Open Competition

Boycotts, Blacklists, and De-Platforming: The ACLU Wrestles with Private Censorship • Stephen Bates, UNLV • In the late 1940s and the 1950s, the ACLU wrestled with the concept of “private censorship”–protests against speech that have the effect of suppressing the speech. The issues arose over identity, such as the NAACP’s protest against the TV adaptation of “Amos ‘n’ Andy”; over morality, such as the Legion of Decency’s protest against the film “The Miracle”; and over ideology, such as the American Legion’s protest against films featuring Jose Ferrer and other purported communists and fellow travelers. The issues were difficult, and the ACLU tried various tests and formulations for distinguishing proper counter-speech from improper suppressive speech. This paper is based on internal documents from the ACLU, now in the Princeton University archives.

Lost in translation: The disturbing decision to limit access to audio court files for podcasters • Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina • In its October 2017 decision in Undisclosed LLC v. The State, the Georgia Supreme Court recognized that Georgia Rule 21 allows for public access to court files including both inspecting and copying records. However, the court held that a court reporter’s audio files from trial are not actually court records because only the official transcripts, not the audio tapes, are filed with the court. Therefore, audio tapes cannot be copied by the media for use in podcast production. This article explores the problems with this Supreme Court decision and argues that the courts need to revisit the right to access and produce a definitive answer to the current dilemma for emerging media in the wake of true crime podcast growth.

Troll Storms and Tort Liability for Speech Urging Action by Others • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper examines when speakers, consistent with First Amendment principles of free expression, can be held tortiously responsible for the actions of others with whom they have no contractual or employer-employee relationship. Recent lawsuits against Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin for sparking “troll storms” provide timely analytical springboards. The issue is particularly problematic when a speaker’s message urging action does not fall into an unprotected category of expression such as incitement or true threats and thus, were it not for tort law, would be fully protected. The paper also reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s “authorized, directed, or ratified” test for vicarious liability established more than thirty-five years ago in the pre-Internet era case of NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. The paper concludes by proposing a framework for vicarious liability when speakers urge action that results in others’ tortious conduct.

Media Mea Culpas and Journalistic Transparency: When News Outlets Publicly Investigate Their Reportage • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper examines some important legal issues and implications surrounding reports commissioned by journalism organizations like Rolling Stone to investigative their own journalistic flaws and failures. Specifically, the paper explores how such reports carry the danger in cases such as Eramo v. Rolling Stone, LLC of blurring the crucial line separating journalism ethics from media law. Additionally, the paper examines the possible impact of third-party reports on the critical issue of truth and falsity in defamation lawsuits.

Wither Zauderer, Blossom Heightened Scrutiny? • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper examines how the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decisions in the First Amendment cases of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees muddle an already disorderly compelled-speech doctrine. Specifically, dual five-to-four decisions in Becerra and Janus raise key questions about the level of scrutiny – either a heightened test or a deferential variant of rational basis review – against which statutes compelling expression should be measured. Critically, Becerra illustrates the willingness of the Court’s conservative justices to narrowly confine the aging compelled-speech test from Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Furthermore, the paper explores how Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence in a third 2018 decision – Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission – heightens problems with the compelled-speech doctrine. The paper concludes by proposing multiple criteria for the Court to consider when determining the level of scrutiny to use in compelled-speech cases.

Exploring Legal Solutions to Address the Problem of Hate Speech in the United States • Caitlin Carlson, Seattle University • This paper explores potential legal remedies for addressing the proliferation of hate speech in the United States. Solutions include an anti-hate speech law, a change in the federal threats statute, group defamation, and reconsidering intentional infliction of emotional distress as a viable response for victims of hate speech. The strengths and weaknesses of each approach are analyzed in light of existing jurisprudence and intentional infliction of emotional distress is identified as the best path forward.

‘Funding Secured:’ A Forty Million Dollar Tweet that Highlights First Amendment Issues Associated with Regulating Speech on Social Media • Samuel Cohn • The following article is written in the wake of a legal battle that began in Augusts 2018. The parties involved are Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission. To limit the discussion of Musk’s behavior on Twitter to Securities law, largely the way mass media has done to this point, ignores Constitutional realities with respect to the use of social media in 2019. It is true that the legal battle between the SEC and Musk has more significance for corporations and their executives than the average person posting online. This reality does not discount the gravity of Musk’s situation. It is also true that Elon Musk is not the average Twitter user – he is a billionaire with twenty-five million followers and stands at the helm of multiple corporations. And yet, Elon Musk is an American citizen with the same rights as any other American in the United States. As such, he deserves the same constitutional protections. We can look at his recent involvement with the SEC as a prime example of the issues associated with regulating individual speech online as well as the chilling effects that stand to follow if said regulation is executed without considering the potentially adverse effects to the exercise of protected speech. Federal agencies, such as the SEC, should act with extreme caution when regulating the communication of individuals on social media as the legal boundaries of this new mode of communication are not fully understood.

Privacy Exceptionalism Unless It’s Unexceptional: How the American Government Misuses the Spirit of Privacy in Two Different Ways to Justify both Nondisclosure and Surveillance • Benjamin W. Cramer, Bellisario College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University • This article explores the American government’s contradictory stances toward privacy, via an analysis of the jurisprudence surrounding the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act, while comparing that to surveillance-oriented jurisprudence surrounding the actions of the national security and law enforcement establishments. The article argues that the government has displayed two contradictory stances toward privacy in these endeavors: it cites privacy concerns to withhold documents while ignoring privacy during its mass surveillance of citizens. This contradiction allows the government to violate the spirit of government transparency and the value of privacy in two different ways while becoming more secretive across the board. The article starts with an analysis of trends that have enabled agency rejections of FOIA requests for often facetious reasons of personal privacy – what researchers have dubbed “privacy exceptionalism.” This is followed by a similar analysis of the Privacy Act as another example of the American government’s professed concern for protecting personal privacy. The article then reviews how the national security and law enforcement establishments have largely ignored personal privacy as they conduct widespread electronic surveillance of citizens. The evidence will point to a new type of “privacy unexceptionalism” because privacy values have been unable to overcome the excesses of the surveillance state. The article concludes that the contradictions between these two views of privacy in the American government have enabled new patterns of secrecy and nondisclosure.

Past Imperfect: Packingham, Public Forums, and Tensions Between Media Law’s Present and Internet Regulation’s Future • Anthony Fargo, Indiana University • Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested in Packingham v. North Carolina that the internet had supplanted physical spaces as essential public forums for many users. The analogy is problematic because public forums are usually government-controlled spaces, while internet platforms are privately owned. Comparing the internet to other media generally is similarly problematic because the internet has no comparison. This paper argues that courts should view the internet as a unique medium with unique issues.

Forum Delegation: The Birth and Transposition of a New Approach to Public Forum Doctrine • Brett Johnson, University of Missouri; Shane Epping, University of Missouri • This paper explores the concept of forum delegation: the power of government officials to suggest which forums to allow speakers to use. The concept is born out of a recent legal battle between the University of Minnesota and conservative speaker Ben Shapiro, in which the UMN required Shapiro to speak in a venue away from the heart of campus due to concerns over the school’s ability to provide adequate security for the event. The paper first analyzes the UMN case to assess the constitutionality of forum delegation in the context of regulating speech and public universities. Next, it applies Robert Post’s theory of constitutional domains to transpose forum delegation from the public university context to situations in which cities must deal with controversial speakers. The goal in explicating the concept of forum delegation within this latter context to is give cities a tool in which to constitutionally balance the interests of speakers, audience members, public safety concerns, and efficient resource management. Such a tool can be especially helpful at a time when provocateurs have sought to weaponize the First Amendment through politicizing and polarizing free speech principles.

TL;DR and TC;DU: An Assessment of the Length and Complexity of Social Media Policies • Jonathan Obar, York University; Andrew Hatelt • A study of the length and complexity of terms of service (TOS) and privacy policies (PP) for 10 social media services. Average TOS is 26,320 words and PP 7,984 words, with most policies written at a grade 12 or college reading level. These findings may contribute to critiques of notice privacy policy, providing empirical evidence that policies continue to be “too long” and “too complicated”, contributing to users that “didn’t read” and “don’t understand”.

“I also consider myself a First Amendment lawyer” • Jonathan Peters • Charles Harder. Lin Wood. Tom Clare. They are among a small number of American lawyers who have significant experience bringing claims against news organizations for their editorial activities. They play important roles in the news ecosystem, and they are subjects worthy of scholarly attention. Their perspectives about their work, which is reshaping media law, can contribute to a better understanding of claims against the press. With that in mind, we interviewed eight such lawyers about their practices.

Deciding Fair Use • Amanda Reid, UNC Chapel Hill • The epic legal battle between Google and Oracle is knocking on the SCOTUS’s door – again. Viewing the jury verdict “as advisory only,” the Federal Circuit independently re-weighed the fair use factors and concluded that allowing Google to commercially exploit Oracle’s work would “not advance the purposes of copyright.” This case raises important and timely questions about how to conceptualize and operationalize fair use. The ontological nature of copyright fair use is often misunderstood. As a mixed question of law and fact, fair use does not fit neatly into the law/fact paradigm, which typically guides decision making authority. Is fair use a fact question for the jury or a legal question for the court? On appeal, are fair use decisions reviewed deferentially or de novo? In other words, is fair use a question of fact for the jury and off limits to appellate court second-guessing, or is fair use a question of law for which an appellate court can decide anew? Rather than hiding behind the “slippery” distinction between “fact” and “law,” this essay highlights the plainly political nature of allocating decision making authority. The policy question is whether we want speech-protective rights assessed by a judge or a jury. Who has the institutional capacity to do a better job? Who do we trust more?

The Trouble With “True Threats” • Eric Robinson, University of South Carolina; Morgan Hill, University of South Carolina • With abusive language endemic online, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Elonis v. United States did not resolve many issues in determination whether a statement is a “true threat.” In the absence of guidance, courts have applied various factors to rule in these cases. This paper quantifies and analyzes how courts have applied these factors in various cases, showing the need for clear standards for what communication can be considered “true threats.”

The Tribal University: Factions, iGen and the Threat to Free Speech on Campus • Joseph Russomanno, Arizona State University • The American college campus was once the ultimate marketplace of ideas. Now, speakers are sometimes shouted down or disinvited. Fear of trauma abridges classroom discussion. As the nation tribalizes, so do college students – members of iGen and psychologically fragile. This paper examines the interconnectedness of these issues. It also invokes factions – the tribalism of America’s founding era – and illustrates how James Madison’s approach to control them can be applied to speech on the contemporary campus.

A Structural Imperative: Freedom of Information, the First Amendment and the Societal Function of Expression • A.Jay Wagner • In the United States, the ability to gain access to government information is predicated by statute, the 1966 FOIA. Despite influential First Amendment scholars asserting access to government information to be a necessary corollary, the Supreme Court has only partially recognized such a right. The manuscript tracks this legal trajectory and examines international constitutional rights of access and explores why access has been rhetorically identified as an imperative yet has not received legal priority.

The Understanding of Absolute Right to Freedom of Expression Concerning Hate Speech in the Case of the Charlottesville Incident • Qinqin Wang; Roxanne Watson, University of South Florida • The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is an absolute right to freedom of expression with regard to hate speech, and more specifically, whether tolerance should be exercised toward speech even in circumstances where this speech presents a clear and present danger to the public. The paper will delve into the decision by the Virginia Court that allowed the rally in Charlottesville which resulted in the death of a 32-year old woman.

Algorithms, Machine Learning, and Speech: The Future of the First Amendment in a Digital World • Sarah Wiley • By mediating how information is produced, distributed, and consumed, algorithms have a vast impact on how individuals perceive the world and thanks to machine learning and big data, they do so more autonomously than ever. This article examines how First Amendment jurisprudence has struggled to keep up and recommends a way to realign the doctrine with its underlying values of democratic self-governance, the distribution of knowledge and ideas, and individual autonomy in light of machine learning.

Neutral Reportage “Missing In Action” In U.S. Law But Expanding In Foreing Law As A Libel Defense • Kyu Ho Youm • Few media law scholars and practitioners in the U.S. have paid close attention to neutral reportage in foreign law. To fill the glaring void in the study of neutral reportage as a fascinating export from American law, this paper examines neutral reportage as a case of “reverse perspective.” Three questions provide the main focus of this study: (1) Why was Anglo-American law on republication of defamatory statements problematic for news reporting?; (2) How has neutral reportage been recognized as a libel defense in foreign law?; (3) How is neutral reportage similar to, and different from, the “public interest” defense in England and other countries?

< 2019 Abstracts

Robert L. Stevenson Open Paper Competition

“Newsmaker-in-Chief”? Presidents’ Foreign Policy Priorities and International News Coverage from LBJ to Obama • Kirsten Adams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Riffe, UNC-Chapel Hill; Meghan Sobel, Regis University; Seoyeon Kim, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Through a mixed-method analysis of country mentions across 50 years of U.S. presidents’ speech transcripts (N = 284) and New York Times’ international news coverage (N = 20,765) across nine presidencies, we find the phenomenon of an “echoing press” following the “presidential gaze” toward foreign-policy priorities steadily declining over time and within administrations. This study examines the complex roles of the “newsmaker-in-chief” and the press who cover – and sometimes “echo” – his administration’s foreign affairs agenda.

Investigating Empathic Concern, Reporting Efficacy & Journalistic Roles as Determinants of Adherence to Peace Journalism • Oluseyi Adegbola; Weiwu Zhang, Texas Tech University • This study examines the influence of empathic concern, perceived journalistic roles, and reporting efficacy on journalists’ adherence to peace journalism. Quantitative surveys (N=324) and semi-structured interviews (N=10) of Nigerian journalists were conducted. Results suggest that Nigerian journalists adhere to peace journalism more than to war journalism and that empathic concern, perceived reporting efficacy, and subscription to the interventionist role are strong predictors of adherence to peace journalism.

Reporting Bias in Coverage of Iran Protests: An Analysis of Coverage by Global News Agencies • Oluseyi Adegbola; Janice Cho; Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University • This study examines reporting of intense Iranian protests by global news agencies located in the United States (Associated Press), United Kingdom (Reuters), France (Agence France-Presse), China (Xinhua), and Russia (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union). A census of reporting (N = 369) was content analyzed. Results show reporting remains influenced by political systems. News agencies also vary in their assessment of causal agents, moral evaluations, and treatment recommendations. Implications for reporting foreign conflict is discussed.

Intimate Partner Violence: What do Nollywood Movies Teach Us? • Ajeori agbese • Scholars have long criticized mass media for largely ignoring, negatively stereotyping and downplaying the seriousness of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, considering few studies have examined this issue in movies, this paper examined Nollywood movies to determine the messages audience get about IPV in Nigeria. The paper also wanted to find out if the movies challenged societal stereotypes about IPV and gender roles in intimate relationships. The contents of nine IPV-themed movies were interpretively analyzed, using social learning and cultivation theories as guides. The analysis showed that while Nollywood movies depicted the severity of the issue, the portrayals mostly mirrored the stereotypes and beliefs people already have about IPV and gender roles in intimate relationships. The movies largely blamed victims and other outside forces for abuse in intimate relationships. In addition, the portrayals barely challenged the perception and problem of IPV in Nigeria and did not provide realistic solutions.

The role of media for young Syrian Refugees at a time of uncertainty and changing living conditions • Miriam Berg • A considerable number of refuges that came to Germany in 2015 and 2016 were unaccompanied minors. This study examines the Syrian minor refugees among them, who now, as young adults, are using media as a whole in their everyday life and how their usage has changed since their arrival in Germany. There is a particular focus on correlations with the changing living conditions of the minors from mass emergency shelters to refugee accommodation and youth flats. The study also explores how media was used in their home country and during their flight to Germany. The research was carried out in the form of 30 semi-structured interviews with refugees between the ages of 18-21 who arrived in Hamburg, Germany in 2015 as unaccompanied minors. Findings of this study have shown that digital media and internet connectivity is seen as a necessity in contemporary living for young refugees and is considered as important as food and shelter to survive. However, despite internet access being seen as the most efficient way to stay informed and connected with families, friendships developed offline were found to be more important and helpful in terms of adjusting to a new environment, coping with loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted in their host country.

Journalists, Newsmakers and Social Media in East Africa • Steve Collins; Kelly Merrill; Chad Collins; Kioko Ireri; Raul Gamboa, University of Central Florida • This study involved an analysis of 1,784 Twitter accounts representing journalists, news organizations and newsmakers in East Africa. An analysis of social media influence metrics suggests that although news organizations are on even ground with the people and organizations they cover, individual journalists are not. The data suggest a digital divide, with Kenya and Uganda ahead of Rwanda and Tanzania. By one measure, female journalists have more social media influence than men.

Framing Syrian refugees: US Local News and the Politics of Immigration • Aziz Douai, Ontario Tech University; Mehmet Bastug • The article investigates news coverage and media framing of the Syrian refugee debate as a public opinion issue in US local news in 2015. Political response to the Syrian refugee crisis was divided, but public attitudes shifted after the terrorist attacks on Paris in November 2015 with calls for more restrictive immigration policies and smaller refugee quotas. In the US, GOP leaders demanded “extreme vetting” and “screening” of refugees and many opposed resettling them. The study analyzes local news coverage variation across the states that welcomed, not welcomed or did not commit to accepting Syrian refugees at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. The findings of the study demonstrate that the editorial framing of the Syrian refugee crisis downplayed the global responsibility and international commitment of the US, highlighted the administrative costs, and framed them security threats. The implications of these frames are discussed.

India’s Mediated Public Diplomacy on Social Media: Building Agendas in South Asia • Nisha Garud Patkar • One tool in India’s mediated public diplomacy is the increasing use of social media platforms to build agendas among foreign audiences. In 2017, the Indian government ranked seventh in the world in its use of social media for diplomacy and had more than 1.2 million users following its diplomatic accounts on several social media platforms. Despite this high ranking and a sizable following on social media, little research has been done to understand India’s mediated public diplomacy through Twitter and Facebook. To address this literature gap, this study examined: (i) the agendas the Indian government builds on its social media accounts and (ii) the rank order of these agendas with the perceived agendas of the followers of these accounts. A quantitative content analysis of 6,000 tweets and status updates published on the 15 Indian diplomatic accounts along with a survey of 500 followers of these accounts were conducted. Results showed that politics, culture, economy/finance, and infrastructure were the top-ranked agendas of the Indian government on social media. These agendas rank ordered with a few top-ranked agendas for followers which were education, health and medicine, environment, economy/finance, and infrastructure.

Gatekeeping and the Panama Papers: an analysis of transnational journalism culture • Nana Naskidashvili, University of Missouri; Beverly Horvit, University of Missouri; Astrid Benoelken; Diana Fidarova • ICIJ’s Panama Papers transnational journalism project was analyzed on three levels suggested by Hellmueller (2017): the evaluative, the cognitive and the performative. The gatekeepers interviewed demonstrated a common understanding (evaluative) of what it means to be an investigative journalist. Regardless of a journalist’s location, prominent people were deemed newsworthy (cognitive), and the journalists created rules for searching and double-checking their data. At the performative level, the gatekeepers agreed when the stories would emerge.

Cognitive and Behavioral Factors of Online Discussion as Antecedents of Deliberation and Tolerance: Evidence from South Korea, United Kingdom and United States • Irkwon Jeong; Hyoungkoo Khang • The current study examined cognitive and behavioral factors of online discussion as antecedents of attitudes toward opposing views and two aspects of social norms, perceived importance of public deliberation and social tolerance. Employing surveys in South Korea, United Kingdom and United States, this study found that adjustment motive and discussion heterogeneity are positively associated with perceived importance of public deliberation and social tolerance in all three countries.

Framing Newsworthiness on Twitter: Analysis of Frames, News Values, and Tweet Popularity in Lebanese Media • Claudia Kozman, Lebanese American University • This content analysis of Lebanese newspapers and television stations’ accounts on Twitter revealed the media frame their tweets in terms of conflict and responsibility, while relying mostly on the news values of prominence and entertainment/human interest. Compared to newspapers, television stations were more likely to use impact instead of conflict as a news value. Judging tweet popularity, analysis revealed conflict and impact stories are the most attractive in terms of favorites, retweets, and comments.

Mainstream media, social media, and attitudes toward immigrants: A comparative study of Japan & South Korea • Heysung Lee, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Gaofei Li ; Yibing Sun; Hernando Rojas • The paper examines media effects on attitudes toward immigrants in Japan and South Korea, through an online survey with 500 respondents from each country. Analyses show mainstream media associates to positive attitudes in both countries. However, regarding social media, Kakaotalk use in South Korea elicits negative attitudes, while Line use in Japan is not related to attitudes. The interaction effects indicate that Kakaotalk dampens the positive effects of mainstream media, whereas Line amplifies them.

Will internal political efficacy predict news engagement equally across countries? A multilevel analysis of the relationship between internal political efficacy, media environment and news engagement • Shuning Lu, North Dakota State University; Rose Luwei Luqiu, Hong Kong Baptist University • This study serves as the first to document the current status of news engagement with regard to the three proposed dimensions (e.g., overall news engagement, user-user, and user-content news engagement) across 36 countries. We employ hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to test the individual, aggregate, and cross-level effects on news engagement based on the multi- national cross-sectional survey data (N=72,930). This study demonstrates how internal political efficacy, the media environment, both political and technical, together shape news engagement. The findings reveal that internal political efficacy is positively associated with news engagement. Internet penetration could negatively predict the three indicators of news engagement. Press freedom moderates the effect of internal political efficacy on news engagement. The study contributes to the existing literature on the formation of news engagement regarding both individual and contextual mechanisms.

Africa in the News: Is News Coverage by Chinese Media Any Different? • Dani Madrid-Morales, University of Houston • In recent years, Chinese media have been challenging European and North American dominance of African news. While Chinese journalists claim they Africa coverage is quantitatively and qualitatively different, previous research has challenged this claim. Based on a content analysis of 1.1 million news from two Chinese and two non-Chinese media (2015-2015), this paper shows that Chinese reporting is more abundant, positive and diverse. However, for most countries, coverage is rare, episodic and monothematic.

Portrait of an Azerbaijani Journalist: Unpaid, Dissatisfied, but nevertheless Passionate and Committed • Rashad Mammadov • This study seeks to partially fill a gap in knowledge about the practice of journalism in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic. The study proposed here represents the first time Azerbaijan has been studied in a systematic fashion consistent with the literature of comparative journalism as represented by The Global Journalist (Weaver & Willnat, 2012) and Worlds of Journalism (Hanitzsch, 2011), studies well recognized as the standards against which all such efforts should be measured. One of the primary goals of the project is to explore the roles these journalists believe they play in the controlled, post-Soviet environment. Data, collected through an online survey of journalists indicate that several identifiable, perceived professional roles existed along the dimensions of Hanitzsch’s (2007) journalistic milieus. In addition, three other dimensions were identified that did not fit the model, but proved to be specific to the Azerbaijani media environment: Political Activist, Citizens’ Helper, and Entertainer.

Press Freedom in Ghana • Jason Martin, DePaul University • This paper analyzes original survey data (N=241) to investigate Ghanaian journalists’ attitudes toward libel law protections, Right to Information legislation, and professional ethics. Journalists in Ghana perceive themselves as straddling normative press freedom roles of watchdog and social responsibility while incorporating unique elements of their culture in their work. The results provide context for the successes and challenges of Ghana’s journalists and contribute to the more precise theoretical explanations of international press freedom protections.

Diagnosing Newsjunkies: Fielding and Validating a Measure of Intrinsic Need for Orientation in Three Arab Countries • Justin Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar • This study introduces an intrinsic need-for-orientation scale, and assesses reliability and validity of the measure in nationally representative samples from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE (N=3,239). Since the 1970s, need for orientation has been called an intrinsic motivation to consume news, but in operationalization, relevant research has not measured an inherent motivation, but rather the strength of political party identification and interest in an upcoming political event—usually an election—as the markers of a strong need for orientation. As this approach is inappropriate in many countries, which may not have political parties or campaigns, and also given there is likely a broader, intrinsic need for orientation (INFO) that motivates people to regularly seek news about current events, this study tested a parsimonious, four-item scale. The scale demonstrated robust internal reliability in both Arabic and English, and among nationals and non-nationals in the three countries. In line with the hypothesis that news use and certain media-related attitudes, such as support for freedom of expression, should be positive correlates of an intrinsic need for orientation, regression models of media-use variables and media-related attitudes explained considerable amounts of INFO variance in Saudi Arabia (52%) and the UAE (30%), and a more modest share in Qatar (15%).

Journalism during global disasters: Healing, coping and recovery • Michael McCluskey, U. Tennessee-Chattanooga; Lacey Keefer • Journalists often apply themes of healing, coping and recovery in news following significant traumas. Eight natural disasters on five continents were analyzed for the presence of nine themes of healing, coping and recovery in both international and local news outlets. Analysis (n = 528) found evidence that contextual factors like centralization of the disaster, type of disaster and number of casualties, along with structural factors like political freedom, had significant influences on the nine themes

Explaining the Gap Between Journalist’s Role Conception and Media Role Performance. A Cross-National Comparison • Claudia Mellado; Cornelia Mothes; Daniel Hallin; Maria Luisa Humanes; Adriana Amado; María Lauber; Jacques Mick; Henry Silke; Colin Sparks; Haiyan Wang; Olga Logunova; Dasniel Olivera • This cross-national study combines survey (N=643) and content analysis data (N = 19,908) from nine countries to investigate gaps between journalists’ ideals and their media organizations’ performance of the interventionist, watchdog, loyal, service, civic and infotainment roles. The findings show significant gaps for all roles across all countries, with the ‘civic’ and the ‘watchdog’ role showing the largest gaps. Multilevel analyses also reveal that organizational and individual-level influences explained the gaps better than country differences. Implications are discussed with regards to journalism as a profession in times of increasing media skepticism.

Public Diplomacy for the Media: A Survey of Exchange Program Alumni • Emily Metzgar, Indiana University; Yusuf Kalyango, Ohio University • This research surveys alumni (N=66) of the American government’s Study of the U.S. Institute for Scholars (SUSI) on Journalism and Media. The program brings scholars and media professionals to the United States to study and build professional networks. Framing discussion in the international communication literature, we assess SUSI’s potential as a public diplomacy effort with implications for both the study and practice of journalism and promotion of improved attitudes toward the United States.

Esto no es un problema político, es moral: Examining news narratives of the 2018 border policy • Lisa Paulin, NC Central University • This study analyzes the news narratives of a controversial U.S. immigration policy that included the separation of children from their families when attempting to enter the United States along the border with Mexico during the spring and summer of 2018, under the Donald Trump administration by analyzing the stories in Spanish-language media and English-language media by two news services: EFE, in Spanish and the Associated Press (AP), to see how these stories fit into cultural ideologies. The AP told a story of a political battle while EFE told a story of immoral policy and community solidarity.

Global media and human rights: Teaching the Holocaust across national fault-lines • stephen reese, university of texas; jad melki, Lebanese American University • Media literacy requires a ‘global outlook’ in dealing with issues across national and tribal affiliations. These challenges are explored here with a multi-national group of student, engaging with the Holocaust to better humanise global issues and understand how media are implicated in genocidal dynamics, using a survey of 165 previous participants in the programme over 11 years. We find that a historically-rooted but globally reflective approach is needed to understand genocide across national fault-lines.

Testing the Spiral of Silence Model: The Case of Government Criticism in India • Enakshi Roy, Western Kentucky University • This study extends the spiral of silence theory to India and examines self-censorship on Facebook and Twitter with regards to government criticism. Survey (N=141) results suggest while respondents with liberal attitudes were unwilling criticize the government on social media, respondents with pro-censorship attitudes, even if they deemed the opinion climate as hostile, were willing to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media. Findings from this study expand understandings of online opinion expression and self-censorship in India.

Everybody Loves a Winner: Legitimation of Occupational Roles among Award-winning Financial Journalists in Africa • Danford Zirugo, City, University London of London/University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Jane B. Singer, City, University of London • Through an examination of award-winning stories and the discourse around them, this study explores how the interpretive community of African financial journalists defines and legitimates preferred occupational roles. Contrary to research immediately following the global financial crisis, which suggested that financial journalists primarily serve elites in their everyday coverage, this study concludes that stories deemed exemplary by the community are instead public service-oriented and fulfill a watchdog role.

Naming names or no? How Germany fits in an international comparison of crime coverage • Romayne Smith Fullerton, University of Western Ontario; Maggie Jones Patterson, Duquesne University • “Naming names and ethnicity or no? How Germany fits in an international comparison of crime coverage” offers the final installment of a nine-year study examining mainstream media’s crime coverage choices in ten democracies, and how journalists’ voluntary ethical choices reflect underlying cultural attitudes. Previously, the authors have argued protectionist policies that do not identify accused persons are common in Northern and Central Europe and are part of established cultural attitudes that construct everyone as community members, but new German data, collected in 2018, suggest journalistic choices to protect an accused’s identity, and all that practice implied, is no longer the reporting default.

The Aftermath of 2019 Pulwama Terror Attack • Nihar Sreepada, Texas Tech University; Ioana Coman, Texas Tech University; Simranjit Singh, Texas Tech University • The study analyses the coverage of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack by two major newspapers of India and Pakistan – The Times of India and Dawn. The online news stories and the dialogue within the comment sections are compared and examined through a qualitative content analysis. The findings are explored from a social psychological perspective along with the ramifications of the conflict on the international community.

Automated framing analysis of news coverage of the Rohingya crisis by the elite press from three countries • Hong Vu; Nyan Lynn • Triangulating several methods including automated framing analysis and critical assessment of texts, this study examines how the press from three countries frames the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017. It finds that The Irrawaddy (Myanmar) tends to incorporate a nationalist narrative into news content. The New Nation (Bangladesh) frames the crisis according to the country’s priorities. The New York Times uses a Western hegemonic discourse. Findings are discussed using the lens of ideological and cultural influence.

Welcome to Canada: The challenge of information connections for resettled Syrian refugees • Melissa Wall, California State University – Northridge • Based on interviews with Syrian refugees resettled in Canada, as well as volunteers, NGO workers and government officials, this paper considers the ways the refugees interact with both formal (government, NGO) and informal (family, volunteers and shared heritage Canadians) in their communication practices. Refugees (“newcomers”) use a combination of digital tools such as social networks and interpersonal interactions to access information and work toward understanding and adapting to their new environment.

Distinguishing the Foreign from Domestic as Defensive Media Diplomacy: Media Accessibility to Credibility Perception and Media Dependency • Yicheng Zhu, Beijing Normal University • Given the fact that some foreign media (e.g. Twitter, The New York Times) have limited accessibility in China. This study conceptually distinguishes foreign media and domestic media, and examines the relationship between perceived media accessibility, media credibility and media dependency for both foreign and domestic media. It found that foreign media accessibility perception is an antecedent of foreign media credibility and foreign media dependency. In terms of foreign v.s. domestic media credibility competition, the final model showed that foreign media credibility positively relates with domestic media credibility. In sum, the model illustrated the role of accessibility perception in the media dependency formation process, the results imply that controlling foreign media accessibility may be an effective method to limit foreign media influence domestically.

James W. Markham Student Paper Competition

A devil’s dissection: Thematic analysis of the discussion of the Mexican documentary The Devil’s Freedom on Twitter • Gabriel Dominguez Partida • Mexican documentary films have tried to raise awareness among citizens against violence – for instance, The Devil’s Freedom, a story of violence’s testimonials of victims and victimizers. Three months of tweets related to the film’s discussion were analyzed to identify how people react to the message. The analysis suggests a group of citizens concern and sending signals to others about a social change; however, they urge the government to take actions instead of themselves.

Trollfare: Russia’s disinformation campaign during military conflict in Ukraine • Larisa Doroshenko, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Josephine Lukito, UW Madison • This study explores the strategies of information warfare of the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) against Ukraine during the military conflict in Donbass. Using a 10% Twitter gardenhose archive, we investigated the type of information spread by the IRA accounts and analyzed how they increased followers. Our study shows that the IRA created news websites and spread links to these pages on social media, accumulating followers by including these links and @mentioning other IRA accounts.

Health information sharing for a social exchange on WeChat in China • Lu Fan • WeChat has become an important platform of high sociability and social exchange in China. This study conducted a survey (N = 329) in China to understand people’s health information sharing behavior with the purpose of social exchange. The results reveal that people are motivated by the goal of sharing useful information, showing care and maintaining the social relationship when they share health information on WeChat, and older people are more likely to do so.

For whom do we do this work and in whose voice? Examining the role of International Communication in Africa • Greg Gondwe, University of Colorado-Boulder; Rachel van-der-Merwe, University of Colorado-Boulder • This study offers an overview of the state of the field of international communication in Africa. It argues that despite the boom in international communication scholarship, a schism still exists between theory emphasizing the perpetuated colonial tendencies and those that seek to situate African scholarship at an interactive position with other continents. The study operates under some founded hypotheses that International Communication studies in Africa are peppered with tales of marginalization, poverty, wars, and tribal conflicts. Literature asserts that such labels have impeded the quest for African scholars to realize the true definition of the field, therefore, reproducing a systemic litany of what the other world expects of them. While some scholars call for a broader and mutual interaction of the global communications systems, others hanker on ostensible arguments that perpetuate the propagandist approaches, which emerged as a result of the cold war. The two approaches underscore the western values versus the ‘African’ communication and postcolonial debates that have characterized much of the postcolonial discourses.

Social media network heterogeneity and the moderating roles of social media political discussions and social trust: Analyzing attitude and tolerance towards Chinese immigrant women in Hong Kong • Macau K. F. Mak, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Lynette Jingyi Zhang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • The social and political antagonism between China and Hong Kong has led to the stigmatization of mainland Chinese in Hong Kong. In particular, the Chinese immigrant women, a minority group faced with social and economic plight, have been viewed as locusts who exploit social resources in Hong Kong without any contributions. This study examines how social media network heterogeneity influences the social tolerance and political tolerance of local citizens in Hong Kong towards the Chinese immigrant women through general attitude towards these women. It also addresses the moderating role of social media political discussions and social trust in the influencing process. The analysis of survey data (N = 728) illustrates the moderated mediation process in which a more heterogeneous network on social media is indirectly related to higher levels of both social and political tolerance towards Chinese immigrant women through a more positive attitude towards these women. This indirect effect is enhanced by more political discussions and greater social trust. Implications of the results are discussed.

Reporting (ethno)political conflict in former colonies: An exploration of British and French press coverage of the Cameroon Anglophone crisis • Pechulano Ngwe Ali, The Pennsylvania State University • This study explores how the press in Africa’s former colonial masters frame (ethno)political crisis in their former colonies. Using a qualitative textual analysis approach, the study investigates how British (the BBC) and French (Radio France Internationale; rfi) framed the ongoing Cameroon Anglophone crisis, using news stories published from October 1, 2016 to April 2018. The case of Cameroon is unique because what has been politicized is a nexus between ethnicity and linguistic identity where a minority ethnopolitical group that is seeking greater rights. Findings point evidence that suggest that the British press validates and legitimizes the ‘actions’ and ‘requests’ of Anglophone Cameroonians (the return of federalism or complete separation of the duo), while the French press outlet suggest alignment with the ideas of the Cameroon government (one and indivisible nation), casting doubt on marginalization claims of Anglophone Cameroonians. Considering that the current Cameroon Anglophone is historically rooted in European (British and French) colonialism, it is important study from a postcolonial perspective, how the press in these countries that and created what is now a bilingual and ‘bicultural’ Cameroon, would report political crisis half a century after independence. Findings have implications on the development a fresh perspective of postcolonial media theory.

East Asian man ideal types in contemporary Chinese society: fluidity and multiple parameters of masculinity • Janice Wong • Asian masculinity is always an important, but under study area. There are concrete ideas of masculinity in the Western society, but in the East Asian culture, masculinity is not well-defined. Moreover, the way man tackles the fluidity and multiple parameters of masculinity is always changing in modern East Asia. Male surely have some ideal types of male images in their mind that they will try to manage their appearance included face and body, impression and images to achieve an ideal type. This study tries to generalize those male ideal types in East Asia culture through the wen-wu dichotomy. This exploratory study found that there are about eight ideal types of masculinities in East Asia. These ideal types are models or categories that for man to achieve. During the process of achieving an ideal type, male disclosed their reasons: social “other’s” expectations, institution’s expectations and also constructed by the consumer market, and the strategies they used to modify and improve their face and body. For men, they will depend on the inherent they owned, which can influence their self-perception, then select an ideal type that they can associate with or the standard they can reach and go toward that type. Men will control and modify their appearance, both face and body, manage their impression (or their front stage) toward the ideal beauty image standard or improve their impression (through symbolic capital) to satisfy the criteria of an ideal type.

The Moderating Role of Media Freedom on the Relationship Between Internal Conflict and Diversionary External Conflict Initiation: 1948-2010 • Kai Xu, Wayne State University • Conflict-as-functional theorists argue that since a critical function of initiating international conflicts for a country is to divert public attention away from its domestic problems, there must be a significant relationship between a country’s internal conflict and the likelihood of creating external conflict. This study aims to further examine this relationship by introducing a new moderator – the effect of a country’s domestic conflict on external conflict initiation is moderated by its media freedom level.

< 2019 Abstracts

Pen and Dagger: America’s Journalist Spies in Soviet Russia, 1920-21 • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • The uneasy relationship between the American news media and American spy agencies can be traced to the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division that was created during World War I and subsequently dispatched agents to Russia immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. This paper explores three ways the organization used journalism to help gather information on Soviet Russia in 1920 and 1921: hiring American news reporters to work as agents, dispatching agents posing as reporters, and asking journalists to provide specific information. The three ways are illustrated in biographical sketches of Marguerite Harrison, a Baltimore Sun reporter who worked for the Army’s spy organization; Weston Estes, an agent who posed as a reporter and filmmaker; an Albert Boni, a publisher and newspaper reporter who agreed to obtain samples of counterfeit American money for MID’s office in Berlin.

Long Run: How Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on TV for 25 years • Alison Burns • This study explores the longevity of the longest-running children’s newsmagazine in television history, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. While there are scores of news and feature articles about the program and its host, there are few scholarly articles and books that even mention, let alone analyze the show, and no study to date about its history and longevity. Using historical methodology, including original interviews, primary source documents and videos of programs, this article examines how Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on the air for 25 years despite relatively low ratings and meager ad revenue for the network. This paper proposes that a confluence of forces kept the show running, including federal mandates for children’s educational programming, a steady commitment from network executives, an engaging and mission-oriented host who owned the show, high-profile guests and timely topics, and prestigious awards from the news industry.

“It is what I came for – to share in fear and suffering”: The Catholic Worker and the Civil Rights Movement • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While most of the public knows of Dorothy Day for her social work, pacifist activism, and writing, few are familiar her decades-long commitment to combatting racial injustice. This paper will utilize a close reading of Day’s personal papers, her own reporting in The Catholic Worker to show she did what many mainstream newspapers did not. Day invested in covering civil rights on a consistent basis through long-term relationships with southerners, frequent visits to communities of color, and self-reflection on their role in the struggle.

Johnny Neill’s Lonely Defense of Press Freedom in 1893 Texas • Ralph Frasca • Johnny Neill made a fateful decision when he learned his local city council banned a newspaper as a “public nuisance.” His decision landed the blind twenty-nine-year-old news dealer in prison. His lonely, principled stand for free expression paved the way for two landmark court decisions ensuring freedom of the press, including one of the most famous First Amendment cases in Supreme Court history.

“Highways to Hope”: Samuel L. Adams’ Investigation into Public Accommodations Compliance Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act • Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University; Keena Neal, Wayne State University; Jalisa Patrick • Samuel L. Adams, the grandson of a slave, covered the Civil Rights Movement as the St. Petersburg Times’ first Black journalist and the only Black reporter on the race beat in the early 1960s. This paper examines the mainstream reporting methods, prior Black press experience, and ethos of nonviolent civic life that he brought to a 4,300-mile road trip testing Southern compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and investigative series, “Highways to Hope.”

The Yom Kippur War as Reported in Milwaukee’s Newspapers • Timothy Roy Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • At the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle was a transmitter of news and helped to maintain the Jewish-American experience. Using James Carey’s concepts of communication, this study examines content published by the Chronicle and Milwaukee’s daily newspapers. The Chronicle worked across a transmission-ritual continuum—although close to the ritual side—while the transmission-oriented dailies gave little attention to its Jewish or Arab community members.

The Last Japanese WWII Holdout – Japanese & US Newspaper Coverage of Hiroo Onoda’s Thirty-Year War” • Daniel Haygood, Elon University • This research analyzes Japanese and American newspaper coverage to understand how the media shaped and framed an ongoing World War II narrative centered on Hiroo Onoda and his thirty-year holdout on Lubang Island in the Philippines. The goal is to understand the narratives built around Onoda’s story and how the perspectives are different between the print media of the two countries. The method used for this research was to review coverage by prominent newspapers in each country: Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and The Japan Times and United States’ Washington Post and the New York Times. The learning informs us that there were differences in how the Japanese and US newspapers covered Onoda’s holdout. The coverage also forced the country to ask hard questions about itself and its intensive drive for material wealth.

Summer of ’67: A Comparative Analysis of Coverage of the Detroit Race Riots • Brittany Jefferson, University of Georgia • The current study seeks to explore the different ways that three newspapers; The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press and The Michigan Chronicle, covered the Detroit riots of 1967 from their respective standpoints as national, local and African American centered publications. This study will use a thematic content analysis and the theoretical framework of framing to determine the differing perspective of each news outlet. This research serves to provide an historical example of the growing body of literature regarding protests coverage across media outlets.

Victorian Eyes: Examining Nineteenth-Century American Journalism Through Three Major English Travel Writers • Farooq Kperogi, Kennesaw State University • American newspapers and journalists—and the newspaper reading culture that American newspaper journalists inspired— were irresistible narrative magnets for many European, especially English, travelers who visited America in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the records of the impressions that registered in the minds of Europeans travelers to America about nineteenth-century American journalism were not always the products of unmediated empirical observations; they were shaped as much by the social and cultural predispositions of the writers as they were by veridical perceptions of the time. Although there is already robust literature on nineteenth-century American journalism, there are scarcely any scholarly explorations of the forms and substance of this period from the perspectives of travel writers. This paper contributes to the disciplinary conversation between journalism history, travel literature and literary journalism by providing perspectives on nineteenth-century Americans newspapers and journalists from the travel narratives of Victorian travel writers and exploring the reactions these narratives provoked in American newspapers of the time.

The “Cronkytization” of the News Presenter Role in the United Kingdom • Madeleine Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University • With increasing job demands in the 1990s, the British news presenter role underwent a transformation—a “Cronkytization”—as journalists were hired instead of actors/actresses. This case study examined the change, using boundary work and parasocial interaction. Boundaries were clearly redefined as journalists overtook the news presenter role. The role was elevated, becoming more visible for a stronger audience connection. The rotating presenter system was abolished, they were produced as teams, and personality was encouraged.

“Toward the benefit of the Allies”: Patriotism, Propaganda, and the Government-Press Relationship of the Great War • Meghan McCune • This study explores how American journalist Stanley Washburn operated as an instrument of government during the Great War. While the modern government-press relationship is often understood as an adversarial one, the experiences of Great War reporters illustrate a cooperative and friendly relationship that has not been adequately documented by scholars. This study suggests that a new “agency model” is necessary to fully understand the government-press relationship during the Great War and its impact on the modern press.

Regional Differences and the Associated Press: The Mason-Dixon Line in Journalism Standards • Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University • Following the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, the Associated Press found itself at the center of an ideological struggle in which southern, pro-segregation editors imposed their perceptions of objectivity, balance, and accuracy on the wire service. This analysis, which draws on correspondence between AP executives and southern members, demonstrates that unrelenting advocacy for news coverage that reflected southern views on race did in fact alter the wire service’s news values. Specifically, AP executives bent to pressure to cover racial discrimination in the North and to transmit stories that emphasized negative racial stereotypes of African Americans, portraying them as unfit for life in an integrated society.

Media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 • Hoa Nguyen, University of Maryland • The current study examines media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 within the power play between the two Communist brothers. This short war entailed controversial discourse way after its end. For both Chinese and Vietnamese history, this war is a gloomy chapter, and given the significance of casualties and political implications, the war was not given the media coverage it merited in either China or Vietnam. Due to attempts by both nations to cover up this war for fear of hurting bilateral relationships, the Sino-Vietnamese War, for the most part, has been written about by outsiders. Although journalism is considered the first draft of history, the paucity of first-hand media coverage has led to works on this war relying heavily on political analysis and assumptions. Now that more and more access is given to the journalism sources in both China and Vietnam, it is high time one looked at the war, its coverage, and its implications in a more thorough picture. The current study explores media coverage of the war from the following main sources: Nhan Dan newspaper and The New York Times. Subordinate sources include US embassy cables, interviews, books, and historical collections. This study analyzes the dual mute-unmute mode of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship as seen in coverage of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.

Tabloid Journalism and Right-Wing Populism: The New York Daily News in the Mid-20th Century • Matthew Pressman, Seton Hall University • The New York Daily News in the mid-20th century was the highest-circulation newspaper in American history (more than 2 million weekday, more than 4 million Sunday), but very little has been written about it. Drawing on seldom-used archival collections and the paper’s recently digitized backfile, this article examines the Daily News’ remarkable success and its controversial editorial positions, arguing that both were rooted in a desire to serve and fight for its core audience.

Neither Public Nor Private: Inventing PBS television, 1965- 1967 • Camille Reyes, Trinity University • Through textual analyses of archival material from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, as well as the Carnegie Commission report on educational television, the paper traces lost lessons from two public television systems abroad, as well as inconsistent rhetoric concerning diversity and audience construction. Despite the best of intentions for a system of public television independent from the constraints of advertising, American PBS was and is a strange hybrid—neither public, nor private.

Cultural Hegemony in New York Press Coverage of the 1969 Stonewall Riots • Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, Ohio University • This paper analyzes New York newspapers’ coverage of the June 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in New York City, particularly depictions of the people involved, using Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. A qualitative thematic analysis is used to examine articles from the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice in the two weeks after the initial Stonewall riots on June 28-29, 1969. The analysis aimed to reveal any underlying stereotypes of gay men and masculinity that may be perpetuated by the media in journalists’ descriptions of the people who confronted police that summer. These four newspapers would set the tone for coverage of the gay rights movement in other U.S. publications, as other queer people began calling for equal rights and more fair press coverage after the riots. This paper defines hegemony theory and traces press coverage of homosexuals from the World War II era until the 1960s. This is a significant study because there has not been an in-depth academic study about contemporary coverage and the effects of societal pressures on press coverage of Stonewall. This paper is also significant as the 50th anniversary of the riots approaches. Research concludes that the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice all contributed to maintaining a heterosexual, masculine power structure through their portrayals of the rioters, thus creating a separation between the patrons at Stonewall and the societal norms of the time.

< 2019 Abstracts

The ‘Michael’ Effect: Risk Perception and Behavioral Intentions through Varying Lenses • Cory Armstrong; Jue Hou, University of Alabama; Nathan Towery • The project was to examine individual responses to impending disasters in areas that were recently touched by Hurricane Michael. We employed two theoretical frameworks and developed an experiment testing how media messages surrounding an impending hypothetical hurricane were interpreted by residents and their influence on an individual’s risk perception and decision-making in the situation. With 567 respondents, analysis determined that the live video was most likely to motivate respondents to prepare activities for the storms.

When a Plan Comes Together: An Analysis of Assessment Plans from Accredtied US Broadcast Journalism Programs • Timothy Bajkiewicz, Virginia Commonwealth University; Katherine Nash, Virginia Commonwealth University • Assessment of learning outcomes is a challenging standard for broadcast journalism programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, accounting for half of all annual noncompliances. This study conducts the first content analysis on assessment plans from such programs, using a Council-approved guide. Findings show that while most plans include many recommended components, including every plan having direct learning measures, plans varied widely in component inclusion and assessment activities.

Women Broadcast Journalists and the Emotional Labor of Dealing with Harassment • Kaitlin Bane, University of Oregon; Seth Lewis • Harassment from organizational outsiders is an understudied phenomenon, despite its prevalence in many occupations, especially journalism. This paper explores the nature of harassment perpetrated by sources, strangers, and others against women broadcast journalists at U.S. local television stations. Through interviews, this study identifies four common types of harassment as well as how journalists manage their subsequent emotions, illustrating the emotional labor associated with harassment at a time of growing hostility toward the press.

The Effect of Corporate Media Ownership on Depth of Local Coverage and Issue Agendas • Justin Blankenship, Auburn University; Chris Vargo • Sinclair Broadcast Group owns over 170 different television stations in the US. It has received criticism for reducing the amount of local reporting and inserting a conservative bias into its news content. This study examined the effect of Sinclair ownership on news content by examining six Sinclair news websites. Results found an overall drop in news coverage, no significant change in local news, and some difference in issue agenda after Sinclair took over operation.

Local TV News and Audience Engagement in Social Media • Monica Chadha, Arizona State University; K. Hazel Kwon, Arizona State University; Jiun-Yi Tsai • This study explores factors that influence audience engagement with local TV news on Facebook. It compares Facebook pages of local stations to those of the national channels with which they are affiliated. Effects of news topics and content characteristics were examined on audience engagement metrics namely sharing, liking and commenting. Results suggest that local and nationwide news were different in terms of the critical information needs they serve, level of audience engagement, and content strategies.

Natural Disasters and Community Uses of Media and Information: How Hurricane Maria Impacted Puerto Ricans • Manuel Chavez, Michigan State University School of Journalism; Bruno Takahashi, Michigan State University; Luis Graciano, Michigan State University • This paper examines how Puerto Ricans experienced and confronted the total collapse of the communications infrastructure before, during and after Hurricane Maria. As they lost their power and communication systems, they scrambled to get news and information from whatever sources were available to protect their lives, properties and to learn about Maria’s impacts. Analog radio became the sole communication operating system to provide information and this study complements current research on news media during crisis.

Neutrality and Nonverbal Expression in Sandy Hook Coverage • Danielle Deavours, The University of Alabama • A key tenet of journalism is unbiased reporting. Especially during a national crisis, it can be challenging for reporters to keep their emotions and personal beliefs in line with this guideline. While live television reporters do their best to keep their verbal communication messages unbiased and unemotional, nonverbal behaviors are more difficult to control and conceal, especially during crises. Doris Graber’s (2002) stages of crisis coverage theory discusses the process that journalists use to communicate messages to viewers during national breaking news events. Graber’s work addresses the need to prevent bias in verbal messages and shows the unintentional impact of biased language during crisis coverage. However, Graber’s study does not address journalists’ nonverbal behavior and the potential impact it can have on the audience. They built upon Graber’s stages of crisis coverage theory in their 2006 study to determine whether nonverbal behaviors were prevalent during live broadcast coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Coleman and Wu (2006) found nonneutral nonverbal cues were widely present during reports, and the patterns of nonneutral nonverbal behaviors corresponded with Graber’s stages of crisis. However, Coleman and Wu stated additional researchers needed to replicate their methodology in other contexts to ensure the validity of their findings. This study replicates the work of Coleman and Wu’s work, that focused on the 9/11 attacks, and applies it to the December 14, 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Sinclair Effect: The effect of ‘must-read’ scripts on the perceptions of sincerity, credibility and parasocial relationships • Megan Duncan, Virginia Tech; Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee • Journalists promoting their product as authoritative and truthful is as old as American journalism itself. Research, though, provides little theoretical guidance to understand how audiences perceive these appeals for journalism when they are part of a corporate campaign. In an experiment (N=218), audiences report a higher perception of sincerity, credibility and parasocial relationships from a single local television station appeal for journalism than a compilation of the appeals. However, in neither version do they report a perceived ideological bias. The results have implications for how local television news can credibly promote their product and expand the Persuasion Knowledge Model to a journalism context.

Toward A New Conceptualization and Typology of Journalistic Competency: A Job Announcement Analysis of U.S. Broadcasting • Lei Guo; Yong Volz, University of Missouri • Journalistic competency is a constitutive element of professional values and practices in journalism. But what constitutes journalistic competency in today’s ever-changing media landscape? Existing literature lacks theoretical and empirical understandings of journalistic competency, especially in broadcasting. Drawing on Cheetham and Chivers’ competence model, we examine professional competencies as defined by broadcast media through a content analysis of 359 job announcements. Four dimensions of journalistic competency were explicated and empirically assessed: cognitive, functional, behavioral, and ethical competence.

Rescuing a legacy: The professionalization of local television digital news producing • Keren Henderson, Syracuse University • Warren Breed published ‘Social Control in the Newsroom’ when owning television stations was akin to owning money-printing machines. Times have changed. This case study asks whether today’s journalists can maintain professionalism while adopting market-driven digital routines. Analyzing six months of observations, in-depth interviews, and a survey of newsroom staff, this study explores the recent professionalization of local digital news producing currently unfolding across local television newsrooms in the United States.

Social Media News Production, Emotional Facebook Reactions, and the Politicization of the Opioid Epidemic • Danielle Kilgo; Jennifer Midberry • The 2017 federal decision to elevate the opioid epidemic to a national health emergency led to a significant uptick in media coverage. Considering the diversity of the news landscape and the developing professionalization of social media practices for media organizations, this research examined evaluating features of narrative coverage alongside user engagement numbers using the emotional reaction functions available on Facebook. Results indicate that Trump’s actions drove media coverage and angered audiences, triggering a blame game and an overall narrative emphasis on political movement rather than the effect on people and the realities of the emergency.

Consolation Strategies in Children’s Television News: A Longitudinal Content Analysis • Mariska Kleemans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Sanne Tamboer, Radboud University Nijmegen • Producers of news for children face a trade-off between fully informing children and not causing distress. To get more insight into the production of news for children, a longitudinal content analysis of the use of consolation strategies in children’s television news between 2000 and 2016 was conducted. This study focused on strategies used within the entire newscast (N = 408 programs), within items (N = 2,304 items), and within camera shots (N = 41,338 shots).

Severe allergies and price increases: Framing the 2016 EpiPen crisis and U.S. pharmaceutical pricing • Hayley Markovich • In 2016, Mylan Pharmaceuticals and EpiPen made news headlines due to a 600% price increase. This study of the EpiPen price increase utilized a framing analysis of three U.S. evening news programs’ coverage of the story from August 2016 until November 2018. Analysis revealed four frames: economic, attribution of responsibility, morality and human interest, and conflict and powerlessness. Pharmaceutical price increases were depicted as a societal level problem where government was expected to provide solutions.

You Can’t Handle the Lies!: How the Gamson Hypothesis Explains Third-person Perceptions of Being Fooled by Fake News • Taeyoung Lee, The University of Texas at Austin; Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin; Heloisa Sturm Wilkerson, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined third-person perception of fake news through the lens of the Gamson hypothesis, analyzing attitudes and behaviors associated with fake news. Data from a national survey (N = 902) indicates that Assureds and Subordinates who consume ultra-conservative media are more likely to share fake news, and Dissidents who consume social media are more likely to believe fake news is a threat to democracy. Implications for the current political landscape are discussed.

WeChat or We Set? Examining the Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects between WeChat Public Accounts, Party Newspaper and Metropolitan Newspapers in China • Yan Su, The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University • In an attempt to explore the intermedia agenda-setting effects between party newspaper, metropolitan newspapers, and WeChat public accounts in China, this study analyzes the issue agendas on all three platforms. Through analyzing the rank-orders and cross-lagged correlations, we found that negative associations have emerged between WeChat’s and party newspaper’s agendas, no cross-lagged impact was found between WeChat’s and party newspaper’s agendas, whereas positive reciprocal effects appeared between the party and metropolitan newspapers’ agendas.

Trial by Media?: Media Use, Fear of Crime, And Attitudes Toward Police • Brendan Watson, Michigan State University; Soo Young Shin, MSU • This study uses Chicago, a media-rich city, whose struggles with gang violence, as well as with police misconduct have been extensively covered by news media, to examine the cultivation effects of local news media use on residents’ fear of crime and attitudes toward police. Controlling for individual-level variables, including previous crime victimization and neighborhood-level context, a survey of Chicago residents found support for local TV news’ cultivation of residents’ fear of crime. Local TV news’ popularity as a source of local crime-related information and its cultivation effects are eclipsed by those of social media, Facebook specifically. Regarding attitudes toward police, we found that based on specific content features, such as sensationalism and reliance on single police sources, local news media can have positive effects on local residents’ perceptions of police. We found zero support for the “Blue Lives Matter” movement’s contention that media contribute to “anti-police” public opinions. Only local TV news had a negative effect on public perceptions of a specific officer whose shooting of a local black teenager was caught on tape. Implications for future academic studies of cultivation effects and for obviously politically-divisive policy discussions revolving around local criminal justice, including accountability for racial disparities in police’s use of force, are discussed.

From taped up to mic’d up: Exploring the experiences of former athletes and the meaning of athletic identity in sports media spaces • Allison Smith, University of New Mexico; Erin Whiteside, University of Tennessee • Drawing from the socio-cultural qualitative tradition, this research uses in-depth, long interviews to explore how former athletes working in sports media make sense of their athletic identity and how working in the industry shapes the transition process for athletes moving away from sport. Findings show that former athletes assign status to their athletic identity, which they perceive to aid them in doing better broadcasting and journalism work. Discussion focuses on the implications of those findings, with a particular focus on how discourses of athletic status may create hierarchies among women working in this male-dominated industry.

< 2019 Abstracts

When Art & Culture Becomes the Symbol of Resistance: An Analysis of Creative Protests During the Political Unrests of Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia • Rauf Arif, Texas Tech University • This paper is about the importance of creative arts in closed societies where freedom of information and speech is not an option. Using a critical discourse analysis, it highlights three case studies from Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia where artists used creative means and social media to mobilize people against their authoritarian regimes. By providing a thorough analysis of the cultural and historical contexts of the three cases, the paper concludes that during critical circumstances when traditional media are not free, creative arts have the ability to perform the role of an alternate media in the digital age.

Collaboration and Teaching about Liquid Media Literacy: New Challenges • Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma • This paper addresses two of the central concerns facing the advance of media and information literacy in an American context. First, the goals of media literacy proponents may not succeed in accomplishing what they set out to accomplish because of the complexity of the networked media environment. The first wave of media literacy was responding to propaganda in a mass media context. We live in a world of networks now. The second concern has to do with the relationship between media literacy and information literacy. This paper argues that both of these concerns can be addressed by a collaborative approach to media I argue that teaching should stress an alternation between, first, deep critical engagement with media texts and, second, initial evaluations of the veracity, position, and nature of a piece of content prior to critical engagement.

Manufacturing Truth: Epistemic Crisis in the Political Economy of Fake News • Jeffrey Blevins, University of Cincinnati • This study applies Herman and Chomsky’s famous political economic critique of the U.S. news media to the current realm of fake news, and shows that the growth and distribution of fake news on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential cycle, along with doublespeak about what is considered “fake news” had a detrimental impact on the institutional effectiveness of journalism, and exposed an epistemic flaw in the oft-cited “marketplace of ideas” metaphor used in First Amendment jurisprudence.

Dominant, Residual and Emergent: The Journalistic Performance within The Post • Matthew Blomberg, University of Kansas, USA • Given the increasing stresses on the practice of journalism, both internal and external, and challenges to public perceptions regarding the credibility of the institution, a need exists to better comprehend how the practice is understood and portrayed within other mediums. This study, through an examination of the 2017 Steven Spielberg film, The Post, analyzes the film as a cultural forum and discursive site to see what dominant, residual and emergent messages are on display.

Missing, or just Missed? Mediating Loss in the Missing Richard Simmons Podcast • Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina; Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Leigh Moscowitz • This study critically examines the Missing Richard Simmons podcast to explore how producers and participants use media to define and process complex relationships with celebrity figures. Employing qualitative textual analysis, this research demonstrates how audiences mediate celebrity interactions and the potential role these relationships play within a marginalized and fragile community. This project qualitatively explores parasocial interactions to demonstrate the ways expressions of grief and loss are mediated by audiences when a celebrity “relationship” disappears.

A Fifty Year Evolution: A Content Analysis of Miss USA Pageant Questions • Lindsay Bouchacourt, The University of Texas at Austin • This study looks at the evolution of the interview questions of the Miss USA pageant from 1970 to 2018. Beauty pageant winners represent femininity and the ideal woman in American society, and the pageant questions can reflect society’s expectations for women. A qualitative content analysis was conducted, and the findings revealed eight prominent themes. The results show an evolution of the questions over 50 years, which suggest changing gender and social roles for women.

Colton, Coitus, and Comedy: Male Virginity as a Punch Line on The Bachelor • Andrea Briscoe • This study examines a successful reality television show – The Bachelor – and analyzes how it handled having its first male lead that is an outspoken virgin. Through a textual analysis, the television show’s episodes and advertisements are both examined, with a specific lens focusing on masculinity and virginity. The author showcases room for improvement regarding reality television’s narratives surrounding sex, particularly in light of the #MeToo movement.

Making common sense of the cyberlibertarian ideal: The journalistic consecration of John Perry Barlow • Michael Buozis, Temple University • This study critiques the way in which journalism and other media used John Perry Barlow, someone with little to no technical expertise, as an authoritative voice of the emerging Internet. By doing so, this research aims to better account for the ways in which Barlow’s vision of Internet freedom, a deeply problematic cyberlibertarian vision, became a sort of commonsense ideology of Internet discourses, marked by enthusiastic techno-utopianism and libertarian approaches to free speech and markets.

Visual Sovereignty: Six Questions Applied to an Indigenous Video Game • Susan Clotfelter, Colorado State University • The concept of visual sovereignty has been advanced by Indigenous scholars as a way to evaluate media creations, collections, museum exhibitions, and films, whether created by Indigenous or non-Indigenous people. How, then, to evaluate an Indigenous-created video game? This paper draws on the work of Jolene Rickard in photography and museum exhibitions; Michelle Raheja in film scholarship; but also critical explorations of recent Indigenous film and the actions and utterances of characters in those portrayals. It suggests six non-exhaustive questions that can be applied to “Never Alone,” an award-winning Alaska Native-created video game, as a starting point. Because the writer is non-Indigenous and non-Alaskan, these questions are only a beginning, but they chart a starting point for a research agenda, one that might prove useful for examining the contributions of future such Indigenous-created media, as well as future portrayals of Indigenous characters.

“Fake news” and the discursive construction of technology companies’ social power • Brian Creech, Temple University • This article takes up fake news as a kind of discursive object, and interrogates recent discourses about fake news in order to understand what they reveal about the social and cultural power wielded by Silicon Valley. In taking up social media platforms and technology companies as not just an industrial system, but a cultural regime partially constituted through discourse, this article argues discursive objects, like fake news, operate in ways that make technology companies’ social power sensible as a public concern. Using the tools of critical discourses analysis to analyze a broad corpus, this article shows how public commentary and debate has worked to construct fake news it as a socio-technical problem—a formulation that implicated technology company executives as morally responsible, but also created a means for articulating what role these companies should play in liberal democratic life. These discourses push against a corporate libertarian paradigm that has worked to insulate technology companies from broader political and cultural contest.

Making Race Relevant in Southern Political Reporting: A Critical Race Analysis of 2018-2019 Storylines • George Daniels • Using a purposive sample of 17 news media messages, this study employs critical race theory as a framework in a textual analysis of news reporting on political stories across the South. The 2018 gubernatorial elections in Georgia and Florida featured African American candidates while a Mississippi special U.S. Senate election featured an African American candidate. While none was successful, the news media played a central role in making race relevant. Then in 2019, the same news media made relevant in stories involving politicians in Blackface and attire of racial exclusionary groups.

Museums as a Public Good: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Met Museum’s Admission Policy Change • Michael Davis, University of Iowa • For decades, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has stood as an exemplar for open access. On Jan. 4, 2018, President Daniel Weiss announced that the museum would discontinue its “suggested donation” policy. Starting March 1, 2018, non-New York State residents were expected to pay $25. Using Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the language in Weiss’ press release, this paper will argue that this action discriminates based on race, residential status, and economic factors.

Malaysia and the Rohingya: Media, Migration, and Politics • Emily Ehmer, Texas State University; Ammina Kothari, Rochester Institute of Technology • This study examines the representation of Rohingya asylum-seekers in Malaysia’s media and how news coverage supports the state regarding issues of sovereignty, political debates about migration, and domestic policies on refugees. The framing analysis draws upon news stories reported by The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, in 2012 through 2016 to identify narrative themes during a period of escalating violence in Myanmar that prompted the Rohingya to flee to Malaysia.

The Vegas shooting: A case study of news literacy and a dysfunctional public sphere • Tim Boudreau, Central Michigan U; Ed Simpson; Elina Erzikova, CMU • This exploratory study examined comments associated with YouTube conspiracy videos posted days after the Las Vegas shooting. Overall, the study found that commenters used the social media platform as a public sphere, where debate and argument were conducted in ways similar to more mainstream outlets. This indicates a need for further exploration of the principles of news literacy and those principles can shape a public sphere.

The Dewey problem: Public journalism, engagement and more than two decades of denigrating discourse • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Jacob Nelson, Arizona State University; Miles Davis • Using a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse from journalism trade magazines, this study examines how the industry discursively articulated the need for the public journalism and engaged journalism movements and imagines their audience. The data illustrates how remarkably similar these movements are and the consistency by which the journalism industry imagines its audience. The results are interpreted with an eye toward of the future of the industry and the potential effects of these interventions.

The Visual Rhetoric of Disaster: How Bodies are Represented in Newspaper Photographs of Hurricane Harvey • Ever Figueroa, University of Texas • This study looks at images that appeared on the front pages of newspapers during key dates of hurricane Harvey coverage. Drawing from 106 front page photos gathered from August 28th, 2017 to September 4, 2017, this study presents a visual textual analysis that pays attention to the way race is represented within this context. The results show that media used visual rhetoric that presents minorities as displaced, while whites are represented as saviors and caretakers during moments of environmental crisis.

Hacking Culture not Code: Qualitative Analysis of How the Russian Government Used Facebook Social Ads During the 2016 Presidential Election • Bobbie Foster; Sohana Nasrin, University of Maryland; Krishnan Vasudevan, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland at College Park • Russia’s disinformation campaign intended to cripple American democracy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and in its aftermath is well documented in recent scholarship (Ziegler, 2018; Barrett, Wadhwa, and Baumann-Pauly, 2018; Farwell, 2018; and Jamieson, 2018). An integral aspect of Russia’s strategy was the exploitation of the existing architectures and affordances of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This study’s main findings suggest that discourses about Black identity such as Black empowerment and Black aesthetics that were presented within enclaved spaces (Squires, 2002) and by micro-celebrities on social media platforms provided a form of consumable culture that could be studied and replicated. The current study, based on a multimodal grounded analysis of 197 Facebook ads made public by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee in May 2018, examined how Russian operatives hacked American culture to encourage forms of mal-civic action. This deliberate decision was premised upon two considerations. First, the examination of Russian propaganda offers a unique case study to consider how Facebook provides a space for foreign actors to learn about American race relations, as the social media platform facilitates the sharing and consumption of text, image, audio and video. Secondly, the researchers argue that this cultural knowledge was employed to engender the trust of Black Americans to ultimately spur them in to civic action. By undertaking this study, we seek to provide a qualitative methodological strategy for scholars to examine other discourses within the dataset that warrant scholarly inquiry.

Performing Identity on Social Media: How the “Pan-African Network” Facebook Group Affords its Members an Oppositional Identity • James Gachau • This study is an exploration of the concept of human identity as it pertains to the ultimate goal of each individual to attain self-fulfillment by “having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs” (Dewey 1954). By identity I do not mean the identity politics which campaigns for the elimination of discriminatory practices based on people’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age, or any other “generalized social categories.” Rather, I mean the participation of group members in activities that allow them to identify with the group. I use philosophical and communications literature on identity to explore the Pan-African Network (PAN), a Facebook group that promotes the interests of Africans across the globe by campaigning for the advancement of a proud black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks and people of African descent. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Rob Cover’s conception of identity online as performative. I propose that as a social media group, PAN gives its members a sense of identity that is predicated upon the discourse and rhetoric produced by the group. In other words, the group is made by and sustained by its multifarious members, and the members are made and sustained by the group as a body of subjective interlocutors, acting as a public composed of members who write and read the norms they expect each other to follow.

Elite Company: Sourcing Trends in 2014-2017 Prestige Press Climate Change Editorials • Christopher Garcia, Florida State University; Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University • This paper examines the sourcing practices of 103 prestige press climate change editorials published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today between 2014 to 2017. Utilizing a critical political economic approach, this analysis found that despite the ideological differences between the newspapers of interest in this study, each relied on sourcing practices that emphasized the views of elite political and economic actors with often no scientific training. This examination reveals that despite their differences from news content, editorial content reflects the “objective” balance of journalism norms that have been widely discussed in political economic literature. Thus, despite their ideological differences, editorials often reflect and rely on sourcing from elites who ensure that the discourse of climate change remains one that does not challenge the status quo and that remains a political debate rather than a solution-based discussion.

Losing the Newspaper Building: Collective Nostalgia as Periodization and Preservative • Nicholas Gilewicz, Manhattan College • This paper examines how journalists at metropolitan daily U.S. newspapers covered the sales of their buildings and newsroom moves between 2005 and 2018. In response to allocative decisions beyond their control, newspaper journalists use collective nostalgia in an attempt to preserve their values. As a structure of feeling, collective nostalgia offers refuge from present-day problems, and a future-oriented discourse that binds the community of newspaper journalists, preparing them—and readers—for the newspaper’s move.

Spill the Foundation: Parasocial Relationships with Beauty YouTubers • Samantha Kissel, Indiana University of Pennsylvania • Creating and utilizing a YouTube account is an important part of being a social media influencer. Influencers use their content to develop parasocial relationships with subscribers. This study looks at beauty YouTubers who maintain trust with their audiences after being involved in sponsored or collaboration projects with cosmetic brands. The findings reveal they need to maintain activity on their YouTube accounts and continually build PSI in their videos to gain additional followers.

Storming with communication: Organization leads a community’s resilience after Hurricane Harvey • Jacqueline Lambiase, TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communication; Ashley English, Texas Christian University • One district serving 75,000 students in parts of Houston and several of its southwestern suburbs, the Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD), used a strategy of connection and empathy when creating community messaging tactics before, during, and after Hurricane Harvey. This qualitative case study tests the frameworks of social legitimacy theory and the discourse of renewal theory, as well as focuses on a public school system, rather than a corporate context, which receives the lion’s share of scholarly work related to crisis communication. This case study also uses rhetorical analysis of the district’s messaging—especially those of its superintendent—to scrutinize the ways that the Fort Bend ISD served as caretaker, booster, and beacon of hope during this historic storm in 2017 and for more than a year after the hurricane.

Mapping Representations of the Subaltern: The case of Indigenous Environmental Activists Bertha Caceres & Isidro Baldenegro • Dominique Montiel Valle • The present case study contributes to research on theories of the subaltern subject by examining news coverage of two Latin American activists’ (Berta Caceres, Isidro Baldenegro) death. In order to deconstruct and analyze dominant ideologies of ethnicity, gender, and class in news discourse, a mixed methods approach of critical discourse analysis and content analysis was deemed most appropriate. Research found that both activists were constructed as subalterns and that dominant ideologies of ethnic whitening, the patriarchal division of the private and public sphere, and classism were prevalent within news commentary. Though both activists’ representation as a subaltern was intersectional, Caceres’ was predominantly gendered.

Korean Popular Culture Consumption as a Way among First-and-a-half Generation Korean Immigrant Children in the United States to Develop Their Ethnic Identities • Jiwoo Park, Northwood University- Michigan • 12 first-and-a-half generation Korean immigrant children in the U.S. were recruited for photo-elicitation interview (PEI) to explore the effects of digital media-driven Korean popular culture consumption on their lives. As a result, they revealed their frequent consumption of Korean popular culture on their digital media devices functioned as a Korean cultural facilitator that is influential in their ethnic identity formation in one sense and in turn contributed to their senses of Korean identity in another.

Thinking Black: a Historical Analysis of the Impact of Black Racial Identity on the Discourse of Media Practitioners’ Coverage of Social Justice and Political News • Gheni Platenburg, University of Montevallo • Using a triangulation approach, this study explores this possibility by examining the impact of race on black, cable news practitioners’ discourse and looking for framing patterns in the discourse of these practitioners on the 2015 Baltimore protests, Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address and the Bill Cosby sexual assault scandal. This possibility is also vetted by examining whether these media practitioners embrace a black racial identity.

Caste Culture as Caste Power: Lifestyle Media and the Culturalization of Caste in India’s News Ecology • Pallavi Rao, Indiana University Bloomington • This paper examines how Indian lifestyle media perform an important role in reproducing the socio-politcal relations of caste through the benign language of taste cultures. I argue that mediated constructions of “Indian culture” that proliferate in soft journalism give life to essentialist notions of “caste as culture.” Lifestyle media therefore result in “the culturalization of caste,” through a heterophilia or love for the Other, without disturbing processes that make the Self or the Other.

Whose Vision Is It? Lessons of European Integration from Advocacy for the Roma in Romania • Adina Schneeweis, Communication and Journalism • Learning from the people doing activism, this article examines intervention for the Roma – Europe’s largest, most impoverished, and most excluded minority – through discourses of development, advocacy communication, and the international funding system. The study evaluates ideological commitments underpinning transnational development through in-depth interviews with Romanian activists (as an example of advocacy in the European Union today). A discourse of development marked by opportunism and bureaucracy emerges, different than a grassroots vision of integrated change.

#WhiteWednesdays, Femonationalism, and Authenticity A Twitter Discourse Analysis on the role of Hijab in Feminist Activism • Sara Shaban • In 2017, women in Iran launched a movement against the country’s compulsory hijab law, #WhiteWednesdays. Western right-wing conservatives capitalized on this movement to geopolitically isolate Iran by simultaneously praising women in Iran and criticizing western liberal feminists on Twitter. This study employs critical discourse analysis to examine the Twitter narratives around the role of hijab within feminist activism. Practical implications include the power of femonationalism to circulate specific political ideologies regarding feminism and geopolitics.

Hegemonic Masculinity in the 2016 Presidential Campaign: How Breitbart Framed Trump as the “Uber” Male • John Soloski, U of Georgia; Ryan Kor-Sins, U of Utah • During the 2016 presidential campaign, Breitbart News, a far-right, online publication, emerged as the most popular source of news for conservatives, eclipsing other mainstream news outlets like Fox News. Breitbart was one of Donald Trump’s primary allies in the media, and its former Executive Chairman, Steve Bannon, went on to become Trump’s Chief Strategist. The meteoric rise in popularity of this ideologically-centric news source shed light on the shifting character of the American media landscape. In this paper, we argue that this shift can best be conceptualized using the theory of hegemonic masculinity to trace how Breitbart framed Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 election season. This paper uses critical framing analysis to analyze 62 Breitbart articles to understand how the themes of hegemonic masculinity are woven into Breitbart’s election coverage. Ultimately, we argue that Breitbart’s framing represents an alt-right brand of hegemonic masculinity and identify three main frames in the articles: Trump as a “manly man,” Trump as a “regular guy,” and Trump as an “underdog.”

The Carnivalesque in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election • Bob Trumpbour, Dr.; Shaheed Mohammed, Penn State Altoona • In the 2016 general election for the presidency of the United States, the world saw the emergence of a non-politician celebrity, Donald Trump, as a key figure who, in political rhetoric and actions, frequently challenged existing power structures and figures. That candidate’s eventual electoral win combined with reports of violence at campaign rallies and elements such as calls for removal of those in power, the ridicule of opponents, the use of invectives and name-calling, all suggest parallels to Bakhtin’s elucidation of the carnival and the carnivalesque. The authors examine media coverage of the 2016 campaign using quantitative methods to uncover specific, tangible evidence for carnivalesque references in coverage of the Trump campaign, followed by qualitative analysis of the findings. Evidence demonstrated that references to the carnivalesque were significantly higher in number than in media coverage during the same time frame for the democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. The far-reaching implications of presidential campaigns which are steeped in carnivalesque rhetoric and actions are discussed, with concerns raised regarding the future of media institutions and participatory democracy.

2019 Abstracts