates hit a new historic record, reaching 7.65 million in 2016 in China. To ensure fresh graduates effectively improve their competitive advantage in employment industry, educational institutions in China, particularly Hong Kong, design compulsory courses about internship to ask students to put knowledge and skills learnt in class into practical actions. Media- and communication-related programs or majors have no exception on this. Facing the popularity and increasing importance of internship, many scholars pay attention to internship-related studies. However, few studies have been done on how internship affects employers’ recruitment intention in discipline-specific areas of marketing, advertising and public relations. To fill in this literature gap, this quantitative study was conducted to explore direct work supervisors’ mindset. Altogether 44 responses from student interns’ direct supervisors were collected during 2016 and 2017. The results postulated that perceived interns’ personal quality determined supervisors’ judgement about student interns’ overall internship performance, which later would play a determining role to help employers screen out qualified job candidates and offer job positions to university graduates with better perceived internship performance. In this continuous causal relationship, professional competence was a bridge, mediating the relationship between personal quality and overall internship performance.

Welcome to the Big Leagues: Exploring Rookie Sports Broadcasters’ Adjustment to New Careers • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • The purpose of this study is to understand how effectively sports journalism programs and internship experiences are preparing graduates for careers in local TV sportscasting. This study also examines how local sports broadcasters are adjusting to the profession. Results demonstrate the value of a sports journalism education and sports media internship when graduates are attempting to land their first jobs in a local television sports department. However, despite the value shown, many local sports broadcasters, while enjoying it, are still having a difficult time in their first few years on the job.

Intercultural competencies needed for evolving media professions: Educating the next generation of globally minded communicators • Pablo Mino, UNC-Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, UNC Chapel Hill • This study investigated which global competencies are sought after in college students applying for internships and jobs that are international in scope. A survey of 40 global communicators and subsequent interviews revealed that respect for other cultures, listening/observation skills, and understanding others’ worldviews were highly valued. It was also recommended that college graduates have experience traveling abroad and a global network of contacts to enhance their job prospects. Implications for updating college curricula are explored.

< 2019 Abstracts

Consumers’ Response to Metaphoric Communication of Genetic Modification Technology • Ali Abbasi • Metaphoric communications have been at the heart of the anti-GMO movement for decades. But can they be used to promote GM technology? In this article, we explore different metaphoric messaging strategies that can improve consumers’ perceptions of genetic modification. We test the effectiveness of framing GM technology as either progress or protection, with manmade or natural metaphor sources and with different levels of verbal explanation to determine the best consumer response toward the advertisements.

The Commodification of the Presidency: The Role of Mass Media • Ahmad Alshehab, Arizona State University • Relying on the critical paradigm, the Frankfurt school of thought, and Guy Debord’s concept of media spectacle, this paper examines the consequences of transforming the U.S. presidential election into a commodity to be sold by the media and consumed by the public. The paper addresses several questions, including how the U.S. presidential election was transformed into a commodity for entertainment, what factors contribute to this transformation, and what are the possible consequences and suggested solutions.

Political personalization and gender: 2015 Nigerian presidential candidates on Twitter • Olushola Aromona, University of Kansas • Political personalization has become important to the study of political communication. Particularly, given the possibility of making individualized and personalized messages on Twitter, understanding how political players feature their personal stories in their political messages on Twitter is imperative. In this paper, the tweeting behaviors of presidential candidates in a developing non-western democracy was examined. A content analysis revealed that Nigerian presidential candidates in the 2015 general election highlighted personal stories in campaign message, and male and female candidates differ in the personal topics used, albeit not in stereotypic ways.

“A Woman’s View-point and a Man’s Pen-point”: The Continued Struggle for Gender Equity in Journalism • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While women writers have indeed made strides in the journalism industry, there are still enormous barriers to equity. Although women are indeed assimilating into newsrooms, the standards by which equity is measured are still male-centric. Through a close reading of existing literature, this paper will explore how women have attempted to create “a room of their own,” showing that those spaces are either unavailable to many women due to economic constraints, or become exploited for profit through verticals or the “first person industrial complex.”

Grab your bags: Exploring destination branding through Instagram • Jaisalyn Santiago; America Edwards, University of Central Florida; Michelle Senter, University of Central Florida; Katherine Pursglove, University of Central Florida; My Bui, University of Centrall Florida • This study explores how destination branding on Instagram (advertising either France versus Japan location and solo versus group travel type) impacts the age cohort of 18 to 24, in terms of message attitude, travel intentions, and destination attractiveness. Authors examine destination branding focused on Japan versus France and solo versus group travel. First, authors discuss Instagram as a communication tool and its role in destination branding, how destination branding has a role in attitude conceptualization and the Theory of Planned Behavior, and finally how these concepts align to influence travel motivations and behaviors of the 18 to 24 aged cohort. Then, authors describe how they employed an experiment to test the dependent variables, following by a meaningful discussion of what the results mean.

Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility Efforts in Corporations: A Content Analysis of Amazon’s and Walmart’s Websites • Tugce Ertem-Eray, University of Oregon • This study analyzes how Amazon and Walmart, two of the largest global companies, present the balance among their economic, social, and environmental activities and communicate their CSR efforts via their corporate websites. Findings indicate that expectations and pressures from the public may help trigger companies to report their CSR efforts. In addition, this study also indicates that the TBL concept does not fully explain each companies’ global CSR efforts.

Imported Medical TV Dramas and the Chinese Practice of Constructing Medical Professionalism • Hua FAN • This study explores how the Chinese healthcare professionals’ viewing of imported medical TV dramas can be embedded in their construction of medical professionalism. Specifically, the consumption of imported medical TV drama can spiritually motivate people to pursue a medical career, help healthcare professionals construct, confirm and reinforce the ideal version of medical professionalism, offer them an escape from the heavy workload, and provide resistance to the breaches of the ideal professionalism in actual medical bureaucracies. Protection & Pornography:  A comparative content analysis of pornographic films for the presence of safe sex before and after the California Condom Law • Kyla Garrett Wagner • Legislation mandating pornography actors wear condoms during film production gave reason to believe condom use in pornography has increased. To empirically test this hypothesis and assess safe sex depiction in pornography, a content analysis of 24 adult films produced four years before and four years after the law was completed. A total of 137 sexual scenes were coded, and identified 452 sexual acts and 42 safe sex depictions; 27 depictions before the law and 15 depictions after the law. Unexpectedly, findings revealed more condom use before the law and no significant change in safe sex depictions over time. But additional analyses determined condom use was never rejected or endorsed by the actors; condoms were most common in scenes that depicted mixed-sex sex acts, recreational sex, and sex where there was no relationship between the actors; and that condom use was production company-dependent. Altogether, the hypotheses failed but novel findings of condom use in pornography emerged. The closing discussion offers insight on the condom law and its impact on pornography.

The Impacts of Social Media Use, Interest in News, and News Media Literacy on Detecting Fake News • Emily Gibbens • This study tested social media experience, interest in news, and media literacy to understand the characteristics needed to identify fake news. Participants were given examples of real, fabricated, and satire news to test if they could understand the difference and identify each one. The findings indicated that interest in news, media literacy, and education have a positive relationship with identifying fake news. Social media experience did not have an effect on the identification of fake news like hypothesized. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Media strategy analysis of the “new star” in 2019 Thai Election: linguistic perspective • Yuqi Guo • The parliamentary election of Thailand took place on March 24th 2019. The Future Forward Party, which was founded one year ago by the billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, performed very competitive leaving many traditional parties behind. This paper analyzes the media strategy of this party based on a linguistic theory: stance. According the discourse analysis and media corpus data, the party’s strategy involves many stance-taking conditions. These strategies have contributed to the popularity of Future Forward Party.

Thinking about real-world friends: Attachment theory as a framework for explaining self-presentation on social media • Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina; Michael Layer • This study used attachment theory to understand how social media users’ attachment styles influenced their behavior online on either their inner or other directed self-presentation behaviors. Our findings show high-anxiety individuals tend to be receptive to their real-world friends’ feedback on social media. These findings imply real-world friends may be the key factor to explain users’ behavioral patterns of social media use.

CSR Communication on Twitter: How Influential Are Socially Responsible Companies Communicating CSR Issues on Twitter • Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • Whether companies could reap benefits from their CSR activities are contingent on various stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate CSR performances. Thus, the effectiveness of corporate communication regarding CSR is significant. Grounded in the four models of public relations and literature in CSR communication strategies, this study analyzed ten socially responsible companies CSR communication on Twitter. Meanwhile, this study created new formulas to calculate the influential score of CSR communication on Twitter. The results showed that the broadcasting approach was the most applied communication strategy on Twitter overall. The findings may imply that previous studies and the four models of public relations underestimated the power of one-way communication. Surprisingly, generally talking about CSR such as sharing a company’s CSR ranking was the most influential CSR topic on Twitter, which effectively generated stakeholders’ emotional response, retweeting, and mentioning behaviors. However, the socially responsible ranking was not correlated with the effectiveness of corporate CSR communication on Twitter. The results of this study provided both theoretical and practical implications.

Who is Writing About What? A Content Analysis of Science News in The New York Times and the Washington Post • Joshua Jordan, University of Minnesota • To examine how science is communicated to the public via the press, this content analysis examined science news and journalists at The New York Times and the Washington Post. This study found that female science journalists outnumbered male journalists, and journalists with postsecondary degrees outnumbered those with postgraduate degrees. Regarding framing of science news, episodic occurred more often than thematic. The results offer insights into who is writing science news and how it is framed.

Cost-free at all Costs? – A Review of Drivers of Paying Intent and Willingness to Pay for Digital Journalism • Daniel Kunkel; Nicola Kleer • The advertising-based revenue model for journalism is severely challenged due to the effects of digitization. Providers of journalistic content have therefore put increasing emphasis on paid content strategies in recent years. This paper provides a literature review of factors that contribute to consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and paying intent (PI) for digital journalistic content. We identify 18 variables that influence WTP and PI. Due to inconsistent measurements in the literature, however, the results remain ambiguous.

The Role of Immersion and Involvement in Persuasive Games • Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Maral Abdollahi • This study seeks to improve the conceptualizations of involvement and immersion. We identified three distinct dimensions of involvement and immersion in the context of a persuasive game play and its playback. The study shows a significant difference between students playing the game and watching its playback for three dimensions of immersion. We also show the effect of different dimensions of involvement and immersion on attitude and behavioral intention.

Otherization in News: A Qualitative Analysis of Brussels and Lahore Terror Attacks • V. Michelle Michael • This study qualitatively compares how CNN approached the coverage of the terrorist attacks in Belgium and Pakistan. In order to understand any otherization messages in the initial coverage, this paper analyzes the first video story of each event’s coverage in depth. The analysis undertaken in this paper is two-fold: a visual analysis of the moving images used in the video stories and discourse analysis to excavate meaning from accompanying text and language. This mixed-method study uses both semiotics and syntax analysis to explore how similar terrorism events concerning two different social groups (in-group and out-group) are portrayed differently.

Opinion Leaders as Persuasion Agents: Integration of Persuasion Knowledge Into the Theory of Opinion Leadership • Alexander Mueller, University of Saskatchewan • In the healthcare industry, it is a common practice for manufacturers to attempt to persuade customers through opinion leaders (OL) in their specialty. This conceptual paper addresses this challenge by examining the combination and linkage of OL and persuasion agents (PA). OL and PA theories are re-conceptualized in a newly developed Persuasive Opinion Leadership Model. The model´s theoretical relevance is discussed and provides a new perspective on opinion leadership in marketing. Future research is proposed.

On Kichiku as Film and Television Subculture and Its Influences in China • Yu King NG • This paper focuses on the core issues of Kichiku, and refines them into the definition and style characteristics of Kichiku, relationship between the Kichiku as a subculture and China’s mainstream culture, and its influence, which are analyzed separately so as to connect them together. This paper also sorts out the process of meaning shift of the word Kichiku, and change is also a process in which the Kichiku culture gradually comes into being and develops.

A President, a sportsman and a rhetorical vision • Varaidzo Nyamandi, Regent University • The racial, political and social poles in a divided America require solutions towards unity. Presidents Nelson Mandela’s communication of a rhetorical vision to a divided South Africa in 1995 becomes relevant today, as a suggestion of how rhetoric may provide unity. This study explores Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to explore the creation of a worldview shared by South Africans, once separated along racial lines. The symbolic convergence theory is used to explain the meaning of the rhetorical vision of President Mandela.  He communicates the vision through his recital of the Victorian era poem “Invictus”, as dramatized in the motion picture Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). The study contributes to the growing body of literature on the use of persuasion, from the perspective of the diverse audience, who chain out the vision, as dramatized in Invictus (Eastwood, 2009).   Scholars note that contemporary rhetoric understands the personal nature of creating, receiving and sharing messages and exploring meanings with others. In the pursuit of this general endeavor, this study specifically suggests a way of interpreting shared meaning connecting people of diverse cultures, backgrounds, political views into a new worldview.

An Economic Analysis of the New York Times 1970s Daily Sections • Samantha Peko, Ohio University • In the 1970s, The New York Times Company was in a state of financial decline. The paper instituted a series of changes. Most notably, inserting into the folds of each weekday’s paper a new consumer section (food, home décor, sports, the arts, and science). The sections created a trend that newspapers around the country followed. This paper examines how investors reacted to the idea by looking at changes in the stock price using archival stock market data.

TV Anchors and Reporters use of Emotional Labor: Professional Control Over Personal Health Disclosures Online • Kirstin Pellizzaro, Arizona State University • Using the theoretical lens of emotional labor, this study performs a qualitative content analysis of 24 TV broadcast journalists’ disclosures of personal health-related issues on their professional social media pages – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Findings indicate that emotional labor was negotiated and learned journalistic skills were employed in various ways, indicating control over content. These findings raise concerns that these controlled narratives can influence an audience understanding of health-related issues.

Mental Health Satisfaction and Social Interactions • Jessica Roark, Ohio University • With online health activities becoming more popular, the opportunities to discuss mental health and share information have increased. A secondary analysis of data from the Pew Research Center examined the effects of social interaction on perceived help obtained from health information gathered online. This study looked specifically at respondents interested in mental health. Findings indicate that there are relationships between perceived help gained from online health information, participation in online health and social media activities.

Future Prospects of Female Journalists in Bangladesh • Md Nurus Safa, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • The study found that, female journalist facing many barriers like family pressure, Society problem, pay-allowances and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and even lack of workplace. Now days they are protecting and talking outside if face any discrimination with them.  It is possible to survive if the passion, professionalism, and love have on this profession. Day by day increasing the female participation in a significant change has come into the social attitude which represent by women’s advancement in journalism sector of Bangladesh.

Bullying in the Digital Age: Difficulties and Dilemmas Regarding Cyberbullying • Chun Shao, Arizona State University • Various media technologies have developed rapidly, which have fundamentally altered the traditional communication patterns. However, as portrayed in various media, an unfortunate aspect of the use of technologies is the increasing occurrence of cyberbullying. This paper aims to explore cyberbullying, focusing on its harm on teenagers and legislative responses to this problem. Through investigating emotional and physical harm of cyberbullying, this study illustrates how far John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle has progressed not only since Mill’s era but also in the digital age.

The impact of Social Media on Tourism Marketing: Analyzing Young Consumers’ Travel Behavior • Farzana Sharmin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Tourism marketing and promotional strategies are changing from the last few decades. Consumers’ have a more dynamic relationship with social media technology, which is tapping into new tourism marketing dimensions. This study examines the role of social media technology as a utilization trait in shaping young consumers’ travel behavior based on the theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research has largely focused on social media acceptance and usage performance of consumers’ during the travel planning phase. The convenience random sample method used to collect data from prime tourist places of Shanghai (China) and instrument developed support on previous research to test hypotheses. The results of structural analyses revealed that respondents’ attitude towards the use of social media affected by technology self-efficiency. In addition, perceived behavioral control has a partial influence towards the attitude of respondents’. Thus the respondents’ mostly prefer social media in pre-travel phase and during travel. Finally, the managerial implications for tourism marketers are presented with a focus on how to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing in targeting groups.

Reacting Against Climate Change Denial: Role of Anger and Anxiety in the Backfire Effects of Censoring Climate Change • Ran Tao, UW-Madison • Since climate change became one of the national agenda in the 1980s, political divide and contention over climate change issues have been seen in the U.S. The reflexivity forces, particularly environmentalism, advocate for an active response to climate change, whereas the anti-reflexivity forces undermined efforts of environmentalism by delegitimizing climate change and preventing progress in climate change policies. Such anti-reflexivity is witnessed as the Trump administration censored and manipulated climate change information online. However, the public’s reaction toward the information control stayed unclear. Applying the psychological reactance theory, this study argues that citizens will react against information control on climate change issues by the government through negative emotions. When citizens receive a high volume of threat message that informed them of information control on climate change from the government, they will feel more anger, which leads to more intention to view the repressed information, learn more about climate change, share climate change information with friends, families, and the public, regardless of their political ideology and pre-exited climate change attitude. The results have implications for advancing reactance theory and understanding citizens’ reactance against governmental information control on climate change.

Participatory Journalism in China: An Extended Newsroom and Power, Network, State • Luxuan Wang, New York University • By analyzing different producers’ identities and posts, this paper explores how participatory journalism differs from traditional media and how organizational structure influences framings in China’s context. Generally, the elite community dominated the discourse of participatory journalism on social media, producing a different framing from that of Chinese traditional news agencies. This paper examined the “extended newsroom” of participatory journalism in Chinese context involving dispositions of capitals, heterogeneous network of human-nonhuman interactions, and the state’s manifestation.

Hacker groups and social movements: A systematic review of literature • Yiping Xia, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Hackers are groups of people with a common concern with information technologies and a shared set of fundamental beliefs, such as the protection of privacy and freedom of information. While there are numerous studies about how social movements and technology intersect, there has been relatively less social movement scholarship devoted to hackers that push for social change via technological means, or make technology the central issue of their agenda. By systematically examining the extant literature using McAdam et al’s (1996) framework, this paper aims to map our current knowledge about hacking/hackers as social movement players, and to generate discussions about future research directions for scholars of interest.

Linkages among Individual Values, Attitudes, and Political Actions: A Cross-Cultural Study • Leping You, University of Florida • Communicating values is crucial to motivating people to be engaged in political/social actions globally. While many studies have examined how cultures influence individuals’ attitudes toward social issues and their intentions of participating in civic actions, research exploring civic engagement in comparison with individualistic and collectivistic cultures on the individual level is relatively scarce. Drawing on Schwartz’s theory of values, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationships among individual values, attitudes toward human rights such as equal pay, and political action behavior. The results of this study revealed that people in Asian cultures were found to value both personal-focus and social-focus values more highly than people in America. In addition, personal-focus values were negatively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay, while social-focus values such as universalism-nature and universalism-society were positively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay. The political environment is suggested as a potential moderator in predicting people’s political activism behavior from behavioral intentions.

The impact of Next Media Animation framing on university students’ attitudes towards, perception of, and participation in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong • Runping Zhu, University of Western Australia; Chesca Ka Po Wong • The most significant social protest in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 was the 2014 Umbrella Movement seeking democratic processes for the appointment of the Region’s chief executive. This study examines how the framing of the police, government, and opponents of the protests in the Next Media Animation news videos prepared by Apple Daily, an important Hong Kong newspaper, influenced university students’ attitudes, perceptions, and political behavior in terms of the Umbrella Movement events. The findings from a qualitative content-analysis and a quantitative survey (N=212) showed that students viewing negative images of the police, government and anti-protestors framed by the Next Media Animation formed unfavorable attitudes towards the three parties and were consequently more likely than non-viewers to participate in the Movement. The study extends the previous work on audience responses to news framing by demonstrating how animated news frames may, by manipulation of the story facts and enhancing the presentation with emotive music and commentary, prompt stronger audience reactions than those created by other news frames. The finding raises the possibility of misuse of technology by animation practitioners and the risk of exploitation of animated media to promote the ideologies supported by media owners.

< 2019 Abstracts

‘Live Fast, Die Young’: Programming Strategies of the Phonograph, FOX, and CBS • Anna Aupperle • Everything old is new again on broadcast television, or so it seems. When comparing the programming strategies of broadcast networks, it is imperative to look back to history to see how other media have sold similar content to audiences. This paper compares the programming of the phonograph at the height of its popularity and case studies of three Fox and CBS programs, in an effort to rectify these differing content strategies.

Expecting Victory due to TV or Identity?: Examining media consumption, social identification, and fan expectations • Natalie Brown-Devlin, The University of Texas at Austin; Michael Devlin, Texas State University • This study used a nationwide, purposive sample to simultaneously examine how media consumption and levels of team identification contribute to the formation of fan expectations. Guided by both cultivation theory and social identification theory as an underpinning, this study utilized a survey of 310 highly-identified fans of two teams competing in the NCAA College Football Championship game. Participants reported their media consumption habits, level of team identity, and expectations for the game outcome. Results determined the extent to which sports media consumption contributes to the formation of sport fans’ expectations regarding their preferred team’s performance, and then, examined the extent to which team identification (using the SSIS) contributed to either mediating or moderating the effects of expectations after media consumption.

Binge Watching: Motivations, Demographics, and Television Program Genres • Jiyoung Cha, San Francisco State University; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Binge watching is a notable phenomenon that is changing the production, distribution, and consumption of television programs. Building upon the uses and gratification theory, this study seeks to better understand binge-watching behaviors. A national survey of U.S. adults identified motivations that predict the frequency of binge watching, the amount of time spent binge watching and the quantity of binge watching episodes. It also uncovered the demographic characteristics and genre consumption patterns of frequent binge viewers.

Teaching Diversity through Satire Literacy • Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University; Kiah Bennett • Several studies reveal that satire is popular among young audiences, making it a potential didactic tool for in-classroom discussions; however, satire criticized for making jokes that only resonate with those already familiar with the topic (Flanagan, 2017). The current work describes best practices for using satire in the classroom to discuss issues of representation and diversity in media by presenting rhetorical and pedagogical tactics that provide students insight into issues of marginalization with respect to class, gender, and race.

Potterheads: A Cultural Overview • Danielle Deavours, The University of Alabama • All humans have patterns of behavior, thought, and actions that are learned from outside influences, and these aspects make up our cultural identities. Culture can be defined as “learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people” (Martin & Nakayama, 2017). People learn about the world by selecting, evaluating, and organizing various stimuli from the external environment and then creating their perception of self and worldviews. Media is one of these external stimuli by which humans build personal worldviews, and research shows that certain media have great influence over the development of self-perception and other behavioral predictors (Agha, 2010; Ionoaia, 2009). One instance of an influential media is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Arguably one of the most successful book series in history, Harry Potter is a world-wide phenomena that has helped shape the worldviews of millions of readers and fans. The influence of the series is so great that researchers have begun referring to Harry Potter fans as members of a singular culture, known as Potterheads. This paper addresses some of the cultural aspects of Harry Potter fans, including pop culture, language, symbols, games, and arts. The author will also explore Harry Potter fan culture’s viewpoints on nerd versus mainstream identity, relationships, politics, prejudice, gender, philanthropy, and collectivism.

It’s Obviously Funny to be a Meme: Using Memes for Political Entertainment & Observation • Bingbing Zhang, Texas Tech University; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University • Memes are cultural units that transmit among online users. Appearing as jokes, memes are a popular form of expression and appear to serve a greater role in the formation and spread of public opinion, changing the way citizens engage with politics. Driven by uses and gratifications theory, this work examines users’ motivations for viewing, sharing, and creating political memes. A nationwide survey (N = 1,000) of Facebook users identified unique gratifications obtained from political meme use. Results show the use of politically-related memes is a nuanced behavior strategically done to fulfill needs for political entertainment and observation. Specifically, individuals with high political trust, who think of themselves as being humorous, and frequently share or create memes used them to observe politics in action. Alternatively, those who prefer to observe humorous circumstances and frequently share and view memes, without engaging in creation, used politically-related memes for entertainment. Practical and theoretical implications regarding use of memes for engagement and effects are discussed.

Out of the Shadows: Female Representation in Shadow of the Tomb Raider • Jordin Howell, University of Memphis • A textual analysis of Shadow of the Tomb Raider provides insight on the current level of female representation within the video game community. Calls for equal representation peaked during the #GamerGate controversy; the present research concludes this game is a direct answer to that call. Findings show that Shadow of the Tomb Raider presents Lara Croft as a feminist role model who has been transformed into a three-dimensional character. The research also highlights that, while it is important to find areas lacking in representation, it is also important to note when it is done right.

“Slutty ambitious monsters”: The cultivation of female journalists in pop culture • Kelsey Husnick, Wayne State University • Negative, inaccurate portrayals of female journalists have persisted in movies, television shows and other cultural artifacts for decades and little change has been made in the movie and television industry. This paper uses cultivation theory and news processes as a basis for analyzing HBO’s Sharp Objects, which features female journalist as protagonist. Findings include plot elements and themes supporting and pushing back on traditional journalistic scripts.

Looking through the selfie: An analysis of Snapchat Filter/Lens Use in the Context of Objectification Theory and Uses and Gratifications • Angelina Cruz, University of Central Florida; Amanda Brown, University of Central Florida; Elise Legrout, University of Central Florida; Edward Matthew Coyle, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • Highly visual social media like Snapchat have become a mainstays in modern culture, particularly among young people. These services offer filters and lenses that people use to alter their visual messages. However, little is known about why young people use lenses and filters and what the potential effects might be. This study examines the relationship between college students’ use of Snapchat’s silly and beauty lenses and their association with self-objectification and self-esteem. College students responded to an online survey including measures of social media use, motives for using lenses, as well as feelings of self-objectification and self-esteem. Results revealed that three motives accounted for lens and filter use: entertainment/pass time, beautification, and impression management. There was no connection between Snapchat filter and lens use and participant’s tendency toward self-objectification but there was a correlation between Snapchat use and self-esteem. Participant’s sex as well as the entertainment/pass time and beautification motives were the only predictors of their use of Snapchat’s familiar filters/lenses.

Immersion Matters: Trait Empathy, Presence, and Enjoyment in Cinematic Virtual Reality Experience • Zexin “Marsha” Ma, Oakland University • Cinematic virtual reality (CVR), in the format of 360° sphere videos, has gained an increasing popularity over the past few years. As CVR can be viewed in different media platforms that differ in immersion, it is important to understand the impact of immersion on viewers’ psychological experience. This study investigates the role of immersion and its interactive effects with trait empathy on CVR viewers’ spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment. A sample of 112 young adults were randomly assigned to watch a CVR film either in mobile phone-based VR headsets (high immersion) or tablets (low immersion). Results indicated that viewers experienced greater spatial presence, social presence, and enjoyment when the film was viewed in high (vs. low) immersion. Spatial presence and social presence were also found to jointly mediate the effect of immersion on enjoyment. Furthermore, trait empathy interacted with immersion to influence social presence. Contrary to our expectation, we found that social presence was more strongly influenced by immersion among individuals low (vs. high) in trait empathy. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Hostile Media Bias and Third-Person Effect in Film and Television: A Study of Diversity • Michele Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Abstract: The issue of diversity and stereotyping in film and television has become a politicized, hotly contested topic in discussions of pop culture. In this paper, I use portrayals and audience perceptions of race, gender, sexual orientation, body type, and class to investigate the idea that hostile media bias and third-person effect apply to entertainment media in addition to news. Survey results (n=317) indicate that audiences believe film and television to be more diverse than they actually are. A positive sentiment toward diversity in film and television predicted the perception that creators exclude people from marginalized groups in their productions. Furthermore, when asked if stereotypical portrayals contributed the marginalization of minorities, audiences displayed third-person effect perceptions, believing that others could buy into stereotypes but they do not.

Misogyny and Erotic Pleasure in Bollywood’s ‘Item Numbers’ • Suman Mishra • “Item numbers” are controversial song and dance sequences that have gained popularity in Bollywood cinema in the last two decades. In this study, item numbers produced between 2000-2018 in Bollywood films are analyzed, a period which saw rapid growth in item numbers. Thematic analysis of item number videos shows a trend towards increased sexual objectification of women, along with several other sub-themes such as use of Eurocentric models. The transformation of Bollywood’s song and dances from sensual depictions into an “erotic spectacle” is discussed in the context of globalization and misogyny. Elements of erotic spectacles are noted.

DudeBros Could Love Lady Shows: Gender Expectations, Enjoyment, and Willingness to Recommend Television Among Males • Renee Mitson, University of Minnesota; Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Jonathan Anderson; Maral Abdollahi • This research quantifies gendered beliefs, enjoyment, and willingness to recommend television programs expected to be viewed by the opposite gender. We surveyed 350 heterosexual males, and measured gendered beliefs, expected audience gender of popular television programs, enjoyment of shows, and social recommendations. Results found gendered beliefs are not an obstacle for enjoyment or willingness to recommend television shows, but expected audience gender is, and enjoyment and recommendations decreased when participants expected shows were watched by women.

‘Fight the Power’: Themes of Racial Tension in Different Rap Music Eras – A Content Analysis • Dante Mozie, University of South Carolina • Rap music has served as a platform for many artists over the years to tackle issues that affect the African American community, from racial profiling and police misconduct to criticizing government leaders and societal woes. A content analysis of the Billboard Hot Rap Song charts in two different eras for the genre, 1989-1999 and 2008-2018, was conducted to examine the frequency of rap artists mentioning the police in their songs, how often artists criticize racism and oppressive institutions, such as the government, and how often rappers offer advice or self-reflection in their songs. Results found that most artists preferred to discuss themselves, love, sex, drugs, wealth, and other topics besides the police or social and racial topics. However, a small connection was found between the tone of artists (“angry”) and those who tackled racial profiling in their songs, an encouraging sign of support for the African-American Offending Theory, which is discussed and used in this study.

Coming out of the Celebrity Closet: LGBTQ and Authentic Mediated Confessions • Nathian Rodriguez, San Diego State University; Mary Liz Brooks • The current study’s goal is to examine how LGBTQ celebrities frame their coming out messages, with specific attention to mediated platforms, between 2013 and 2018. In addition, the study examined what identities were most salient in those celebrities who did come out. The analysis revealed themes of promoting marriage equality, representation to LGBTQ youth, specific cause-related issues, response to violence, representation in media, celebratory timing, authenticity and honesty, and reputation management. A majority of the celebrities were primarily actors and actresses, athletes, and musicians. The analysis also revealed that more than 62% of the celebrities were male, White, and between the ages of 21 and 35 years-old. Most came out on social media.

Gendered #selfie? An analysis of Selfies, Face-ism, and Sexual Self-Identification on Instagram • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University; Cynthia Nichols, US Department of State • Decades of research on face-ism in traditional media report women are more likely to be pictured from a more distant perspective than men, and users of social networks are mirroring this presentation. This analysis used the face-ism index to determine facial prominence of 621 Instagram users who did and did not self-identify as #gay or #lesbian. The analysis revealed users who sexually self-identified did not follow the hetero-normative face-ism trends seen in traditional, gendered media.

Corporate Affirmations of the True Self and Mutual Self Help: Transmedia Rhetorics of Marvel Rising • Burton St. John, University of Colorado – Boulder; J. Richard Stevens, University of Colorado – Boulder • In 2018, Disney launched a Marvel Rising transmedia campaign introducing a line of female superhero dolls and supporting media narratives with Marvel Comics and Hasbro. Utilizing textual and industry analysis, we find that the concentration of ownership and the need to attract a new clientele surprisingly resulted in a “commercialized feminism” text, one that thematically supports Disney’s pro-social messaging agenda, linking its products to what it perceives as the preferred social identity for its audience.

Just One More Episode: Binge-Watching Poetics and Big Data in Non-Linear Television Portals • Ryan Stoldt • In 2013, Netflix declared binge-watching “the new normal” in a press release. Binge-watching, or watching two or more episodes of a television series in one sitting, emerged as a popular way of consuming television as an increasing number of internet-distributed television services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime offered consumers access to a library of content to watch on their own time. This paper offers the concept of binge-watching poetics to describe the technological and narrative poetic devices employed by internet-distributed television services to encourage audiences to continue consuming television. I argue that the seasonal release strategies, algorithmic flows between episodes, and the narrative devices within shows all serve as binge-watching poetics. The employment of binge-watching poetics functions as a socio-historic extension of many previous televisual production practices to keep audiences returning but serves a different economic purpose for the television companies. Through the encouragement of continual consumption in binge-watching poetics, internet-distributed television services gather data on consumption practices. This data production allows the businesses to continually reemploy the audiences’ productive behavior for the businesses’ own economic interest by informing programming decisions and selling advertisements. Thus, this paper argues that the Foucauldian power knowledge created through audience consumption continues to allow the television industry to recreate its own existence, although the power knowledge is employed in slightly different ways from the linear television broadcasting industry.

Shakin’ the Delta: The Evolution and Misrepresentation of Hill Country Blues in Print Journalism • GREENBERRY TAYLOR, University of Florida • R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are two of the most prolific Hill Country bluesmen from northeast Mississippi. For most of the 20th century, however, music journalists mislabeled their music as Delta blues. This historical study examines magazine and newspaper articles from 1985 to 2002 on Burnside and Kimbrough, while also incorporating oral histories and in-depth interviews, in order to understand the evolution of Hill Country coverage on its rise to mainstream success.

Facing the Music: Analyzing the Depiction and Objectification of Women in American Music Journalism • Kelsey Whipple; Renita Coleman • This content analysis finds significant objectification of female musicians in major music publications during 2016. The stories, predominantly about male artists and by male authors, were more likely to discuss female musicians’ appearance and relationships, and used more sexualized and emotional language. Female writers were just as likely to objectify women musicians. We expand objectification theory with the concept of “vicarious self-objectification,” capturing how women have internalized the sexualized identities and then objectify other women.

Explore horror movie genre preference with miniMAM: An exploratory study in Taiwan • Yu-Lun Wu; Hsiu-Ping Yueh • Media has become the main resource of contemporary entertainment, and people usually approach it for something positive. In between, frightening entertainment has long been an interesting issue in media study. Followed by the tradition of intensity-based models, the study attempted to explore the correlation between media preference, behavior, and individual differences. Since Motivation Activation Measure (MAM) has been an emerging and reliable indicator of biologically based individual difference, the study conducted correlational approach to examine the short version MAM (miniMAM) in correlation with horror preference and watching frequency. Gender was also verified in further analysis. The data were collected from a total of 160 participants. The results showed that the horror movie genre preference is positive correlating to horror movie watching frequency, and ASA scores has positive correlation with horror movie genre preference, especially the more intensive genres, and males performed higher preference in specific genres than females. Nevertheless, due to the limitation of the study, cultural issue and research design needed more consideration in the future study.

< 2019 Abstracts