Graduate Student 2019 Abstracts
Consumers’ Response to Metaphoric Communication of Genetic Modification Technology • Ali Abbasi • Metaphoric communications have been at the heart of the anti-GMO movement for decades. But can they be used to promote GM technology? In this article, we explore different metaphoric messaging strategies that can improve consumers’ perceptions of genetic modification. We test the effectiveness of framing GM technology as either progress or protection, with manmade or natural metaphor sources and with different levels of verbal explanation to determine the best consumer response toward the advertisements.
The Commodification of the Presidency: The Role of Mass Media • Ahmad Alshehab, Arizona State University • Relying on the critical paradigm, the Frankfurt school of thought, and Guy Debord’s concept of media spectacle, this paper examines the consequences of transforming the U.S. presidential election into a commodity to be sold by the media and consumed by the public. The paper addresses several questions, including how the U.S. presidential election was transformed into a commodity for entertainment, what factors contribute to this transformation, and what are the possible consequences and suggested solutions.
Political personalization and gender: 2015 Nigerian presidential candidates on Twitter • Olushola Aromona, University of Kansas • Political personalization has become important to the study of political communication. Particularly, given the possibility of making individualized and personalized messages on Twitter, understanding how political players feature their personal stories in their political messages on Twitter is imperative. In this paper, the tweeting behaviors of presidential candidates in a developing non-western democracy was examined. A content analysis revealed that Nigerian presidential candidates in the 2015 general election highlighted personal stories in campaign message, and male and female candidates differ in the personal topics used, albeit not in stereotypic ways.
“A Woman’s View-point and a Man’s Pen-point”: The Continued Struggle for Gender Equity in Journalism • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While women writers have indeed made strides in the journalism industry, there are still enormous barriers to equity. Although women are indeed assimilating into newsrooms, the standards by which equity is measured are still male-centric. Through a close reading of existing literature, this paper will explore how women have attempted to create “a room of their own,” showing that those spaces are either unavailable to many women due to economic constraints, or become exploited for profit through verticals or the “first person industrial complex.”
Grab your bags: Exploring destination branding through Instagram • Jaisalyn Santiago; America Edwards, University of Central Florida; Michelle Senter, University of Central Florida; Katherine Pursglove, University of Central Florida; My Bui, University of Centrall Florida • This study explores how destination branding on Instagram (advertising either France versus Japan location and solo versus group travel type) impacts the age cohort of 18 to 24, in terms of message attitude, travel intentions, and destination attractiveness. Authors examine destination branding focused on Japan versus France and solo versus group travel. First, authors discuss Instagram as a communication tool and its role in destination branding, how destination branding has a role in attitude conceptualization and the Theory of Planned Behavior, and finally how these concepts align to influence travel motivations and behaviors of the 18 to 24 aged cohort. Then, authors describe how they employed an experiment to test the dependent variables, following by a meaningful discussion of what the results mean.
Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility Efforts in Corporations: A Content Analysis of Amazon’s and Walmart’s Websites • Tugce Ertem-Eray, University of Oregon • This study analyzes how Amazon and Walmart, two of the largest global companies, present the balance among their economic, social, and environmental activities and communicate their CSR efforts via their corporate websites. Findings indicate that expectations and pressures from the public may help trigger companies to report their CSR efforts. In addition, this study also indicates that the TBL concept does not fully explain each companies’ global CSR efforts.
Imported Medical TV Dramas and the Chinese Practice of Constructing Medical Professionalism • Hua FAN • This study explores how the Chinese healthcare professionals’ viewing of imported medical TV dramas can be embedded in their construction of medical professionalism. Specifically, the consumption of imported medical TV drama can spiritually motivate people to pursue a medical career, help healthcare professionals construct, confirm and reinforce the ideal version of medical professionalism, offer them an escape from the heavy workload, and provide resistance to the breaches of the ideal professionalism in actual medical bureaucracies. Protection & Pornography: A comparative content analysis of pornographic films for the presence of safe sex before and after the California Condom Law • Kyla Garrett Wagner • Legislation mandating pornography actors wear condoms during film production gave reason to believe condom use in pornography has increased. To empirically test this hypothesis and assess safe sex depiction in pornography, a content analysis of 24 adult films produced four years before and four years after the law was completed. A total of 137 sexual scenes were coded, and identified 452 sexual acts and 42 safe sex depictions; 27 depictions before the law and 15 depictions after the law. Unexpectedly, findings revealed more condom use before the law and no significant change in safe sex depictions over time. But additional analyses determined condom use was never rejected or endorsed by the actors; condoms were most common in scenes that depicted mixed-sex sex acts, recreational sex, and sex where there was no relationship between the actors; and that condom use was production company-dependent. Altogether, the hypotheses failed but novel findings of condom use in pornography emerged. The closing discussion offers insight on the condom law and its impact on pornography.
The Impacts of Social Media Use, Interest in News, and News Media Literacy on Detecting Fake News • Emily Gibbens • This study tested social media experience, interest in news, and media literacy to understand the characteristics needed to identify fake news. Participants were given examples of real, fabricated, and satire news to test if they could understand the difference and identify each one. The findings indicated that interest in news, media literacy, and education have a positive relationship with identifying fake news. Social media experience did not have an effect on the identification of fake news like hypothesized. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Media strategy analysis of the “new star” in 2019 Thai Election: linguistic perspective • Yuqi Guo • The parliamentary election of Thailand took place on March 24th 2019. The Future Forward Party, which was founded one year ago by the billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, performed very competitive leaving many traditional parties behind. This paper analyzes the media strategy of this party based on a linguistic theory: stance. According the discourse analysis and media corpus data, the party’s strategy involves many stance-taking conditions. These strategies have contributed to the popularity of Future Forward Party.
Thinking about real-world friends: Attachment theory as a framework for explaining self-presentation on social media • Yu-Jin Heo, University of South Carolina; Michael Layer • This study used attachment theory to understand how social media users’ attachment styles influenced their behavior online on either their inner or other directed self-presentation behaviors. Our findings show high-anxiety individuals tend to be receptive to their real-world friends’ feedback on social media. These findings imply real-world friends may be the key factor to explain users’ behavioral patterns of social media use.
CSR Communication on Twitter: How Influential Are Socially Responsible Companies Communicating CSR Issues on Twitter • Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • Whether companies could reap benefits from their CSR activities are contingent on various stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate CSR performances. Thus, the effectiveness of corporate communication regarding CSR is significant. Grounded in the four models of public relations and literature in CSR communication strategies, this study analyzed ten socially responsible companies CSR communication on Twitter. Meanwhile, this study created new formulas to calculate the influential score of CSR communication on Twitter. The results showed that the broadcasting approach was the most applied communication strategy on Twitter overall. The findings may imply that previous studies and the four models of public relations underestimated the power of one-way communication. Surprisingly, generally talking about CSR such as sharing a company’s CSR ranking was the most influential CSR topic on Twitter, which effectively generated stakeholders’ emotional response, retweeting, and mentioning behaviors. However, the socially responsible ranking was not correlated with the effectiveness of corporate CSR communication on Twitter. The results of this study provided both theoretical and practical implications.
Who is Writing About What? A Content Analysis of Science News in The New York Times and the Washington Post • Joshua Jordan, University of Minnesota • To examine how science is communicated to the public via the press, this content analysis examined science news and journalists at The New York Times and the Washington Post. This study found that female science journalists outnumbered male journalists, and journalists with postsecondary degrees outnumbered those with postgraduate degrees. Regarding framing of science news, episodic occurred more often than thematic. The results offer insights into who is writing science news and how it is framed.
Cost-free at all Costs? – A Review of Drivers of Paying Intent and Willingness to Pay for Digital Journalism • Daniel Kunkel; Nicola Kleer • The advertising-based revenue model for journalism is severely challenged due to the effects of digitization. Providers of journalistic content have therefore put increasing emphasis on paid content strategies in recent years. This paper provides a literature review of factors that contribute to consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and paying intent (PI) for digital journalistic content. We identify 18 variables that influence WTP and PI. Due to inconsistent measurements in the literature, however, the results remain ambiguous.
The Role of Immersion and Involvement in Persuasive Games • Eugene Lee, University of Minnesota; Maral Abdollahi • This study seeks to improve the conceptualizations of involvement and immersion. We identified three distinct dimensions of involvement and immersion in the context of a persuasive game play and its playback. The study shows a significant difference between students playing the game and watching its playback for three dimensions of immersion. We also show the effect of different dimensions of involvement and immersion on attitude and behavioral intention.
Otherization in News: A Qualitative Analysis of Brussels and Lahore Terror Attacks • V. Michelle Michael • This study qualitatively compares how CNN approached the coverage of the terrorist attacks in Belgium and Pakistan. In order to understand any otherization messages in the initial coverage, this paper analyzes the first video story of each event’s coverage in depth. The analysis undertaken in this paper is two-fold: a visual analysis of the moving images used in the video stories and discourse analysis to excavate meaning from accompanying text and language. This mixed-method study uses both semiotics and syntax analysis to explore how similar terrorism events concerning two different social groups (in-group and out-group) are portrayed differently.
Opinion Leaders as Persuasion Agents: Integration of Persuasion Knowledge Into the Theory of Opinion Leadership • Alexander Mueller, University of Saskatchewan • In the healthcare industry, it is a common practice for manufacturers to attempt to persuade customers through opinion leaders (OL) in their specialty. This conceptual paper addresses this challenge by examining the combination and linkage of OL and persuasion agents (PA). OL and PA theories are re-conceptualized in a newly developed Persuasive Opinion Leadership Model. The model´s theoretical relevance is discussed and provides a new perspective on opinion leadership in marketing. Future research is proposed.
On Kichiku as Film and Television Subculture and Its Influences in China • Yu King NG • This paper focuses on the core issues of Kichiku, and refines them into the definition and style characteristics of Kichiku, relationship between the Kichiku as a subculture and China’s mainstream culture, and its influence, which are analyzed separately so as to connect them together. This paper also sorts out the process of meaning shift of the word Kichiku, and change is also a process in which the Kichiku culture gradually comes into being and develops.
A President, a sportsman and a rhetorical vision • Varaidzo Nyamandi, Regent University • The racial, political and social poles in a divided America require solutions towards unity. Presidents Nelson Mandela’s communication of a rhetorical vision to a divided South Africa in 1995 becomes relevant today, as a suggestion of how rhetoric may provide unity. This study explores Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to explore the creation of a worldview shared by South Africans, once separated along racial lines. The symbolic convergence theory is used to explain the meaning of the rhetorical vision of President Mandela. He communicates the vision through his recital of the Victorian era poem “Invictus”, as dramatized in the motion picture Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). The study contributes to the growing body of literature on the use of persuasion, from the perspective of the diverse audience, who chain out the vision, as dramatized in Invictus (Eastwood, 2009). Scholars note that contemporary rhetoric understands the personal nature of creating, receiving and sharing messages and exploring meanings with others. In the pursuit of this general endeavor, this study specifically suggests a way of interpreting shared meaning connecting people of diverse cultures, backgrounds, political views into a new worldview.
An Economic Analysis of the New York Times 1970s Daily Sections • Samantha Peko, Ohio University • In the 1970s, The New York Times Company was in a state of financial decline. The paper instituted a series of changes. Most notably, inserting into the folds of each weekday’s paper a new consumer section (food, home décor, sports, the arts, and science). The sections created a trend that newspapers around the country followed. This paper examines how investors reacted to the idea by looking at changes in the stock price using archival stock market data.
TV Anchors and Reporters use of Emotional Labor: Professional Control Over Personal Health Disclosures Online • Kirstin Pellizzaro, Arizona State University • Using the theoretical lens of emotional labor, this study performs a qualitative content analysis of 24 TV broadcast journalists’ disclosures of personal health-related issues on their professional social media pages – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Findings indicate that emotional labor was negotiated and learned journalistic skills were employed in various ways, indicating control over content. These findings raise concerns that these controlled narratives can influence an audience understanding of health-related issues.
Mental Health Satisfaction and Social Interactions • Jessica Roark, Ohio University • With online health activities becoming more popular, the opportunities to discuss mental health and share information have increased. A secondary analysis of data from the Pew Research Center examined the effects of social interaction on perceived help obtained from health information gathered online. This study looked specifically at respondents interested in mental health. Findings indicate that there are relationships between perceived help gained from online health information, participation in online health and social media activities.
Future Prospects of Female Journalists in Bangladesh • Md Nurus Safa, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • The study found that, female journalist facing many barriers like family pressure, Society problem, pay-allowances and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and even lack of workplace. Now days they are protecting and talking outside if face any discrimination with them. It is possible to survive if the passion, professionalism, and love have on this profession. Day by day increasing the female participation in a significant change has come into the social attitude which represent by women’s advancement in journalism sector of Bangladesh.
Bullying in the Digital Age: Difficulties and Dilemmas Regarding Cyberbullying • Chun Shao, Arizona State University • Various media technologies have developed rapidly, which have fundamentally altered the traditional communication patterns. However, as portrayed in various media, an unfortunate aspect of the use of technologies is the increasing occurrence of cyberbullying. This paper aims to explore cyberbullying, focusing on its harm on teenagers and legislative responses to this problem. Through investigating emotional and physical harm of cyberbullying, this study illustrates how far John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle has progressed not only since Mill’s era but also in the digital age.
The impact of Social Media on Tourism Marketing: Analyzing Young Consumers’ Travel Behavior • Farzana Sharmin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University • Tourism marketing and promotional strategies are changing from the last few decades. Consumers’ have a more dynamic relationship with social media technology, which is tapping into new tourism marketing dimensions. This study examines the role of social media technology as a utilization trait in shaping young consumers’ travel behavior based on the theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research has largely focused on social media acceptance and usage performance of consumers’ during the travel planning phase. The convenience random sample method used to collect data from prime tourist places of Shanghai (China) and instrument developed support on previous research to test hypotheses. The results of structural analyses revealed that respondents’ attitude towards the use of social media affected by technology self-efficiency. In addition, perceived behavioral control has a partial influence towards the attitude of respondents’. Thus the respondents’ mostly prefer social media in pre-travel phase and during travel. Finally, the managerial implications for tourism marketers are presented with a focus on how to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing in targeting groups.
Reacting Against Climate Change Denial: Role of Anger and Anxiety in the Backfire Effects of Censoring Climate Change • Ran Tao, UW-Madison • Since climate change became one of the national agenda in the 1980s, political divide and contention over climate change issues have been seen in the U.S. The reflexivity forces, particularly environmentalism, advocate for an active response to climate change, whereas the anti-reflexivity forces undermined efforts of environmentalism by delegitimizing climate change and preventing progress in climate change policies. Such anti-reflexivity is witnessed as the Trump administration censored and manipulated climate change information online. However, the public’s reaction toward the information control stayed unclear. Applying the psychological reactance theory, this study argues that citizens will react against information control on climate change issues by the government through negative emotions. When citizens receive a high volume of threat message that informed them of information control on climate change from the government, they will feel more anger, which leads to more intention to view the repressed information, learn more about climate change, share climate change information with friends, families, and the public, regardless of their political ideology and pre-exited climate change attitude. The results have implications for advancing reactance theory and understanding citizens’ reactance against governmental information control on climate change.
Participatory Journalism in China: An Extended Newsroom and Power, Network, State • Luxuan Wang, New York University • By analyzing different producers’ identities and posts, this paper explores how participatory journalism differs from traditional media and how organizational structure influences framings in China’s context. Generally, the elite community dominated the discourse of participatory journalism on social media, producing a different framing from that of Chinese traditional news agencies. This paper examined the “extended newsroom” of participatory journalism in Chinese context involving dispositions of capitals, heterogeneous network of human-nonhuman interactions, and the state’s manifestation.
Hacker groups and social movements: A systematic review of literature • Yiping Xia, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Hackers are groups of people with a common concern with information technologies and a shared set of fundamental beliefs, such as the protection of privacy and freedom of information. While there are numerous studies about how social movements and technology intersect, there has been relatively less social movement scholarship devoted to hackers that push for social change via technological means, or make technology the central issue of their agenda. By systematically examining the extant literature using McAdam et al’s (1996) framework, this paper aims to map our current knowledge about hacking/hackers as social movement players, and to generate discussions about future research directions for scholars of interest.
Linkages among Individual Values, Attitudes, and Political Actions: A Cross-Cultural Study • Leping You, University of Florida • Communicating values is crucial to motivating people to be engaged in political/social actions globally. While many studies have examined how cultures influence individuals’ attitudes toward social issues and their intentions of participating in civic actions, research exploring civic engagement in comparison with individualistic and collectivistic cultures on the individual level is relatively scarce. Drawing on Schwartz’s theory of values, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationships among individual values, attitudes toward human rights such as equal pay, and political action behavior. The results of this study revealed that people in Asian cultures were found to value both personal-focus and social-focus values more highly than people in America. In addition, personal-focus values were negatively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay, while social-focus values such as universalism-nature and universalism-society were positively associated with favorable attitudes toward equal pay. The political environment is suggested as a potential moderator in predicting people’s political activism behavior from behavioral intentions.
The impact of Next Media Animation framing on university students’ attitudes towards, perception of, and participation in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong • Runping Zhu, University of Western Australia; Chesca Ka Po Wong • The most significant social protest in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 was the 2014 Umbrella Movement seeking democratic processes for the appointment of the Region’s chief executive. This study examines how the framing of the police, government, and opponents of the protests in the Next Media Animation news videos prepared by Apple Daily, an important Hong Kong newspaper, influenced university students’ attitudes, perceptions, and political behavior in terms of the Umbrella Movement events. The findings from a qualitative content-analysis and a quantitative survey (N=212) showed that students viewing negative images of the police, government and anti-protestors framed by the Next Media Animation formed unfavorable attitudes towards the three parties and were consequently more likely than non-viewers to participate in the Movement. The study extends the previous work on audience responses to news framing by demonstrating how animated news frames may, by manipulation of the story facts and enhancing the presentation with emotive music and commentary, prompt stronger audience reactions than those created by other news frames. The finding raises the possibility of misuse of technology by animation practitioners and the risk of exploitation of animated media to promote the ideologies supported by media owners.
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