Communication Theory and Methodology 2018 Abstracts
Open Call Competition
The messenger is part of the message: The role of expectancy violations in media theory • Robin Blom, Ball State University • Many studies in mass communication have focused on source credibility in persuasion, but to the point that some scholars have overlooked other important factors, such as the actual message. In its place, media phenomena could be better understood by integrating expectancy violations in theoretical models explaining how media content affect audience members, in particular by taking into account an interaction between source trust and content expectancy. This may better explain why people sometimes believe distrusted sources more than trusted ones, and vice versa.
Overriding the Threat Dynamic: Facebook Sociability for Trust and Perceptions of Difference • Brandon Bouchillon, Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne • The more racial or ethnic diversity a person lives around, the less likely they are to espouse feelings of trust for the average person, as differences have instead become reasons to pull back, prompting a mass erosion of social capital in America. The present study looks to social networking sites as a means of still hosting diverse contact, even in spite of the hunker down, for reinforcing trust and perceptions of difference locally. Results of a two-wave national web survey (N = 387) indicate that using Facebook to interact with new people at Time 1 contributes to generalized trust at Time 2, while neighborhood-level racial and ethnic diversity still undermines trust over the same period. Yet, diversity has less of a negative impact on trust for more sociable Facebook users, as interacting with new people on the site moderates the negative association between racial/ethnic differences and trust. This suggests that Facebook has a utility for not only facilitating diverse contact, but reinforcing trust, toward changing the way users perceive of diversity everywhere.
Mental schema as explanations for third-person perceptions, censorship and media literacy programs addressing “revenge porn” • Michael Boyle, West Chester University; Michael Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • Although mental schema are offered as an explanation for third-person perceptions, prior research on this topic has tended to focus on perceived exposure. This study extends the schema explanation by measuring self-reported exemplar availability, demonstrating this factor is a critical predictor of perceived influence on self and others across two national studies. Additionally, analysis shows that these mental examples directly and indirectly influence support for restrictions on revenge porn and support for media literacy programs to help train individuals to be critical media consumers related to this issue. Experimentally presented exemplars did not amplify the availability of such examples or alter overall perceptions, suggesting these models are deeply held and may stem from broader concepts of powerful media.
Building and bridging political divides. Reconceptualizing political disagreement and its consequences for political tolerance. • David Coppini, University of Denver • This study uses a sample of the American adult population (N=693) to examine the relationships between different forms of political disagreement and political tolerance. First, this study re-conceptualizes exposure to political disagreement along the lines of political heterogeneity and political extremity. Second, this study examines how the intersection of political heterogeneity and political extremity shapes political tolerance. Third, this study examines the affective mechanisms that explain the relationship between political disagreement and political tolerance.
Mediatized rituals: De-reify the media in the age of deep mediatization • Xi Cui, College of Charleston • We propose the concept of mediatized rituals to better address the ritualistic orientation toward an increasingly mediatized social reality which is constructed through algorithmic collection, processing and (re)presentation of data by communication technologies. We argue that two characteristics of human communications in mediatized societies can objectivate a socially constructed reality as something natural and authentic, giving rise to people’s ritualistic orientation toward this reality. Bitcoin is analyzed to illustrate the utility of the concept.
Communication Mediation Model Across Cultures: Multilevel Mediation Model Effects of News and Discussion on Participation • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Brigitte Huber; James H. Liu, Massey University • Since introduced by Prof. McLeod and the Wisconsin School at the turn of the century, a large body of research on the Communication Mediation Model account has showed positive mediated effects of news use and discussion on political participatory behaviors. Most of these studies, however, rely on individual-level survey-data, collected in the USA. This paper seeks to palliate these shortcomings by testing the CMM on a multilevel mediation model with data collected across twenty countries.
The Evolution of Regime Legitimacy Imaginaries on the Chinese Internet • Yingru Ji, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Angela, Xiao Wu • This study examines popular perceptions about the ruling state on the Chinese Internet. To observe the impact of the state’s project of “online public opinion guidance,” we chose two historical moments from 2011 and 2016, and systematically captured and analyzed massive amounts of speech traces on Weibo that contain the term tizhi, a discursively flexible, yet distinctively Chinese concept onto which sentiments related to the state are projected. Combining semantic network clustering and critical discourse analysis, this study revealed, historically and macroscopically, the relative dominance of differing ways of evaluating the state’s legitimacy. Specifically, we found that the previously dominant legitimacy-challenging framework comprised of (Western) democratic references imploded and was absorbed by a nationalist discourse that enhances state legitimacy, and that the legitimacy-criticizing framework drawing from the state’s own “reform framework” has undergone depoliticization into administration-focused compartments. Our study has conceptual and methodological implications for researching Chinese web-based contentious politics.
The “Affective News” Extended Model (ANEM): A Multi-Topic Study of Narrative Persuasion from Political Messages • Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick; Melissa Robinson; Rebecca Frazer; Emily Schutz • Narrative persuasion has garnered much attention but yielded inconsistent results. The present work focuses on narrative persuasion regarding political attitudes and derives hypotheses from the “Affective News” Extended Model (ANEM). A 2 x 2 online repeated-measures experiment (N = 225) presented four texts on controversial political issues, which were either presented as news or fiction and either in a narrative vs. inverted-pyramid version. A narrative text structure produced greater attitude change in line with text stance than inverted-pyramid texts, which was still detectable with a one-day delay measure. Narrative texts also instigated greater suspense, which mediated the persuasive impact. These impacts occurred regardless of whether texts were presented as news or fiction.
Expression and the Political Self: How Political Expression on Social Media can Strengthen Political Self-concepts • Daniel Lane, University of Michigan; Slgi Lee; Fan Liang; Dam Hee Kim, University of Michigan; Liwei Shen, University of Michigan; Brian Weeks, University of Michigan; Nojin Kwak, University of Michigan • Communication theorist have argued that expression can shape our self-concepts. While researchers have often used this theoretical perspective to explain political communication processes on social media, little work has explicitly tested the mechanisms underlying political expression effects. This study addresses this theoretical gap, by testing a model in which political expression on social media increases the importance of users’ political self-presentation concerns, which in turn is associated with strengthened dimensions of political self-concept.
Cause and Effect: Development and State of the Art of Experimental Communication Research, 1980-2015 • Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna; Franziska Marquart, University of Amsterdam; Brigitte Naderer; Desiree Schmuck; Florian Arendt, University of Munich (LMU) • This paper examines the development and state of the art of experimental communication research by focusing on two aspects: External validity and theoretical scope. We provide content analytical data of 36 years of experimental studies published in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings point to persistent shortcomings, especially with respect to samples, stimuli, exposure settings, and theory-driven design decisions. Implications for experimentalists, editors, and reviewers are discussed.
It’s not “Fake” it’s “Alternative”: Experimentally Parsing the Effects of Misinformation • Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina; Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Susan Rathbun-Grubb; Mark Tatge • A between-subjects (N=570) experimental study examined how fake news might influence public perceptions and decisions to share false information related to the recently reignited autism–vaccine controversy. Findings indicated that – relative to participants in a factual news condition – those exposed to a fake news story (purporting that vaccines cause autism) reported stronger beliefs in the existence of an autism-vaccine link. Counterfactual beliefs, in turn, were positively associated with greater levels of communicative engagement with the issue.
The Political World Within: Conceptualizing Political Transportation • Bryan McLaughlin, Texas Tech University; John Velez, Texas Tech University; Joshua Dunn, Texas Tech University • This paper conceptualizes political transportation. Specifically, we clarify the process through which citizens represent diverse political narratives in the mind and then mentally simulate these political story worlds “as if” they were directly experiencing them. Additionally, we introduce the concept of self-generated political transportation. Finally, we discuss how political transportation provides a novel understanding of how and why political communication messages affect political attitudes, emotions, beliefs and behaviors, providing suggestions for future research.
A Typology of Information Distribution Organizations • Jasmine McNealy, University of Florida • This study investigates the ways in which IDOs create, use, distribute, and store information to create a typology. Typologies group things by familiar characteristics, thereby constructing descriptive definitions of what should fit into a particular category. In so doing, this study advances information processing theory (IPT), which theorizes a continuous pattern of development for human brains, but which uses the model of a computer to describe how humans process sensory data. Further, IPT is used in the modern study of artificial intelligence and explores the needs of information users including specific processes or practices.
The Effects of Modality, English Language Proficiency, and Length of Stay on Immigrants’ Learning from American News About Politics • Yulia Medvedeva, Zayed University; Glenn Leshner, University of Oklahoma • This online experiment empirically tested the findings of a survey conducted by Steven Chaffee and colleagues in which immigrants with lower language proficiency and shorter tenure in the U.S. demonstrated higher political knowledge scores when they reported relying on television news instead of print news. Data demonstrated that immigrants who perceived they were lacking in language skills correctly recognized 1.13 more answers to questions about stories from television news in comparison to print news.
Electroencephalography in Communication Research: Some Fundamentals, Opportunities, and Challenges • Alyssa Morey, University at Albany • EEG holds vast potential for pursuing a range of communication inquires and advancing understanding of a variety of communication processes. Primary objectives of this manuscript include facilitating basic literacy of EEG methods and research among communication scholars, and inspiring enthusiasm for EEG-communication research. Integration of EEG methods into communication research further advances the agenda of expanded horizons and innovated boundaries that has and will continue to bestow vibrancy, prominence, and relevance upon the discipline.
Thumbs Up! Impacts of Interactive News Voting Affordances on Selective Exposure, Voting and Persuasion • George Pearson, The Ohio State University; Daniel Sude, The Ohio State University; Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick • News is now commonly consumed online, often displayed with popularity cues (i.e., likes, votes). An experiment manipulated users’ ability to “vote” on news and observed pro- vs counter-attitudinal selective exposure, along with attitudinal impacts. Participants showed a preference for pro-attitudinal material, but consumed less pro-attitudinal material when voting. Actual reading of and down-voting a counter-attitudinal article were not related, implying people voted without reading. When participants had the ability to vote, their attitudes were weakened.
The Trump Bump: The Influence of Elite Anti-Media Rhetoric and Political Activity on Emotions, Perceptions of News Media Importance, and Public Support for the Press • Jason Peifer • Examining how political figures in the mold of President Trump may affect various facets of goodwill for the press, a two-wave online experiment exposed participants (N=330) to anti-media rhetoric or news coverage of policy-related actions. Results highlight how when one perceives the President to represent a force of harm, the emotion of anger and values about the normative roles of the press can mediate the influence of such representations on support for the press.
The secret parents and health campaigners want to know: How social appeals influence the information processing of healthy foods • Lelia Samson, Radboud University; Moniek Buijzen, Radboud University • Aiming to prevent obesity by promoting healthy eating, this research investigated how social appeals can increase attention, positive emotions, and memory for nutritious foods. Framed through the information-processing framework and the social modeling of eating, two mixed-factorial experiments examined how adolescents process pronutritional images varying in social appeals. This approach is promising as adolescents are especially susceptible to social factors due to their developmental stage. Study 1 (N = 58; 12-18 years old; 54% female) investigated how social cues activated the appetitive motivational system, attracting attention, affect, and arousal. Study 2 (N = 165; 12-18 years old; 53% female) examined whether social appeals further directed attention and mental resources towards processing the healthy foods. As hypothesized, adolescents’ attention, positive emotions, memory, and visual focus to healthy foods were increased through social appeals. Recommendations for health communication practice and research are formulated.
Media Use and Depression in the General Population: Evidence for a Non-Linear Relationship • Sebastian Scherr, University of Leuven • Depression is the most common metal disorder linked to media use. Theoretically, the relationship between depression and media use has been conceptualized as a linear function. However, depressive symptoms vary from dysphoric moods to severely depressed states with major social impairment, thus providing a strong alternative rationale for a non-linear relationship. We report on findings from a representative telephone survey of the general German population (N = 2002) including both the respondents’ motivation behind spending time using traditional media and a measure to screen for depression in the general population. Our curve-fitting methodology revealed that the associations between depression and media use are described by a cubic growth function for newspapers, the radio, magazines, and books; associations with television use were positive, but more complex. The relationship between depression and media use should be modeled as a polynomial function for more accurate estimations in the future.
Equal Access to Online Information? Google’s Suicide-Prevention Disparities May Amplify a Global Digital Divide • Sebastian Scherr, University of Leuven; Mario Haim, University of Munich (LMU); Florian Arendt, University of Munich (LMU) • Worldwide, people profit from equally accessible online health information via search engines. Therefore, equal access to health information is a global imperative. We studied one specific scenario, in which Google functions as a gatekeeper when people seek suicide-related information using both helpful and harmful suicide-related search terms. To help prevent suicides, Google implemented a “suicide-prevention result” (SPR) at the very top of such search results. While this effort deserves credit, the present investigation compiled evidence that the SPR is not equally displayed to all users. Using a virtual agent-based testing methodology, a set of three studies in 11 countries found that the presentation of the SPR varies depending on where people search for suicide-related information. Language is a key factor explaining these differences. Google’s algorithms thereby contribute to a global digital divide in online health-information access with possibly lethal consequences. Higher and globally balanced display frequencies are desirable.
Terror, Terror Everywhere? How Terrorism News Shape Anti-Muslim Policy Support: Perceived Threat and Risk Controllability • Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna; Desiree Schmuck; Christian von Sikorski • A quota-based experiment (N = 501) examines the effects of terrorism news on emotions and policy support depending on threat components (i.e., the number of offenders) and risk components (i.e., diffuse vs. non-diffuse risk). News articles featuring a diffuse risk elicit fear irrespective of the number of offenders, whereas a portrayed non-diffuse risk evokes fear as well as anger, only when the number of offenders is high. Anger and fear subsequently increase anti-Muslim policy support.
The Effects of Hostile Media Perception and Third Person Perception on Political Participation in the Partisan Media Context • Ki Deuk Hyun; mihye seo • Scholars suggest that hostile media perception (HMP) and third-person perception (TPP) can motivate people to take political action to counteract the unwarranted influence of slanted media. Little research has been undertaken, however, regarding how HMP and TPP relate to political participation in partisan media settings in which news media hold specific partisan or ideological inclinations. This study explored HMP and TPP of partisan media and their associations with political participation in South Korea, which has a strongly partisan media system. Findings indicate that partisans tend to have strong HMP and TPP of antagonistic partisan media. Interestingly, progressives’ HMP and TPP of hostile conservative media were stronger than conservatives’ HMP and TPP of progressive media. Accordingly, HMP and TPP of conservative media were more strongly associated with political participation than HMP and TPP of progressive media. The political and media contexts of a specific country that might shape the relationships among HMP, TPP, and political participation are discussed.
Questionable Morals: A Systematic Analysis of Reliability in Research Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire • Daniel Tamul, Virginia Tech; James Ivory, Virginia Tech; Jessica Hotter, Virginia Tech; Madison Lanier, Virginia Tech; Jordan Wolf, Virginia Tech • While Moral Foundations Theory has drawn significant interest from the popular press and academics alike, the moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ) is subject to questions about reliability in both its scale building and validation phases. We examine the scale’s development and offer a systematic content analysis of 539 scholarly works using the MFQ in to assess its internal consistency. Mean reliability scores for four of the five subscales were below acceptable reliability thresholds.
What’s More Scandalous? How the Interplay of Textual and Visual Frames Affects Candidate Attitudes and Voting Intentions in Political Scandals • Christian von Sikorski; Johannes Knoll • Previous framing effects research largely examined textual and visual influences separately thus neglecting potential interaction effects between the two communication channels. A 2×2 experiment examined the effects textual, respectively, visual isolation of a scandalized politician. Results revealed that textual isolation cues had no effect. In contrast, visual isolation resulted in more negative candidate attitudes. Yet, this effect was only detected in absence of the textual isolation frame. Negative attitudes, in turn, decreased individuals’ voting intentions.
Journalism History, Web Archives, and New Methods for Understanding the Evolution of Digital Journalism • Matthew Weber, Rutgers University; Phil Napoli, Duke University • Archived webpages are a critical source of data for understanding change in the news media industry. This article outlines a methodological approach to utilizing Web archives as a means of examining change in the news media industry. In order to highlight the power and potential of Web archives for journalism research, a case study examining local news in the United States is used to illustrate the methodological challenges and promise of working with these data.
Who has Set Whose Agenda on Social Media? A Dynamic Social Network Analysis of Tweets on Paris Attack • Fan Yang, University at Albany, SUNY • This study investigates the agenda-setting theory in the context of social media through dynamic social network analyses of 102,145 Tweets in a week after Paris attack on Twitter. Results indicate that professional mass media organizations still hold a greater agenda-setting ability than individual opinion leaders. While the overall media agenda significantly correlates with the individual-opinion-leader, time-series analysis reveals the inter-agenda-setting effects between the two are immediate and decrease as time elapses.
Testing the Criterion Validity of 10 Measures of Media Favorability for Corporate Financial Performance: A Case Study of the Media Coverage of Food Companies • XIAOQUN ZHANG, University of North Texas • This study identifies 10 measures of media favorability in the literature and compares the conceptual differences among them. Using the data of nine food companies, it tests the criterion validity of these measures for corporate financial performance. The results suggest one measure — Fombrun-Shanley index — has the highest criterion validity among 10 measures of media favorability, and is the best measure to predict corporate financial performance.
Student Paper Competition
Credibility labels and perception of partisan news brands • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • “Concern about partisan audiences blindly following partisan news brands while simultaneously being unable to distinguish the credible news from hoax news dominates media criticism and theoretical inquiries. Some have proposed a credibility label as a solution. This experiment manipulates the partisan cues of the news brand and of the news content. Then, it introduces a credibility label and measures the changes in perception, monitoring for a backfire effect. Using news credibility theory and literatures on selective exposure and Partisan Media Opinion hypothesis, it investigates the effects credibility labels have on partisan audiences, partisan news brands, and partisan news stories. It finds credibility labels may be an effective media literacy tool, though a relatively diminished effect is found on strong partisans.
An enterprise for magic, dragons, and Impalas: Evaluating and Comparing Multiple Fandoms Through A Semiotic Approach • Sara Erlichman, Penn State • By perceiving fans as critical consumers who are textual poaching, Rabinowitz’s (1985) interpretation strategies creates an all-inclusive fandom comparative analysis, by focusing on narrative properties. Through a content analysis, this study conducted a preliminary analysis evaluating the use of semiotics to understand fans discourse online in the fandom forums of Star Trek, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Supernatural. This quantitative study successfully demonstrates the value in cross-comparison of outside genre fandom community’s discourse.
Understanding the Effects of Perspective-taking on Stereotyping and Negative Evaluations: A P-curve Analysis • Qian Huang; Wei Peng, University of Miami; Jazmyne Simmons • Perspective taking has shown mix results and stirred controversy in its effects on stereotype suppression. The inconsistent results raise concerns about the robustness of true perspective-taking phenomenon. The present study used the p-curve analysis to examine the possibility of p-hacking and publication bias among published studies in perspective taking. The result showed evidential value regarding potential p-hacking problems. The implications for both perspective-taking and p-curve analysis were discussed.
News and Informational Media Usage, and Vaccination Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Perceived Vaccine Efficacy and Perceived Vaccine Safety • Juwon Hwang, UW-Madison • Given the importance of vaccination to reduce the health consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases, media have covered benefits and necessity of vaccination through news and informational program. This study investigates the associations between both news and informational usage of media (TV, radio, magazines, and the Internet) and vaccination behaviors (Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia) focusing on the mediating role of perceived vaccine efficacy and perceived vaccine safety. Analyzing a representative U.S. sample, a total of 19,420 adults who over age 18 were included. Results showed that both news and informational media usage contributed to the higher perceived vaccine efficacy, and in turn, the more uptakes for Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia vaccination. Similarly, the more use of TV news and NPR led to the higher perceived vaccine safety, and in turn, the more vaccination uptake of Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia. In contrast, informational media usage contributed to the less perceived vaccine safety, and in turn, the fewer vaccination uptakes of Flu, H1N1, and Pneumonia.
Does Natural Mean Healthy? How Natural Label Contributes to Nutritional Self-Betrayal Among Health-Conscious Consumers • Donghee Lee, University of Florida • Thanks to the recent surge of interest in health and well-being, American consumers are more health-conscious now than ever. Despite this awareness, however, even self-described health-conscious consumers still eat unhealthy food for pleasure. This study provides a conceptual model describing the process through which health-conscious individuals may justify unhealthy food consumption. Using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, this paper argues that individuals rely on the loophole effect, which refers to the psychological process of engaging in active self-deceit. Individuals can use this effect to capitalize on the healthfulness commonly associated with the word “natural” that often appears on the labels of unhealthy food, convincing themselves that the food is actually good for them. Once health-conscious individuals recognize a natural label on the unquestionably unhealthy food package, they experience guilt from the conflict between their health and hedonic goals. This paper provides a counterargument to widely-accepted information deficit models in this field by arguing that the unhealthy food choices of consumers are founded neither on the lack of information nor their vulnerability to food manufacturers’ deceitful advertising. Rather, consumers are an active agent making self-serving choices, using a “natural” label as an excuse to attribute blame for their health and hedonic goal conflict. This paper attempts to advance Cognitive Dissonance Theory by presenting possible factors influencing one’s food-related dissonance process.
How Issue Attribution and Power Exemplification Redirect Transgender Intergroup Stereotype Content: An Integrated Threat Approach • Minjie Li • Through an experiment, the present study explores how issue attribution and power exemplification in news coverage influence the general audience’s intergroup cognition. More specifically, this experiment investigates how issue attribution (Societal Attribution vs. Individual Attribution) interacts with power exemplification (High-Power Transgender Exemplar vs. Low-Power Transgender Exemplar) in the media narrative to redirect people’s stereotype content of transgender people and the consequent emotional, behavioral, and attitudinal outcomes. Furthermore, I explore the role of perceived threats in the cognitive processing of stereotype content. The experiment findings demonstrated that issue attribution and power exemplification in the news coverage did not significantly influence people’s stereotype content of and attitudes towards transgender people. However, realistic threats were negatively associated with perceived warmth, while symbolic threats were negatively associated with perceived competence.
Emotional Flow and Order Effects: Anger, Compassion and Moderating Effects of Perceived Interest • Hang Lu, Cornell University • Emotional appeals can elicit emotions that evolve over time. As an exploratory step to empirically test emotional flow of multiple discrete emotions, the current study investigates whether the order of information inducing anger vs. compassion influences persuasion, the conditions under which the order is more impactful, and the underlying mechanisms. The results of a one-factor between-subjects experiment show that among those highly interested in a message topic, there is a primacy effect of anger-inducing message on punitive policy support. Further analyses suggest that the anger elicited by the first message and the emotional intensity aroused by the last message explain this primacy effect. The current study contributes to the literature by integrating classic research on order effects with the emerging emotional flow perspective, exploring an understudied emotional experience, empathic anger, and providing new insights on the role of emotional intensity in influencing persuasion.
Stepping into the Story Worlds: Modeling the Effects of Narratives in Immersive Mediated Environments • Zexin Ma • This paper presents an extended theoretical framework to model the psychological mechanisms and persuasive effects of narratives in immersive mediated environments (IMEs). IMEs allow individuals to perceive themselves to be completely enveloped with the aid of immersive technologies. Drawing upon previous research on narrative persuasion and immersive media, the model of narrative effects in IMEs (MNEIMEs) predicts that narratives presented in immersive (vs. non-immersive) mediated environments will promote more story-consistent attitudes and behavioral intentions/willingness. In addition, MNEIMEs proposes that viewers in IMEs will experience a higher level of spatial presence, social presence, transportation, and identification than those in non-IMEs. Spatial and social presence are hypothesized to mediate the effect of media format (i.e., IMEs vs. non-IMEs) on transportation and identification, respectively. Furthermore, media format will have an indirect effect on counterarguing through spatial presence, social presence, transportation, and/or identification. These psychological mechanisms (i.e., spatial presence, social presence, transportation, identification, and counterarguing) are also predicted to mediate the effects of media format on persuasive outcomes. Theoretical contributions and directions for future research are discussed.
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