Minorities and Communication Division

Faculty Research Competition
Muhammad Ali’s Vietnam War Challenge: An Examination of Framing by the New York Times and the Louisville Courier-Journal • Zainul Abedin, Mississippi Valley State University • This study examines framing of Muhammad Ali’s anti-Vietnam War role by the New York Times and the Louisville Courier-Journal. The trials Ali endured are legendary for his refusal to join the U.S. Army as a conscientious objector. Ali, alias Clay, struggled to uphold self-determination and civil rights especially during the period from 1967 through 1971 when he faced legal barriers and racial discrimination. The study revealed the press, especially popularly known “liberal” Times was disrespectful to Ali’s historic fight for human rights and justice. Ali’s challenge not only helped redefine the law of conscientious objectors protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution but also has long been inspiring other athletes to raise their voices for civil rights.

Communication, Perception of Candidate Ethnicity, and Hispanic Engagement During the 2018 Texas Senate Election • Oluseyi Adegbola; Sherice Gearhart • Existing research indicates that Hispanics tend to support co-ethnic candidates, due in part to the assumption that such candidates will be committed to the Hispanic community. However, candidate ethnicity may differ from perception of candidate ethnicity, especially when attributes about candidate ethnicity may be ambiguous. This study examines the extent to which perception of candidate ethnicity and commitment to the Hispanic community, as well as political communication, guide varying types of political engagement. A survey of Hispanic voters located in Texas (N = 424) was collected during the 2018 Texas senate election featuring Beto O’Rourke (D) and Ted Cruz (R). Results suggest that perceptions of candidate ethnicity and commitment to the Hispanic community are related to active engagement, although findings vary across candidates. Similarly, exposure to political advertising is more closely associated with active rather than passive engagement, while political discussion is related to both outcomes. Implications for political communication and engagement among Hispanics are discussed.

Framing Federal Recognition: Native American Sovereignty and Casinos • CRISTINA Azocar, San Francisco State University • A content analysis of almost 4,000 print, online and broadcast news stories spanning forty years examines mainstream news coverage of the federal recognition of Native American Tribes and the conflation of recognition and gaming. The analysis uses the theories of agenda setting and framing to show how the pattern of coverage of federal recognition has helped the U.S. maintain cultural hegemony of tribes. As predicted, the news media perpetuated ignorance and stereotypes about the sovereignty of Native tribes by keeping tribes’ pursuit of federal recognition off the news agenda, and by overplaying gaming frames and underplaying sovereignty frames.

Fifty Shades of White: Default whiteness and performative speech in television-news coverage of the Charlottesville Unite the Right riot • Angie Chuang, University of Colorado Boulder; Autumn Tyler, University of Colorado Boulder • The violence surrounding the 2017 Unite the Right rally challenged journalists with multiple ambiguities, from euphemistic language like “alt-right” to describe white supremacy, to President Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” statement. This mixed-methods analysis of television-news coverage of events in Charlottesville shows that, in the absence of a racialized “us versus them” narrative, national networks tended to adhere to a default, invisible presumption of whiteness in representations of participants, overlooking counterprotesters of color.

“Through Our Prism”: A Survey of Black Local Sportscasters’ Views and Interactions with Black Athletes • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Denetra Walker; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University; Kirstin Pellizzaro, University of South Carolina • Black local sports broadcasters throughout the United States were surveyed to discover how they view media treatment of, and their own interactions with, Black athletes. Results demonstrate that the majority feel the athletes are negatively stereotyped and that, as Black journalists, they have an easier time relating to and telling the story of the Black athlete.

* Extended Abstract * When Do Victims Become Activists? Asian Americans’ Experience with COVID-19 Related Discrimination, Communicative Coping Strategies, and Engagement in Activism • Jungmi Jun; Priscilla Li • Due to the origin of COVID-19, racist and xenophobia attacks against Chinese and Asian Americans have radically increased. We investigate Asian Americans’ COVID-19 related discrimination experience, communicative coping strategies, and engagement in activism. Three relevant communication theories guide the research. Online survey will be conducted with Asian Americans across the US. The findings will guide efforts to combat discrimination of racial/ethnic groups, share effective coping strategies, and empower the victims.

#BlackLivesMatter in Sacramento: Digital Media Maintenance of Black Stereotypes, Protest Repression and the Status Quo • Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities • This research analyzes news representations of the killing of Stephon Clark and protests that followed, while also considering the role social media users play in empowering some narratives over others. Results suggest that the press negatively characterized Clark while avoiding assessment of the characters of police officers. In general, the protests were described as disruptive and emotional, though episodic demands were regularly mentioned. Selective social media sharing amplified the limited coverage about police character.

Coping with Workplace Racial Discrimination: The Moderating Role of Transparent Communication • Queenie Li, University of Miami; Yeunjae Lee, University of Miami; Shiyun Tian, University of Miami; Wanhsiu Tsai • “Based on an integrative framework, this study evaluates whether and how internal communication efforts are connected to racial minority employees’ coping strategies for workplace discrimination to influence their relationship with and communicative behaviors toward their organizations. A survey was conducted with 412 full-time employees working in various industry sectors in the U.S. Results suggest that racial minority employees were likely to choose emotion-focused rather than problem-focused coping strategies. The choice of coping strategies in turn impacted the relational and behavioral employee outcomes. Importantly, transparent communication was found to be a significant moderator that reduces the negative impacts of discrimination experiences while increasing the motivation of adopting problem focused approaches. The theoretical and practical implications were discussed.”

George Wallace and racial polarization in Alabama during the civil rights era: A theory of media legitimacy and political leadership • Ali Mohamed • Existing literature on the relation between media legitimacy and effective political leadership shows the utility of Max Weber’s “charismatic” leader attributes based on a leader’s behavior, his/her political principles, and his/her fidelity to those principles. But few studies so far have considered this relationship between media and charismatic leadership in polarized political contexts. Our examination of Governor George Wallace’s paradoxical relationships with the Birmingham News in 1960s Alabama showed no legitimation of his leadership either during his 1962 campaign for office or during his first term as governor — despite his high popularity and despite News support for his segregationist political platform. The paper strongly opposed manipulation of racial divisions for political gain because of the negative implications of such conflict for Alabama’s prosperity and for the rule of law. The News instead supported Wallace’s opponent, Ryan deGraffenreid, for promoting unity of all Alabamians; and ascribing to him charismatic attributes of honesty, competence, and credibility.

* Extended Abstract * “It’s not a movie, it’s a movement:” Analysis of Asian-Americans in American 2018-2019 films • Patrice Oppliger, Boston University; Siyu Liu, Boston University • This paper will explore and reason the changes in the representations of Asian Americans in U.S. films released in 2018 and 2019. We use Said’s latent and manifest Orientalism as a theoretical framework to analyze the content and production of the four films, Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Always Be My Maybe and The Farewell.

Chick-Fil-A Vs Popeye’s: Memes of Chicken Wars and Hegemonic Ideologies • Nathian Rodriguez, San Diego State University • The study employed a textual analysis using a lens of encoding and decoding theory and found that Popeye vs Chick-Fil-A memes contained stereotypical racist and classist humor, furthering hegemonic ideologies. It was also found that LGBTQ discourse was also created around the chicken feud, establishing a dichotomy of pro-and anti-LGBTQ stances for Popeyes and Chick-Fil-A, respectively. The findings suggest that hybridity nature of memes can not only reify hegemonic ideologies through digital discourse, but also ascribe those ideologies to organizations, in this case fast food chains, without the organization’s intent or control.

* Extended Abstract * Stevie Wonder, Black Genius and Herald of Music and Media Integration • John Vilanova • This is a historiographic project that uses a corpus of more than 7,000 articles written about the musician Stevie Wonder between 1962 and 1977. It unpacks and analyzes the way media discourses “made” Wonder into an exceptional and unique figure whose music was said to transcend both racial and artistic boundaries. This work illustrates how media was key to Wonder’s acceptance in mainstream music industry and popular culture circles.

Student Papers
Black Maternal Mortality in the Media: How Journalists Cover a Deadly Racial Disparity • Denetra Walker; Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina • Through semi-structured interviews with five news journalists, this study offers an in-depth understanding of journalists covering Black maternal mortality. Discussions include the role of advocacy in journalism as well as the struggle of covering the complex, long-standing systemic issue of maternal mortality associated with race in American society. Three themes discuss a need for journalistic responsibility, the role of media advocacy in public health, and complications when reporting race. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: An Analysis of Attitudes and Perceptions of Body Image Among Young Adult Hispanic Women • Christina Jimenez Najera, Texas Tech University; Othello Richards, Texas Tech University • Research has shown that constant exposure to thin body types and beauty ideals portrayed in media generate negative effects among women. This study focused on exploring attitudes and perceptions of beauty and body image ideals among a young adult Hispanic female population through semi-structured interviews. Preliminary results show that the ideal body type is thinner and “thick”, and beauty is a dualistic concept in which media and family have a direct influence in its construction.

Communicating the culture through Korean food between authenticity and adaptation • Solyee Kim, University of Georgia • This study explores how Korean restaurants in the States promote their businesses by using the Circuit of Culture as a theoretical framework. Five elements in the Circuit, representation, production, consumption, identity, and regulation, provided a contextual understanding of how Korean food is communicated at a local level. In-depth interviews with 10 small business Korean restaurant owners in the U.S., the study highlighted the discrepancy in perception, knowledge and access to resources in promoting their businesses.

Local news representations of race and homicide in Baton Rouge, Louisiana • Tim Klein, Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication; Quincy Hodges • Prior researchers have found that media portrayals of crime influence the publics’ views on criminality and the criminal justice system. In addition, news coverage of crime often fails to be representative of victims and perpetrators, with most studies finding Whites are oversampled as victims, while Blacks are undersampled. Despite this body of research on news representations of race and crime, there have been no recent studies that focus on racial representations of crime in the southern parts of the U.S., where homicide and incarceration rates tend to be the highest, and the history of racial prejudice has been the most severe. This study begins to fill that void by conducting an interreality comparison of homicide news coverage and homicide statistics in Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana. Findings revealed that among Baton Rouge’s four nightly TV news broadcasts and the state’s largest daily newspaper, the majority of the news stories had White victims (52.11%), though Whites made up only 2.2% of the homicide victims in 2018 in Baton Rouge. This study adds critical empirical data to the broader debate over media portrayals of crime and race.

Separate and (Almost) Equal: Analysis of “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges” • Vincent Peña, University of Texas at Austin • In September 2019, former ESPN personality Jemele Hill wrote a controversial article for The Atlantic, titled “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges,” in which she argued for an exodus of black athletes from predominantly white institutions to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). This paper conducts a rhetorical textual analysis of Hill’s article while using a theoretical framework based on Marxian concepts such as ideology and hegemony to examine her article’s implications.

News Presenters and the People Who Lead Them: Examining Diversity of Local Television News Teams • Robert J. Richardson • Research has shown that people of color are underrepresented as members of the media. A majority of local television news directors and station general managers are White, and most of them are men. This study collected race and gender data of 4,317 newscasters from 64 U.S. television markets selected randomly through stratified sampling. It examines relationships between race and gender of management, market size, location, and diversity of on-air staffs.

* Extended Abstract * Left out of the equation: Examining perceptions of racial bias on social media platforms • Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin; Martin Riedl, University of Texas at Austin; Ryan Wallace, University of Texas at Austin • News coverage of the technology industry regularly identifies racial and gender biases built into online platforms through the stereotypes internalized by their creators. However, public perceptions of these algorithmic and technological biases remain largely unexamined — particularly when it comes to social media platforms. Through a cross-sectional panel survey (N = 1,022) distributed nationally in the United States, this study examines demographic and ideological factors that contribute to perceptions that social media platforms are racially biased.

<2020 Abstracts

Media Management, Economics, and Entrepreneurship Division

* Extended Abstract * We are the people – audience engagement as catalyst for newsroom unionization? • Karin Assmann, University of Georgia • This study explores the tension between management, journalists and their audience around audience engagement with a focus on the role of newsroom unionization. Ethnographic work in three U.S. newsrooms and interviews with 131 journalists, newsroom managers and editors in four newsrooms, shows that audience engagement work encourages unionization and that journalists in already unionized newsrooms regard the relationships with their audience as more collaborative than combative.

Drivers of merger and acquisition activity: A quantitative investigation of the telecommunications industry • Yang Bai, Pennsylvania State University; Ryan Wang, Penn State University; Rachel Peng, Penn State University; Krishna Jayakar, Penn State Bellisario College of Communications • Over the last decade, merger and acquisition activity has significantly changed the landscape of the telecommunications industry. While a few mega-mergers have attracted a lot of media attention and public interest, the vast majority of M&A transactions are small mergers. The objective of this paper is to investigate the differences if any, between large and small mergers in terms of merger type, mode of financing and deal valuations. Data on 1725 mergers occurring between 2000-2019 involving at least one U.S.-based company in the SIC code 48 was collected from the Zephyr database. Significant differences were noted based on merger type, mode of financing, and the influence of factors such as interest rates and stock market performance.

Exploring the Dimensions of Media Brand Trust: A Contemporary Integrative Approach • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • As brands become more media-like and news and information platforms gravitate toward infotainment, this project aims at developing a reliable and valid media brand trust scale that reflects the reality of today’s mediated lives. As the first phase of the process, this study integrated deductive and inductive methods, using literature review to offer a conceptual basis and exploring the identified trust dimensions through the qualitative method of personal interviews. Eight key dimensions were uncovered for further investigations.

The Effect of Emotional vs. Informational Message Appeals on Crowdfunding Campaign Success: Testing Product Type as a Moderator • Ying Cheng, California State University, San Bernardino; Yongseok Jang, California State University, San Bernardino • This study examined the effect of emotional vs. informational appeals and their interaction effect with product types (i.e., hedonic vs. utilitarian product) on crowdfunding campaign performance. Using a sample of 249 Kickstarter messages and an online survey (N = 1892), the study revealed when a product was perceived containing higher (vs. lower) utilitarian values, messages perceived to be informational (vs. emotional) led to more positive campaign outcomes. No main effect of message appeals was observed.

Crowdfunding & Cryptocurrency – A New Conduit to Film Finance • J. Christopher Hamilton, Syracuse University • Raising financing for a film with cryptocurrency through blockchain is bound to change every aspect of not only film finance but our content ecosystem. As we witness COVID-19 ravage our economy and force us into a new version of normalcy, the strain on our content ecosystem will lean heavily on technology in the coming years to survive. The increased fragmentation of viewing audiences, the shrinking theatrical windows and the exploitation of the indie film market by streaming services like Netflix, has gutted the indie film business for filmmakers and over-leveraged the major studios. These global economic factors create a unique opportunity for the use of crypto to finance film content. There are still lots of regulatory, technological and credibility hurdles to surmount before crowdfunding with cryptocurrency becomes a viable or practical industry-wide solution for raising capital. But there’s strong evidence that the latter might be a real possibility sooner than we think. Equity crowdfunding coupled with cryptocurrency through blockchain will be the key to unlocking future capital. So, whether crypto through blockchain helps connect unbanked communities to the global economy, supplant Byzantine bureaucracies in bank and presales financing or just guarantees fair dealing in a business transaction with potentially dubious investors, it will certainly live up to its moniker as the internet 2.0 for Hollywood.

Public Service Mandate Versus Profit-Making Motive: A Study of the Daily Graphic Newspaper in Ghana • Paul Koomson, University of Oregon; S. Senyo Ofori-Parku, University of Oregon • This study examines the extent to which the Daily Graphic as a public newspaper operating as a limited liability company balances its public service mandate with its economic rationality. This case study is based on interviews with the newspaper’s editorial team members, managers, and executives of three top advertising media agencies and study of official documents. The content of the newspaper is also analyzed to determine the news – advertisement ratio. The study shows that despite its clearly stated public service mandate, the Daily Graphic’s organizational and individual-level economic logic (coupled with its advertiser client relations) informs its operations, news practices, and to some extent, content. The newspaper allocated more space to advertisements than news content. These processes are aided by advertiser clients and their collaborators within and outside the news organization. We offer some recommendations for addressing this challenge.

Media Repertoires of Chinese Young Users: An Exploratory Study Based on 2010-2015 Chinese General Social Survey • Weijia Li • This study adopts a repertoire approach to explore Chinese young users’ media usage patterns based on an analysis of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data from 2010-2015. The author used latent class analysis and multilevel multinomial logistic regression to demonstrate the patterns, changes and predictors of Chinese young people media repertoires.  Results show that during 2010-2013, Chinese young users’ media repertoire remains stable, including four types: people who only watch TV; people who make a combination use of TV and Newspaper; people who make a combination use of TV and Internet and people who tend to use multiple media platforms including TV, Newspaper, Magazine and Internet. However, in 2015, a new media repertoire featured by the combination usage of TV, Internet and Mobile phone emerged while the previous media repertoire ‘TV + Newspaper’ is not existing anymore, indicating that new media has a growing influence on younger generation.  Besides, the author integrated individual factors and structural factors to predict the media repertoire formation based on CGSS 2015. The study finds that age, education level, number of computers owned by individual, province mobile phone penetration rate and number of books per capita are the relatively powerful predictors of user’s media choice. This means that demographic variables, media access ability and regional media environment can shape audience media consumption pattern and influence their media choice.

Revisiting on news objectivity and its portrait of history: From the perspective of transaction costs • Lu Liu • The American news industry is arguably run by its laws of news values and business logic. This paper aims to explore the principle of news objectivity in American commercial newspapers from a theoretical perspective of transaction costs. Previous studies on professional ideology have overlooked its origin that rooted in American commercial environment and developed along with commercial newspapers. This study indicates that the principle of objectivity is not only an editorial policy for commercial newspapers, but also a business strategy and governance mechanism, which reduces both the internal and external transaction costs of news production and improves the use of resources. Furthermore, news efficiency can increase the profit margin, and this is the core reason for the emergence and maintenance of the principle of news objectivity.

Concentration of Journalistic Output Across Media Outlets and Outlet Types: An Analysis of 100 Communities • Jessica Mahone, Duke University; Qun Wang; Philip Napoli; Matthew Weber, University of Minnesota; Kathleen McCullough, Augustana University • This study provides a quantitative examination of the concentration of journalistic output in 100 U.S. communities. The primary objective is to determine the extent to which various types of journalistic output are concentrated within few outlets, or outlet types, within a community. The results indicate that in most communities one type of outlet produces most content; and that, in many cases, only one or two outlets are responsible for the bulk of journalistic output.

* Extended Abstract * “No One Knows What I Do”: Strategic Hires and Emerging Professions in the Context of Organizational Absorptive Capacity • Renee Mitson • Absorptive capacity theory posits organizations gain external knowledge primarily through research and development conducted to acquire external knowledge and apply that knowledge inside the organization. This study hypothesizes that until new hires and emerging job roles are fully absorbed into an organization, they remain sources of outside knowledge, even internally. Semi-structured interviews (n=18) were conducted in order to explore how the role of strategic hires and organizational readiness may impact a firm’s absorptive capacity.

* Extended Abstract * Alternative and Mainstream Local News Competition and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Computational Content Analysis • Angela Powers, Iowa State University; Yuxi He • The COVID-19 outbreak is having severe health, economic and political effects on society, as well as on the way media is reporting these issues. This study analyzes news coverage of COVID-19 in a computational content analysis of two local media outlets during the early outbreak. Variables including frequencies of themes, stories, issues and sources are analyzed. The purpose of the analysis is to reveal how alternative and mainstream local news media compete by differentiating products and finding market niches in times of crisis.

Who Cut the Cord?: Factors Which Predict Cord-Cutting Behavior Across Generations • Ashley Spiker, Kent State University • The existing literature in the field of television consumption utilizing new media  platforms examines what streaming media service options exist and some possible motivations for adopting streaming media services. While research has examined technological adoption to predict and describe behavioral intentions and self-reported behavior, few have examined why individuals make the decision to stop using certain technologies or media services. This study aimed to examine the differences in cording-cutting behaviors across three Generations (Millennials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers) and to identify predictors of cord-cutting behavior. Of 734 participants surveyed, Results indicated that five factors significantly predicted cord-cutting behavior among all generations, including: income (β =.173, p =.004), owning a tablet (β =.171, p =.004), preference of religious programming (β =.125, p =.036), preference of sports programming (β =.122, p =.039), and time spent watching television (β =.120, p =.042). These factors explained 12.8% of variance in cord cutting behavior.

Predicting the Consumption Behaviors of Foreign Broadcast Programming in the Age of Global Over-the-Top (OTT) Video Streaming Market • Kenneth C. C. Yang, The University of Texas At El Paso; Yowei Kang, National Taiwan Ocean University • The rise of over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services (such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix) have enabled broadcasters to distribute their programming all over the world in a cost-effective manner. However, factors affecting the consumption of foreign broadcasting programming are yet to be investigated. This study employs the country animosity dimensions to study Taiwanese audience’s consumption of broadcast programming from Japan. This study uses a survey to collect data from Taiwanese participants. Linear regression analyses find that both contemporary/economic and historical/social animosity against Japan could predict Taiwanese viewers’ judgment of Japanese television dramas. As expected, a favorable judgment also generates a higher intention to watch Japanese television dramas. However, long-term social, but not temporary economic, animosity dimension predicts viewers’ intention to watch Japanese television dramas. The predictive power of social animosity against Japanese people is robust and stable, after taking into consideration viewers’ demographics, in the hierarchical regression model. This study concludes with theoretical implications and managerial recommendations to promote cultural products to foreign audiences.

Working Together in Global Media Markets: The Sustainability of Western-China International Joint Ventures • Qian Yu; Peter Gade • This study explores economic, resource and cultural factors that executives of Chinese-Western media joint ventures consider essential to the ventures’ sustainability. In-depth interviews with Chinese and Western executives from two magazine joint ventures (Harvard Business Review China and GRAZIA China) found managing cultural factors, including ideological and media policy differences, essential to the ventures. Differing economic and resource commitments to the ventures were largely attributed to products in different niche markets with different market conditions.

<2020 Abstracts

Media Ethics Division

Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers
Journalism as a Calling: Linking Social Identity and Institutional Theory to Protect the Profession • Michael Davis, University of Iowa • “Journalists often refer to their work as a calling, giving its practices and rules a symbolic power of importance. The institution of journalism uses this rhetorical device as a shield between it and those who wish to break it down, and to create markers of social identity. By linking social identity theory and institutional theories, this paper argues that this perspective potentially harms the profession, blocking professional innovation and public accountability in a democracy.

Learning from Confucius: Moral self-cultivation (xiuji) and its application in media ethics education • Yayu Feng • This article investigates the questions of moral development and ethics education through the Confucian approach. It introduces the concept of self-cultivation (xiuji) from Confucian ethics, and applies it as a new perspective that enriches media ethics and lightens a new pathway to understand moral development and professional excellence. It argues that the Confucian idea of moral self-cultivation offers a less instrumental and more engaging perspective for media ethics teaching and learning than the reasoning skill-oriented and decision-making-centered model of ethics training. Through a close reading of the concept of self-cultivation and its ideas of zixing (examination of the self) and observance of li (ceremony/social rites), the article provides practical examples of how these ideas can be applied to media ethics learning and teaching.

Imagining culinary communities: Exploring lifestyle journalism ethics through the New York Times food section • Joseph Jones • This paper investigates the ethical obligations of lifestyle and food journalists. Informed by the history of food writing and the ethical principles of care and democracy, a text analysis of six months of the New York Times food section was conducted. While the Times provided a playful, aesthetic, and potentially empowering discourse on food and eating, it was limited by class privilege and the strictures of consumer culture. Although lifestyle journalism is often defined with reference to consumerism, it is here argued that such definitions are inadequate when considering the vital role of journalists imagining culinary communities. If food journalists are to be considered journalists, then they must show care and feed the social connections necessary to empower democratic actors.

Open Call
Do What Works: Journalism Ethics as a Framework for Social Media Content Moderation • Caitlin Carlson, Seattle University • Social media platforms from Facebook to Twitter are struggling to navigate the process of content moderation. Despite their best efforts to craft reasonable community standards for users, issues such as the spread of disinformation or hateful rhetoric continue to plague social media organizations. Content moderators are in desperate need of an ethical framework to guide their decision-making regarding the removal of individual posts, ads, images, videos, and accounts. Scholars and activists have begun to offer piecemeal solutions to the problem but what is needed is a comprehensive framework for content moderation ethics. This paper argues that the existing professional standards used by journalists in the United States, specifically the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics, should serve as a starting point to develop ethical guidelines for social media content moderation. The four main principles of the SPJ Code of Ethics are analyzed to determine what lessons they might offer to social media content moderators. The insights yielded are then used to develop a comprehensive framework for social media content moderation ethics based on the SPJ Code.

Moral Reasoning Regarding Sponsored YouTube Videos: An Investigation of Children’s Theory of Mind and Disclosure Prominence • Jessica Castonguay, Temple University • While a great deal of research has assessed age differences in children’s ability to understand commercial messages, this understanding does not necessarily mitigate advertising effects. Therefore, some scholars suggest that moral assessments of advertising practices influence children’s acceptance of persuasive messages. This study therefore responds to Nelson’s (2019) call that “New forms of advertising to children necessitate new studies and examinations of ethics,” by investigating the development of children’s moral evaluations of sponsored YouTube videos. Findings suggest that moral disapproval of sponsored YouTube content is more likely as children cognitively develop and they are more likely to justify this stance by considering the impact on others and societal “rules,” while less mature children reason purely based on the perceived impact on the self. When a disclosure that the video is an advertisement is explicitly stated, the likelihood of children’s disapproval increases. Both the presence of a disclosure and children’s moral disapproval of the practice are negatively associated with liking of the promoted brand. These findings have implications for parents and educators and provide a starting point for future research.

Keeping up with the ethical boundaries of advertising: Big soda, metadiscourse and paradigm repair • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Erin Schauster • This study utilizes a framework previously unseen in advertising ethics research – paradigm repair – and applies it to the divisive 2017 Kendall Jenner Pepsi advertisement by studying metadiscourse from trade publications and mainstream press. After the controversary surrounding the commercial ensued, actors within and outside the advertising industry argued the ad violated the ethical boundaries of the industry because it coopted a social issue, acted as a form of cultural appropriation, and served as an example of brand activism (gone awry). Textual data analyzed also argued this paradigm violation occurred because Pepsi created the ad with an in-house agency, there’s a lack of diversity within the industry, and the industry’s current professional culture often catalyzes controversial material. This study concludes with an argument for paradigm repair’s utility for studying advertising ethics, and with implications for advertising practice.

Public Relations Practitioners’ Understanding of Fake News: Examining the influence of ethics counsel identity and individual ethical orientations • Rosie Jahng; Hyunmin Lee • This study examined whether public relations practitioners’ ethical responsibility as public communicators can help better address problems associated with fake news. Based on role theory (e.g., Dozier, 1984) and other studies regarding professional code of ethics and individual ethical orientations, this study explored whether public relations practitioners identify their ethics counsel responsibility and how that influences the way they understand fake news. An online survey with a nationally representative sample of public relations practitioners was conducted to examine the relationship between strong ethical identity among public relations practitioners and different aspects of understanding and addressing fake news. Results are discussed in terms of ethical responsibility of public relations to communicate truthfully and regain trust from the public.

* Extended Abstract * In the Media We Trust? Exploring the Effects of Perceived Risk, News Disputes, and Credibility on Consumer Attitudes Toward Biotechnology Companies   • Holly Overton, University of South Carolina; Fan Yang • This study conducts a 2 (Risk: Low vs. High) X 2 (Pre-existing Attitude: Anti gene-editing technology vs. Pro gene-editing technology) X 2 (Dispute: absent vs. present) X 2 (Media source: Buzzfeed vs. NYT) factorial online experiment to examine the impact on individuals’ attitudes toward a biotechnology company and trust in the media source. Results indicate that dispute messages enhance attitudes toward the company but decrease trust in media sources. Implications are discussed.

Moving into the media world: The moral psychology of emerging adults in journalism and communication • David Craig, University of Oklahoma; Patrick Plaisance; Erin Schauster; Ryan Thomas, University of Missouri; Chris Roberts, University of Alabama; Katie Place, Quinnipiac University • Emerging adulthood is a distinct, transitional stage of life and work characterized by several features, wherein little is known regarding moral development. This study is part of a three-year, longitudinal study with recent graduates across six U.S. universities who studied journalism and communication. Guided by emerging adulthood, moral psychology and media exemplar research, 192 participants completed an online survey regarding their personality traits, virtuous character, moral reasoning and ethical ideology.

The Moral Psychology and Exemplarism of Leaders in Marketing Communication • Erin Schauster; Patrick Plaisance • Organizational leaders shape what others believe and how they behave, which is also true for moral behavior. Moral exemplars are invaluable resources for education and in practice, yet there is scant research on media exemplars. The current study utilized a questionnaire to better understand the moral psychology profile of marketing communication executives in positions such as chief executive officer of international agencies, which suggests what personality traits, ethical ideology and moral reasoning that exemplars possess.

Familial Experiences of Moral Exemplars in Marketing Communication • Christopher Vardeman, University of Colorado Boulder; Erin Schauster • Media and communication executives, from journalists and public relations practitioners to brand managers and the advertising agency executives that represent them, are continuously confronted with dilemmas that require moral deliberation. To understand how a person, such as a moral exemplar, develops moral awareness and moral imagination, media ethicists have looked to moral psychology theory. Based on the understanding that life experiences impact morality, such as familial experiences with one’s parents, and considering the limited research in media ethics literature on the topic, the current study uses interview data with thirteen media and communication executives to determine how, if at all, childhood and adolescent familial experiences have impacted their later-in-life moral decision making. Participants indicated, via both prompted and unprompted anecdotes, that values such as honesty, empathy, compassion, and positivity were instilled by their family members from an early age and that they have carried these values and consciously applied them to their professional practices. The current findings suggest that value salience is a result of early life, familial experiences that include positive modeling experiences, as well as experiences and instruction that arose during times of adversity. Because of these vivid experiences and memories, today, marketing leaders are able to perceive the moral nature of various actions and decision-making that has potential consequences for employees, other stakeholders, and their families.

Covering a complicated legacy with a sledgehammer: Metajournalistic and audience discourse after Kobe Bryant’s death • Carolina Velloso, University of Maryland, College Park; Wei-ping Li, University of Maryland; Nohely Alvarez; Shannon Scovel, University of Maryland; Md Mahfuzul Haque, University of Maryland College Park; Linda Steiner • This paper assesses journalists’ and audiences’ responses to both Kobe Bryant’s death and the Washington Post’s suspension and subsequent reinstatement of Felicia Sonmez. Journalists’ coverage of Bryant’s death and the Sonmez suspension focused on the complexity of Bryant’s legacy and emphasized the journalistic values of professionalism and truth. Audience members posts comments that offered feedback to the journalists on their coverage, generally supporting Sonmez while critiquing the Post’s newsroom social media policy.

The Path Forward: A Thematic Analysis of Structure and Autonomy in Local Digital Journalism • Rhema Zlaten, Colorado Mesa University • The main purpose of this qualitative thematic analysis was to examine the shifting digital news industry, especially in regard to individual and organizational-level structure and autonomy. Via in-depth interviewing, I worked with the editorial staff at a hyper-local digitally native news organization to examine their organizational structure and expressions of autonomy. Four major themes emerged: workflow (with sub-times of time constraints, workplace expectations and role-balancing); company culture; navigating tensions; and autonomy.

Special Call for International Topics in Media Ethics
Traditional Knowledge for Ethical Reporting on Indigenous communities: A cultural compass for social justice • Ann Auman, University of Hawaii; Alana Kanahale, University of Hawai’i • This study seeks to improve reporting on Indigenous communities by applying Traditional Knowledge labels and guidebooks for appropriate ethical behavior and practices that respect Indigenous cultures, cultural knowledge and protocol. The method and discussion draw on a sample of reporting guidebooks on Indigenous peoples as well as TK labels developed by cultural preservationists to educate people about Indigenous information, visuals and artifacts that are sacred, restricted or shared. They could be called the journalist’s “cultural compass.”

Representing the “Other” Woman: Transnational Feminism and the Ethics of Care in Media Coverage of MENA Feminist Movements • Sara Shaban • This paper aims to illustrate how transnationalism enables the ethics of care by examining how American journalists covered the women’s movements in Saudi Arabia and Iran. By exploring the United States’ geopolitical relationship with these two countries, this study highlights how geopolitical agendas can negate ethical reporting and influence the decision-making process of journalists as well as the nationalist values that manipulate those choices.

<2020 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society Division

Moeller Student Paper Competition
Are You Frightened? Children’s Cognitive and Affective Reactions to News Coverage of School Shootings • Gyo Hyun Koo • A survey of U.S. parents explores children’s exposure and reaction to news coverage of school shootings. Major findings suggest that exposure to such news makes children frightened. This tendency was strongest among the youngest children, and they used a variety of coping strategies. Exposure to the news predicted children perceiving the world as dangerous, and their frightened reactions mediate this relationship. This study suggests that news producers minimize the harm when creating news.

Wedging the Gap: A Multi-Level Analysis of Genre-specific Television and Internet Information Seeking Impacts on Health Knowledge Over 8 Years • Wenbo Li, The Ohio State University; Ruoyu Sun; Xia Zheng • The study uses a nationally representative survey to investigate the concurrent impacts of television watching and health information seeking from the Internet (HISI) on education-based health knowledge gap from January 2005 to December 2012. A multi-level regression analysis shows that entertainment television watching narrowed the gap in health knowledge between high-educated and low-educated population segments. However, this trend disappeared over time and entertainment TV watching started to negatively influence health knowledge across all segments around 2009. Meanwhile, the highly educated obtained more health knowledge from HISI than those with lower education and this pattern persisted over time. Television news watching did not affect the knowledge gap, nor did its effect change over time.

Digital Feminist Activism & the Need for Male Allies: Assessing Barriers to Male Participation in the Modern-Day Women’s Movement • Sydney Nicolla, UNC-Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media • Feminism and feminist activism have seen many changes and iterations throughout history. Modern feminists have harnessed the power of the internet to broaden visibility, challenge inequality, and connect with those who share gendered experiences. Typically, women instigate and drive participation in digital feminist activism, but research has suggested that male activists could play a valuable role as allies for the digital women’s movement. Social media reduce some of the traditional barriers to activism – time, financial resources – and force us to consider the social and emotional factors that may interfere with outward male support for feminism. Results of a U.S. based national online survey demonstrated the following among men who have yet to participate in digital feminist activism (DFA): (1) support from and characteristics of those in their social networks may play an important role in their willingness to engage with DFA in the future, (2) strong masculine gender identity may interfere with support for feminism and outward feminist identification, and, (3) there is still a disconnect between support for feminism and feminist identification, which in turn may affect willingness to participate in DFA.

Benefits of Social Media Use on Mental Health: Implications for College Students • Bumsoo Park, The University of Alabama; Nicholas Eckhart, The University of Alabama • This study examined whether and how social media use affects college students’ positive mental health (subjective well-being) and negative mental health (anxiety, depression) with a focus on the mediating role of social connectedness. The results indicated social media use was positively associated with social connectedness and social connectedness was positively associated with subjective well-being. While social media use was not directly associated with subjective well-being, social connectedness mediated this relationship. Similarly, social media use was not directly associated with mental health problems (anxiety, depression). Yet, this study discovered the mediating mechanism by which social media use was negatively associated with mental health problems through social connectedness and subjective well-being.

Open Competition
Correcting Vaccine Misinformation: Effects of Source Attributes and Recall on Misinformation Belief and Persuasive Outcomes • Michelle Amazeen, Boston University; Arunima Krishna, Boston University • This study offers a roadmap to employing and expanding the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad & Wright, 1994) as a useful theoretical framework for studying persuasive misinformation and corrections. Within the context of correcting vaccine-related misinformation, this experimental study (N = 1,067) indicates that the source of misinformation has significantly more influence on the belief of misinformation and on behavioral intentions than correction sources, bringing new urgency to the gatekeeping responsibilities of social media.

Crossing the Border: News Framing of the Definition, Causes and Solutions to Illegal Migration from Nigeria • Theresa Amobi, University of Lagos, Nigeria • This study explored the framing of illegal migration by Nigerian media, specifically Punch, DailyTrust, Observer and Sun newspapers, and ChannelsTV and TVC. Results show more media focus on defining the problem than on causes and solutions. Compared to newspapers, television focused more on defining illegal migration as Threat to lives/National Security. Causes appeared more in national newspapers, as driven by Pecuniary Interests/Exaggerated Expectations. Solutions, more in the local newspaper were framed as Revamping the Economy.

* Extended Abstract * Religion in Crisis: Examining the Impact of Religiosity and Religious Rhetoric in Organizational Crises • Lucinda Austin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jordan Morehouse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Research suggests people turn to religious organizations to provide comfort during times of crises; however, few scholars have examined crises within religious organizations. This study examined the impact of religious rhetoric in crisis response strategies from religious organizations and the impact of religiosity. Results from a survey-experiment with 689 respondents indicates that religious rhetoric and religiosity may impact trust and supportive intentions in crisis, particularly in ‘intentional’ crises.

Issue Controversiality Matters: How Emotions and Imagined Audience Influence the Decision to Share Societal Issue-Related Facebook Posts? • Nicky Chang Bi, University of Nebraska at Omaha • Sharing, a term that is associated with “going viral,” is an aspect of communication that all strategic communicators strive for in their communication campaigns. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) provides a framework for the current study to understand the effects of emotions generated from a message on persuasion—how high- and low-effort processes of comprehending information influence people’s decision in spreading societal issue-related Facebook posts. The researcher conducted a survey-experiment to explore the effects of emotional response to societal issues on sharing. The findings suggest individuals’ sharing decisions depend on issue types and their imagined audience. Emotions trigger both cognitive and heuristic processing of information. The results reveal that message elaboration mediates the effects of both positive and negative emotion arousal on sharing medium-controversial issues to the more symmetrical audience. Positive and negative emotions were only directly associated with sharing high-controversial issues to the symmetrical audience.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Epistemic Political Efficacy and Online Political Information Seeking Before and After the 2016 Presidential Election • Justin Blankenship, Auburn University; Martin Kifer, High Point University; Daniel Riffe, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This research sough to understand the influence of online disinformation campaigns that have become more common since the 2016 US presidential election using epistemic political efficacy and online political information seeking behaviors. Analysis of two separate surveys, one conducted in 2014, the other in 2017, show an overall decline in EPE and that online political news seeking became a strong negative predictor of EPE in 2017, while it was a strong positive predictor in 2014.

A dual system theory approach: What shapes pro- and anti- social behavior in an online discussion forum? • Yunya Song, Hong Kong Baptist University; Christine Hiu Ying Choy, Department of Social Science, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong; Qinyun Lin; Ran Xu, Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of Connecticut • This study examined how two types of online discussion are predicted by a Dual System Theory model. We collected 28,506 original posts and 1,126,455 related replies from the Hong Kong Golden forum (the most popular online discussion forum in the studied period). Using combined approaches of computerized text analysis and topic modeling, we empirically tested and compared impulsive automatic and reflective cognitive component in relevant posts to predict pro- and anti-social behavior in replies.

How Fact-checking Information Stems Spread of Fake News via Third-person Perception • Myojung Chung, Northeastern University; Nuri Kim • While fact-checking has received much attention as a potential tool to combat fake news, it remains underexplored whether and how fact-checking information lessens intentions to share fake news on social media. Two experiments uncovered the theoretical mechanism underlying the effect of fact-checking on sharing intentions, and identified an important contextual cue (i.e., social media metrics) that interacts with fact-checking effect. Exposure to fake news with fact-checking information (vs. fake news only) yielded more negative evaluations of the news, and subsequently greater belief that others are more influenced by the news than the self (third-person perception, TPP). Increased TPP, in turn, led to weaker intentions to share fake news on social media. Fact-checking information also nullified the effect of social media metrics on sharing intentions; without fact-checking information, higher (vs. lower) social media metrics induced greater intentions to share the news. However, when fact-checking debunked the news, such effect disappeared.

* Extended Abstract * The Motivated Processing of Emotions, Efficacy, and Morality in Sustainability Messages on Social Media • Carlina DiRusso, Pennsylvania State University; Jessica Myrick, Penn State University • To investigate how individuals process sustainability messages on social media, a between-subjects experiment tested the effects of emotional tone (fear/hope), efficacy (high/low) and moral framing (harm/impurity) on motivational system activation, memory, attitudes and intentions. Low-efficacy and fearful messages increased aversive system activation and memory. Political ideology significantly moderated most outcomes; namely, hope and low-efficacy influenced conservatives’ processing more than that of liberals or moderates. Future mediation analyses will employ a full path model.

Dynamics of Cognitive Biases in Assessing Age Appropriateness of Media Content: A Multilevel Moderated Mediation Analysis • Guangchao Feng, Shenzhen University; Shan Zhu, Shenzhen University • The paper discovered significant differences in age and likability ratings among the raters. Through multilevel moderated mediation modeling, it also found that the differences in age ratings between the raters were moderated by the three content-valence variables (extent of negativity, positivity, and consumerism) and that the mediation effects of likability on the rater differences in age ratings were also moderated by the extent of valence, particularly negativity and positivity.

The Diffusion of Misinformation Across Scientific Communities • Jennifer Harker, West Virginia University; Laura Sheble, Wayne State University; Jillian Peyton, West Virginia University • The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation (2002) define “scientific misconduct” as consisting of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (Fanelli, 2009). Scientific misconduct occurs frequently in scientific literature, and after an article faces retraction, it is often still cited as factual information, plaguing readers with false ideas (Lewandowsky et al., 2012; Noorden, 2011). As a result, misinformation diffuses in academic journals and spills into public discourse despite counterefforts (Budd et at., 1999). This spread of misinformation has the potential to negatively impact the scientific community and the public’s knowledge and health (Chen, Milbank, & Schultz, 2013). To learn more about the diffusion of misinformation within the scientific community and beyond, we analyzed 840 retracted articles that were published from 2000 to 2018. Citations of the retracted works were then collected (n = 49,630) and post-retraction citations were tracked. This research will help inform academic journals how best to communicate retractions to mitigate the diffusion of misinformation across scientific communities, and thus reduce subsequent dissemination of misinformation to the broader public.

Perceptions vs. Performance: How Routines, Norms, and Values Influence Journalists’ Protest Coverage Decisions • Summer Harlow; Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities • Protest paradigm researchers theorize that protests are delegitimized in news coverage because of journalistic culture and practices. This study explores the degree to which norms, routines, values, and perceptions explain coverage patterns of protest. This mixed-methods study utilizes self-reflections from a survey of journalists in four regions, alongside a content analysis of their coverage. Our study highlights how objective-observer role conceptions, routines driven by newsworthiness, and a perception-performance gap help explain protest coverage patterns.

In-Group vs. Out-Group CSR Messages and the Effects of Gender and Cause Involvement on Brand Attitudes and Positive Word-of-Mouth Intentions • Yujin Heo; Chang Won Choi, University of South Carolina; Holly Overton, University of South Carolina; Joon Kyoung Kim; Nanlan Zhang • This study investigates the influence of social distance on consumer evaluations of a CSR activity supporting women’s empowerment. One hundred and forty participants participated in a 2 (social distance: low vs. high) x 2 (gender: female vs. male) online factorial experiment. Results indicate that consumers evaluated the CSR activity more positively when they were exposed to in-group messages than out-group messages. The impact of social distance was moderated by gender differences. Implications are discussed.

You’ve Lost that Trusting Feeling: Examining the Consequences and Conditions of the Diminishing Trust in the Press in Rural and Urban US Communities • Jay Hmielowski, University of Florida; Eve Heffron, University of Florida; Yanni Ma; Michael Munroe, University of Florida – College of Journalism and Communications • In this study, we use Social Identity Theory to examine whether political ideology, where people live, and time correlate with trust in the press in the US. Moreover, we examine whether the correlation between ideology and where a person lives varies over time. We also examine a three-way interaction to determine if decreases in trust are concentrated among conservatives living in rural areas in the US. Lastly, we examined whether trust in the press serves as a mediating variable between where a person lives and their newspaper use.

Emotional Labor During Disaster Coverage: Exploring Expectations for Emotional Display • Gretchen Hoak, Kent State University • This study explored emotional labor in journalists in the context of natural disaster– a scenario when the emotional burden is high and the energy to cope is low. Analysis of 30 interviews with journalists who covered a hurricane revealed they actively engaged in emotional labor. Tactics were chosen based on a shared understanding of professional display rules and expectations mandating emotional distance. Implications for news managers and journalist mental and emotional health are explored.

A Semantic Networks Approach to Agenda Setting: The Case of #NeverAgain Social Movement on Twitter • Daud Isa, Boise State University; Itai Himelboim, University of Georgia; Guy Golan, Texas Christian University • This study examines if Network Agenda Setting (NAS) theory can better explain media influence on the public in the social media era. Findings indicate that the media is still able to influence the public by setting their agenda both explicitly and implicitly. Strong correlations between the media and the public agenda suggest that as long as the news media remain the primary source of information, it will continue to have agenda setting effects on the public.

Effects of Fake News and the Protective Role of Media Literacy Education • Se-Hoon Jeong • In this research, we tested (a) whether the effects of disinformation could increase when a deepfake video is included and (b) whether the negative effects of disinformation could be reduced by short media literacy education. An experiment using a 2 (disinformation including vs. not including a deepfake video) by 3 (no literacy vs. general disinformation literacy vs. deepfake-specific literacy) design was conducted with 316 Korean adults. Results showed that disinformation message including a deepfake video resulted in greater vividness, persuasiveness, credibility, and intent to share the message. Results also showed that media literacy education reduced individuals’ acceptance of the disinformation message such that both literacy education conditions (general and specific) resulted in less credibility and greater skepticism compared to the no literacy education condition. Interestingly, general disinformation literacy education was as effective as or even more effective than deepfake-specific literacy education. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Resistance to Media Advocacy of Pro-Environmental Civic Engagement • Hyunjung Kim • Drawing on the theory of psychological reactance, we explore a possible explanation for the decrease in individuals’ participation in environmental movements despite media advocacy and increased public awareness of the need for an environmental movement. A web-based experiment was conducted with a 2 by 2 factorial design with media and political orientation as between-subjects factors. The results demonstrate that pro-environmental civic engagement intention after exposure to an online newspaper editorial advocating the environmental movement is greater for the progressives in the progressive media group than for those in the conservative media group. The effect of media congeniality was explained by perceived media credibility and psychological reactance to the message. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.

Who says what to whom on Twitter: Exploring the roles of mass media and opinion leaders on a gun issue via two-step flow and network agenda-setting • Seonwoo Kim, Louisiana State University; Myounggi Chon; Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • This study aims to explore the relationship between activist publics and mass media on a gun issue in the framework of network agenda-setting theory. The results show partial evidence for the two-step flow of agenda-setting effects on social media. In particular, gun rights organizations bridge the gap between conservative media and gun rights activists public on Twitter. In contrast, the two-step flow is relatively rare for gun control groups compared to gun rights groups. It also reveals that gun rights groups and gun control groups use different targeting strategies. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.

Emotions, Misinformation, and Correction Tweets in El Paso and Dayton Mass Shootings • Jiyoung Lee; Shaheen Kanthawala, University of Alabama; Danielle Deavours, University of Alabama; Tanya Ott-Fulmore, University of Alabama • Although social media have become an important tool for helping users understand risky situations through information exchange, misinformation widely spreads on these platforms. This exploratory research examines features of misinformation and correction tweets during the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings in terms of emotion and users’ engagement in emotional misinformation and correction tweets. From the total number of tweets about these mass shootings exchanged between August 3 to 11, 2019, we manually coded 1,498 tweets. Our key findings suggest that misinformation was prevalent on Twitter and a large portion of the misinformation had negative emotions—particularly anger. Misinformation containing emotion was more likely to be retweeted and liked by users than emotion-neutral misinformation. However, angered misinformation was less likely to be retweeted and liked by users than general information and correction tweets with anger; however, emotional misinformation overall received comparatively more retweets and likes than correction tweets and other general information containing emotion.

#MeToo: A Social Movement Platform to Promote Social Identity, Social Judgment and Social Support among Victims-Survivors • Yukyung Lee, University of Connecticut; Carolyn A. Lin, University of Connecticut; Taiquan Peng, Michigan State University; Louvins Pierre • This exploratory study examined the #MeToo movement via a conceptual framework which integrates the constructs of social identity, social judgment and social support. Five hundred tweets with hashtags relevant to the movement were randomly selected and coded. Findings suggested that females and gender-unidentified individuals are more likely to accept the #MeToo movement than males. Those who accept the movement are more willing to provide social support to victims-survivors than those who reject the movement.

How Rational and Emotional Expression Intertwine? Exploring Public Discussion of China’s Vaccine-Scandal Event on Weibo • Yuanhang LU, Hong Kong Baptist University; Shijun NI, Hong Kong Baptist University; Yunya Song, Hong Kong Baptist University • “Focusing on the public discussion of China’s vaccine-scandal event on Weibo, this study utilizes structural topic modeling to examine how public and private issues are discussed rationally or emotionally. Our results indicate that the public issues were discussed far more than the private at both post-level and comment-level discussion. Compared to the post-level discussions, the comment-level discussions contain more emotional expressions toward public issues and more rational expressions toward private issues.

* Extended Abstract * [Extended Abstract] News Media and Twitter Users’ Framing of the Russian-Linked Facebook Ads Issue • Catherine Luther; Xu Zhang • This study examines how the mainstream news media and the public, via Twitter, framed the issue of Russian-linked Facebook advertisements that appeared prior to, during, and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Findings thus far indicate convergences in news media framing, with the exception of two frames from Fox News. Frames from the social media posts suggest that domestic politics might have clouded any concern for Russian interference and national security.

Black Lives Coverage Matters: How protest news coverage and attitudinal change affect social media engagement • Rachel Mourao; Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities • Building on protest paradigm literature, this research explores the effects of news coverage of protests on social media engagement. In a 3×2 experiment, we assess if legitimizing/delegitimizing frames increase people’s likelihood to read, share, like or comment on a story about Black Lives Matter. We found that attitudinal change mediates the relationship between protest frames and social media outcomes, but most people are reluctant to actively engage with this content on social media platforms.

How attitude certainty influences the effectiveness of direct persuasion and selfpersuasion in mass media campaigns • Barbara Müller, Radboud University Nijmegen; Lieke van den Boom; Shuang Li • The current study examined how mass media interventions can be improved by considering attitude certainty. The experiment consisted of measuring attitude certainty towards the promoted counter-attitudinal statement, and subsequently presenting participants with no persuasion (control), five arguments in favor of the statement (direct persuasion), or with the request to produce arguments themselves (self-persuasion). Results suggests that the effectiveness of direct persuasion may be affected to a stronger extent by attitude certainty than self-persuasion.

Curious Citizens: Whose Voices Are Heard in “Public-Powered” Reporting? • Betsy O’Donovan, Western Washington University; Carolyn Nielsen, Western Washington University • For decades, news narratives have centered the voices of elites over sources who represent lived experience. A new technology platform, Hearken, has sought to change that by involving the audience in deciding what to cover, how, and whose voices are heard. This content analysis examined sourcing in 80 stories from public-media stations and categorized sources as researcher, responsible party, or lived experience. Voices of lived experience dominated coverage produced using the Hearken platform.

* Extended Abstract * The effect of partisan news reporting of sexual assault allegations on blame attribution and perceived source credibility • Rebecca Ortiz • The study experimentally tested the effect of ingroup and outgroup bias on blame attribution and perceived news source credibility based upon political party affiliation (Republican or Democrat) alignment with an alleged sexual assault perpetrator and the reporting news source. Participants attributed more blame to the alleged perpetrator when he was a political outgroup member and perceived the source as least credible when it was affiliated with the outgroup and reported about an ingroup alleged perpetrator.

* Extended Abstract * Examining Consumer Attitudes Toward CSR and CSA Messages • Holly Overton, University of South Carolina; Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Nanlan Zhang; Shudan Huang • This study conducts a 2 (message type: CSR vs. CSA) x 2 (source: company vs. nonprofit organization) factorial online experiment to examine impacts on individuals’ perceived motives and attitude changes toward both the company and nonprofit (NPO) partner. Issue relevance was measured as a moderating variable. Results indicate that individuals inferred more values-driven motives from CSR messages than CSA messages, which ultimately led to more positive attitude changes toward the company. Implications are discussed.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Seafood stories: How narrative modality, emotion, and transportation influence support for sustainable aquaculture • Laura Rickard, University of Maine; Janet Yang; Vivian Liu; Tabitha Boze, University of Maine • Considerable narrative persuasion research provides evidence of attitudinal and behavioral effects in human health and environmental contexts. Whether the modality of narrative presentation influences these effects, however, remains unclear. This study uses an online experiment (N = 2,225), featuring a narrative video and narrative text condition, to consider how exposure to narrative may influence transportation, emotions, and risk-benefit perceptions and, in turn, how such perceptions affect attitudes and behavioral intentions toward sustainable aquaculture.

There’s no “me” in misinformation: Correcting online falsehoods through WhatsApp group chats • Edson Tandoc; James Lee, NTU Singapore; Sei Ching Joanna Sin, NTU Singapore; Chei Sian Lee, NTU Singapore • Guided by the frameworks of social identity theory and social presence theory, this study examined the impact of source familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and mode of delivery (interpersonal chat vs. group chat) on the perceived credibility of a correction message to debunk misinformation sent on WhatsApp. Through a five-day long experiment involving 114 participants in Singapore, this study found no main effect of either source familiarity or mode of delivery on perceived credibility of the correction message. However, the study found a significant interaction effect: When the correction is sent to a chat group, members rate it as more credible when it is sent by a source they are familiar with through prior face-to-face and online interactions, than when it is sent by a source they have never met or interacted with.

Fake news: How emotions, involvement, need for cognition, and rebuttal evidence type influence consumer reactions toward a targeted organization • Michail Vafeiadis; Anli Xiao • A 2 (involvement: low vs. high) x 2 (need for cognition (NFC): low vs. high) x 2 (rebuttal evidence type: exemplar vs. statistical) experiment was performed to explore individuals’ psychological and emotional reactions to fake news. Individuals high in involvement and NFC perceived favorably the rebuttal and developed positive attitudes and higher donation intentions toward the affected nonprofit. High-involved individuals rated positively statistical rebuttals, whereas low-involved ones preferred storytelling evidence. Rebuttal messages evoked positive emotions.

Celebrity narratives and opioid addiction prevention: The moderating role of issue relevance • Michail Vafeiadis; Weirui Wang, Florida International University; Michelle Baker, Pennsylvania State University; Fuyuan Shen • This study examined the impact of celebrity narratives on raising public awareness about opioid addiction. An online experiment with 3 (message type: celebrity narrative vs. noncelebrity narrative vs. informational message) conditions was conducted. Results indicated that a celebrity narrative is more persuasive than its noncelebrity counterpart. The data also showed that the effects of celebrity narratives are particularly pronounced for low relevance individuals. Mediation analyses provided insights about the underlying psychological process of celebrity storytelling.

Selective Exposure in the Stormy Daniels Scandal • Alyce Viens, University of Connecticut; David Atkin • In January of 2018 an alleged affair and hush money payment between U.S. President Donald Trump and adult film star Stormy Daniels was leaked. The present study investigates the Daniels scandal’s influence on public perceptions of both the President and his Republican Party by examining the influence of liberal and conservative news consumption on public perceptions of importance, blame, overall opinions of the scandal and voting intentions. Drawing from a framework based on selective exposure theory, this study aims to shed light into how both the scandal and corresponding media coverage can influence public opinion amidst a polarized media environment. Results from an MTurk survey provide qualified support for a selective exposure framework, although these effects are not consistent across media modalities, nor do they operate evenly across left and right-leaning audiences. On balance, levels of variance explained in our model approximate those uncovered in S-R processing work. Study results thus enhance our understanding of the relationship that exposure to news on a controversial topic—including partisan outlets—can have on voter conceptions and support for an incumbent candidate.

Message Framing And Public Policy How Narrative And Identification Influence The Alzheimer’s Caregiver’ Stigma And Burden • Tong Xie; Xuerong Lu, University of Georgia; Rui Zhao; Jiaying Liu • This study investigated the influence of different message framing on people’s willingness to support public policy to help the Alzheimer’s caregiving. The mediation effect of identification, perceived caregiver stigma and burden is proposed to be affecting the message framing. In addition, people’s view of technology is assessed, in order to understand in recent years, how people respond to the usage of high technology to facilitate caregiving for people living with Alzheimer’s.

Users as Experts: Folk Theories of Morality and Harmful Speech on Social Media • Rachel Young, University of Iowa; Brett Johnson, University of Missouri; Volha Kananovich, Appalachian State University • This study analyzes user reasoning about harmful speech online to identify folk theories. In 494 free responses, participants flagged 12 online speech acts or trends as harmful. Individuals were primarily identified both as the ones harmed and the ones responsible for causing harm, by posting or sharing, and for solving the problem, through ignoring or self-censoring. Based on folk theories, speech harm is a familiar but abstract problem users can identify but also comfortably ignore.

Social Identification, Psychological Distance, Compassionate Goals, and Willingness to Help during the COVID-19 Outbreak • Zhiying Yue; David Lee; Janet Yang; Jody Chin Sing Wong; Zhuling Liu • As the spread of the coronavirus is undermining the lives of many, a key question involves: what are the psychological antecedents that propel people to help those in need? Guided by research on social identity theory, psychological distance, and compassionate goals, we examine two factors that can help individuals identify themselves with those in need, which in turn facilitate their willingness to help. We test this idea in an experimental survey on American adults (N = 504) in early March, 2020, before the widespread community transmission of COVID-19 began in the United States. Results highlight two critical processes that lead Americans to identify themselves with those who suffer from the coronavirus in China. Individuals who are more pro-socially oriented (i.e., high compassionate goals) are more likely to identify themselves with those in need when they read an article highlighting similarity (vs. difference) between Americans and Chinese. Further, a moderated mediation analysis indicates that individuals who identify more with people in China are more likely to provide aid to them. These results extend prior knowledge by examining the interplay between prosocial motivation and psychological distance on prosocial behavior. Importantly, these findings suggest that risk communication that highlights the similarity (vs. difference) between us vs. them (or in-group vs. out-group), can critically influence public support for the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic.

Social Amplification of Risk before Coronavirus Was Declared an Epidemic: How Social Media Trust and Disinformation Concerns Affected Information Sharing • Xiaochen Zhang, University of Oklahoma; Raluca Cozma, Kansas State University • A survey conducted in February 2020 in the United States examined how users of social media engaged in sharing of information about COVID-19 before the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic. Building on the social amplification of risk framework, the study examines the importance of trust in information sources and of disinformation concerns during the incipient stages of a crisis when audiences had only media reports to rely on for information.

Maintaining authoritarian resilience during the public health crisis: An analysis of Chinese state media’s social media posts during the COVID-19 outbreak • Ge Zhu, University of Iowa; Rachel Young, University of Iowa; Li Chen, West Texas A&M University; Yuehong Tai • This paper studies Chinese state media’s social media posts about COVID-19 at the beginning stage of its national outbreak. Our analysis revealed the hybrid nature of state media in health crisis communication, as being government organizations that disseminating up-to-the-minute information about the emerging infectious disease and providing recommendations to the public, and being news agencies that culturally and politically frame a public health crisis to align with the party-state ideology.

Student Competition
Hostile Media Perception in the Age of Social Media: The Role of Social Identity • Eric Cooks, The University of Alabama • As more Americans consume news through social media, users are afforded the ability to express opinions through comments. This study uses a 2 (Issue position: Support vs. Oppose) x 2 (Comment identity: Ingroup vs. Outgroup) design to examine the effects of online comments on hostile media perception (HMP). Results show that outgroup comments amplified HMP, and issue opponents displayed reduced HMP. Results are discussed in relation to social identity and biased perception of news media.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Media Parenting: Why some parents are not letting electronic media raise their children • Sarah Fisher, University of Florida • Parental mentoring has been partially replaced by technology in many families today. The parental influence and open channels of communication between parents and children which have historically been the foundation for a healthy society, have been largely exchanged for technology. Media Parenting describes the use of electronic media as a replacement for parental mentoring. However, some parents are choosing to limit their children’s electronic media use and this study examines their reasoning for this choice.

Oh Snap!The Relationship Between Snapchat Engagement, Jealousy, and FoMO • Kandice Green; Zanira Ghulamhussain • “This online study identified jealousy as a factor in the relationship between snapchat engagement (SE) and fear of missing out (FoMO). The mediation model assessed 349 Snapchat users (M=32.47, SD= 8.61). Four hypotheses were tested:1)SE predicts FoMO;2) SE predicts jealousy;3) Jealousy predicts FoMO;4)Jealousy mediates the relationship between SE and FoMO. The first three hypotheses were supported. Jealousy partially mediated the relationship between SE and FoMO. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

“He’s so bad but he does it so well”: Interviews with writers of One Direction RPF • Ashley Hedrick, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study focused on interviews with writers of real person fiction (RPF)—a type of fanfiction—about British boy band One Direction. Most interviewees began writing these romantic, often sexually explicit, stories between ages 12 and 16. The findings of this research suggest revisions to sexual super peer theory and sexual scripting theory, as well as contribute to the field of psychology’s knowledge about adolescents’ participation in online contexts involving sex.

From Tweet to Headline: The Influence of Twitter Topics on the Coverage of Democratic Debates • Luna Liu, University of Colorado Boulder; Carlos Eduardo Back Vianna, University of Colorado Boulder • “This study investigates how topics discussed on Twitter during democratic presidential debates

influence the coverage of the debates on The New York Times. By using the reverse agenda- setting theory and Granger Causality tests, the results show that two topics, election and Trump, were transferred from Twitter to The New York Times in the days following the debates. Correlation tests suggest an agenda divergence phenomenon between legacy media agenda and public agenda, which begs additional research.”

* Extended Abstract * Pornography Consumption and Attitudes Toward Sex: A Meta-Analysis • Farnosh Mazandarani, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • A meta-analysis on pornography consumption and attitudes toward sex. A preliminary assessment yielded fourteen studies. We coded four moderating variables: gender, age, study location, and publication. A random-effects model was conducted to estimate combined weighted mean effects of correlations. Cumulative effect size demonstrated a significant positive association between higher pornography consumption and positive attitudes toward sex. Fail-safe N suggested 138 studies is needed to nullify effect size. Study location was the only significant moderator.

Influence of social media use for news on tolerance for disagreement and social tolerance • Aditi Rao, University of Connecticut • Despite a rich body of literature on social media effects, little is known about the influence of social media on social attitudes. This survey study (N = 538) tests the relationships between social media use for news, tolerance for disagreement, and social tolerance, across three datasets. Social media use for news positively predicted social tolerance, and this relationship strengthened after the 2018 midterm elections, indicating that social media may positively influence attitudes on social issues.

Digital Discussions of Women Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints: Intimacy in Private Facebook Groups Grounded in Motherhood • Alexis Romero Walker, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • Latter-Day-Saint women find comfort in community, including online community. This study is a digital observation of a private Facebook group with thousands of LDS mothers. The study recognizes patterns around conversations of religion, politics, and gender roles. It examines how LDS women categorize themselves/create identity, and recognizes intimate topics presented in the large “private” space. The study expresses importance to better understand groups of religious women, and communicative practices within private online spaces.

Parental and Peer Mediation in Relation to Adolescents’ Perceptions of On- and Off-screen Risk Behavior • Anne Sadza, Radboud University • Adolescents’ media-related cognitions predict their perceptions of social norms regarding risk behavior, and may be shaped by discussions of media content (i.e. active mediation). A survey was conducted among 278 adolescents to compare the relative contributions of parental and peer mediation within this process. Findings indicate both mediation types are related to adolescents’ media-related cognitions and perceived social norms in different but equally important ways, and that their valence determines the direction of these associations.

Relationships with News in the Modern Socio-Media Ecology • Carin Tunney, Michigan State University • This conceptual paper calls for a paradigm shift that considers the complexity and fluidity of today’s news consumption beyond the snapshots of use captured in previous works. The paper elaborates upon three problems with today’s news consumption research including measurement, ecological concerns, and assumptions of the inverse. The new paradigm incorporates relationship variables of satisfaction, interdependence, and endurance as a more robust method of measurement. Finally, new strategies to study consumption and avoidance are discussed.

Motivating Face-to-Face and Online Contact with Immigrants • Ryna Yeoh • This study investigates how perceived intergroup permeability and out-group status predicts intergroup contact with immigrants. This study also draws comparisons between face-to-face and online contact. A sample of 330 university students participated in a survey. Results show that out-group status predicted contact quantity, while permeability predicted contact quality. However, permeability predicted the quantity of face-to-face contact, but not online contact, suggesting some differences between contact through the online and offline setting.

<2020 Abstracts

Magazine Media Division

Print in a Digital Age: The Changing Production of Singaporean Women’s Magazines • Lydia Cheng • Boczkowski (2004, 2005) identified the production factors of organisational structures, work practices, and representations of users as particularly relevant regarding the digitalisation of newsrooms. Through interviews with 24 journalists from Singaporean women’s magazines, I looked at how technological advances have affected the production factors of these publications. Findings suggest that there is a functional differentiation (Hanusch, 2017) in magazine newsrooms, where journalists enact different values, norms, and behaviours when engaging in print and digital productions.

Analysis of ISIS Publications: Investigation into the Psychological Orientations Exhibited in Dabiq and Rumiya • Mark Kelsey • This study explores the utility of linguistic analysis for terrorism research. Publications of Dabiq (15 issues) and Rumiyah (10 issues), multi-translation online magazines produced by the Islamic State (IS, ISL, ISIS), are analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program (LIWC). Comparisons with ISIS-propaganda literature and psychological literature related to linguistic behavior are elaborated and applied. The comparison of a test independent of subject-matter (the present study) with qualitative investigations dependent upon the same subject matter is of particular interest. Linguistic analyses of the collective works of Dabiq and Rumiyah lead to the following findings: (a) Strong proclivity for hierarchical conceptualization; (b) Predilection to express authority; (c) Guarded stance; (d) Hostile emotionality; (e) Reliance on past and present temporal orientation; and (f) Social emphases.

* Extended Abstract * “Touchin,’ Feelin’ and Lovin’”: A Historical Analysis of Black Love in the Pages of Ebony Magazine • Gheni Platenburg • This study aims to identify and unpack the black love ideologies circulated by legacy Black magazine Ebony throughout its publication. Using a qualitative content analysis, the study examines the Ebony’s messaging about romantic unions as communicated through its written and visual content. Additionally, the researcher examined the presence of unrealistic relationship myths within this content. Early findings show messages fell into the general categories of physical attraction, fellowship, adventure, teamwork and endurance.

Stepping outside of the community rhetoric: The death of the Weekly Standard • Burton Speakman, Kennesaw State University; Marcus Funk, Sam Houston State University • The Weekly Standard was one of the few “Never Trump” magazines claiming to be conservative when it closed late in 2018. This paper examines how conservative and mainstream media framed the closing and also investigates the Twitter conversation surrounding the closure. The article engages in a mixed-method approach to review the topic. The findings suggest that conservatives both in the media and on Twitter took pleasure in the closure of a contrarian conservative publication. This suggests that publications who step outside of the present acceptable conservative frames stand to be punished and ridiculed from within through a form of forced rhetorical hegemony. Meanwhile, many mainstream publications lamented the closure of a publication on their opinion pages that would be have celebrated the closure during the presidency of George W. Bush as the loss of a contrary voice in a conservative movement increasingly shaped by Donald Trump.

<2020 Abstracts

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Interest Group

Investigating Sexual Racism and Interactions of Grindr App Users • Ming Wei Ang; Justin Tan • This research explores racialized sexual desires of Grindr users in Singapore through 24 semi-structured interviews. Specific to this context, we found a strict racial hierarchy where Chinese users are preferred over Malays and Indians, sustained by the preoccupation with verifying other users’ races, primarily through photos. This adds a previously unexplored dimension of how technical features structure user interactions. We also extend sexual fields theory by showing how minorities challenge the hierarchy within the field.

* Extended Abstract * Amplifying and signal boosting: How transgender engage the politics of voice and listening • Erica Ciszek; Paxton Haven, University of Texas at Austin; Nneka Logan • This paper examines the concepts of amplification and signal boosting by transgender communicators. Through in-depth interviews, we explore the experiences of transgender communicators to elicit how their lives and narratives of the world are made visible to, and demand attention from, others. This study considers the implications of these communication strategies in contemporary representations across a range of organizational contexts.

“I could NOT relate more:” An in-depth analysis of #growingupgay on Twitter • Lyric Mandell, University of Houston; Alysson Romo, University of Houston • This study employs a mixed methodology, specifically thematic and content analysis to uncover how users utilize the hashtag #growingupgay to reference identities and impression management within the LGBTQ+ community; the degree to which users of the hashtag #growingupgay reference heteronormative stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community; and uncover the most prevalent tones of voice within the hashtag. This study falls within the literature regarding impression management of stigmatized and stereotyped identities within the queer theory and social identity theory theoretical framework.

Impacts of the 2016 Presidential Elections on Transgender and Gender Diverse People • Sarah Price, University of Alabama; Jae Puckett, Michigan State University; Richard Mocarski, University of Nebraska at Kearney • Although some research has been done on the negative health impacts of the 2016 election on LGBTQ people (see Gonzalez et al,. 2018), to the authors’ knowledge little to no research has been done on the effects that the Trump’s election and anti-trans rhetoric has had specifically on TGD people. This study takes a qualitative approach, examining the daily ruminations of TGD people during the 2016 presidential election. From these ruminations, there are clear trends of anxiety and distress due to political events and rhetoric, specifically in relation to the cissexist actions of Trump and his (then upcoming) administration. Through the lens of marginalization stress, this study seeks to explore the manifestations of gender identity and stigmatization in relation to national political discourse.

No Fats, No Fems, No Asians • Andrew Kix Patterson, The University of Memphis • Self-discovery and identity are innate processes in the adolescence of LGBTQ+ youth. These youth depend on media such as television and social media to discover the culturally accepted norms of sexuality and gender identity. With this responsibility on media’s shoulders to provide an accurate and fair representation of minority groups such as the LGBTQ+, this study compares the casting, production and subsequent representation of queer characters in two MTV reality dating shows across two decades. This study investigates literature to find the possible misconceptions for queer and non-queer youth and adults and completes a qualitative content analysis of the shows in question to provide insight on the topic. Exploratory measures into the perpetuated stereotype of feminine, sexually promiscuous and conventionally attractive cis-gendered, gay men are used to understand the casting choices and the identity media are trying to portray.

Say their name: How the News Reports the Death of Transgender Individuals • Rachel Stark, The University of Memphis • Transgender individuals, especially transgender women of color, face the threat of violent death due to their gender identity. The misgendering of transgender individuals by news media and police may contribute to why the exact number of violent transgender death is unknown. This research used a qualitative content analysis of online news articles to explore how, if at all, journalists followed Associated Press Stylebook guidelines on reporting transgender individuals and the intersectionality of transnormative theory, misogynoir, bias, and structured reality in news media. Despite having clear guidelines by the Associated Press, nearly every news outlet misgendered or misrepresented transgender individuals. Journalists should consistently use the guidelines as outlined by the Associated Press to accurately describe transgender individuals, preform additional fact checking surrounding individuals’ deaths, and ensure that correct information about a person’s gender identity is published without connecting a person to their assigned name or gender at birth.

Mobilizing Social Capital Resources among Anti-Gay Marriage Civil Society Groups in Taiwan • Yowei Kang, National Taiwan Ocean University; Kenneth C. C. Yang, The University of Texas at El Paso • Homosexuality has long been a taboo in Taiwan where LGBTQ minority groups are often marginalized. Despite the landmark ruling by Taiwan’s Constitutional Court in 2017, the legalization of gay marriage has polarized its society and stirred strong objection of many anti-gay conservative and religious civil society groups. The strategic alliance of these pro-family religious groups to win a landslide majority in city and county representatives and three anti-LGBTQ referendums in the 2018 local election. Their victory has demonstrated how social capital resources can be mobilized through multi-platform technologies to accomplish the political agendas of civil society groups. This case study of four anti-LGBTQ groups attempts to provide a thorough discussion of how social capital resources can be mobilized through these media platforms to recruit supporters, change public opinions, accumulate financial resources, and obtain petitions for their anti-LGBTQ referendums before and during the 2018 elections. Discussions and implications are provided.

<2020 Abstracts

Law and Policy Division

Debut Faculty Paper Competition
Clinical Journalism Education: Legal and Ethical Implications of Faculty-Led Reporting Laboratories • Kathleen Culver, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Frank LoMonte • More U.S. journalism schools are launching, or becoming partners in, sophisticated news-gathering operations. Operating a news outlet within the confines of an educational institution presents unique challenges and unanswered questions. This research explores how journalism educators who lead courses that publish publicly conceptualize their roles with regard to legal and ethical issues. It covers the issues that most commonly confront these instructors and highlights concerns that educators may be overlooking.

A Public Good: Can Government Really Save the Press? • Patrick Walters, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania • This paper examines calls over the past decade for increased public investment in the floundering U.S. news industry (for example, McChesney & Nichols, 2010; Pickard, 2020). The paper uses both a First Amendment theoretical perspective and a political economy lens to examine the feasibility of such public solutions. It argues that, while the need for such investment is even more dire today, current political and economic realities make such a solution little more than fantasy.

Open Competition
Right to Know About the Right to Stay: Access to Information About American Immigration Courts • Jonathan Anderson, University of Minnesota • This paper reports the results of an analysis of FOIA logs from immigration courts in the United States. Two primary questions were asked: What are the characteristics of FOIA requests for immigration court records? To what extent do journalists use FOIA to gather information about immigration courts and cases? The study estimates that lawyers were the most active requesters, followed by journalists. The findings also shed light on how journalists use FOIA.

Policy Liberalism and Access to Information in the American States • Jonathan Anderson, University of Minnesota; David Pritchard, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • In theory, access to information is neither liberal nor conservative. This study empirically tests that assumption and finds that in practice legal rights of access to public records tend to be greater in states with higher levels of policy liberalism. The findings are the latest evidence in a growing body of research that suggests more attention should be paid to understanding policy liberalism’s role in protecting the free flow of information.

A Prophet Without Honor: William Ernest Hocking and Freedom of the Press • Stephen Bates, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • Freedom of the Press: A Framework of Principle (1947), by Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking, is one of the books sponsored by the Commission on Freedom of the Press, also known as the Hutchins Commission. In First Amendment literature and case law, it has gotten scarcely any attention. The neglect is unsurprising in some respects. The book is abstract and theoretical, with little mention of case law. It is also meandering, discursive, repetitive, and self-contradictory. Hocking himself called it “long, schematic, and frequently tedious.” Yet for those who make the effort, the book is remarkably prescient. It prefigures Alexander Meiklejohn’s self-government theory and his town-meeting model of public deliberation, Amitai Etzioni’s communitarian political philosophy, Isaiah Berlin’s dual theories of liberty, Owen M. Fiss’s application of the positive First Amendment to regulate the news media, and the works of many media scholars. For all its flaws, Hocking’s Freedom of the Press is a classic.

When Is a First Amendment Case Not a First Amendment Case? • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper analyzes the United States Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck. Specifically, it concentrates on how the justices divided five-to-four along lines of perceived political ideologies in both: 1) selecting different rules to analyze the issues before them, and 2) reaching opposite conclusions about the outcome of the case. In brief, choosing different rules regarding the state-action doctrine issue led the conservative and liberal blocs to reach counterposed conclusions on the First Amendment speech question. The paper suggests, in turn, that the outcomes reached by both sides comport with broad-brush stereotypes about the intersection between free expression and the danger that big government purportedly poses to individual liberties.

The End of the Affair: Can the Relationship Between Journalists and Sources Survive? • Anthony Fargo, indiana University • Prosecutions for leaking classified information to the press have increased dramatically since the start of the Obama administration. Journalists are rarely subpoenaed to identify their sources now because investigators identify leakers through phone, e-mail, and messaging app records. Common sense and anecdotal evidence suggest sources will be less willing to come forward under current conditions. News organizations should adopt ethical and limited legal obligations to help accused leakers or face the loss of important sources.

Challenges to the Conventional Wisdom About Mergers and Consumer Welfare in a Converging Internet Marketplace • Rob Frieden, Penn State University, Bellisario College of Communications • This paper identifies substantial flaws in how U.S. government agencies and courts assess the impact of proposed mergers by firms operating using broadband networks to reach consumers. Using current market definitions, consumer impact assessments and economic doctrine, antitrust enforcement agencies may fail to identify the risk of harm to consumers and competition, a so-called false negative. In recent years, the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, individually and collectively, have assessed the competitive consequences of numerous multi-billion dollar acquisitions and have conditionally approved almost all of them. These agencies appear predisposed to favor deals that involve vertical integration between market segments, based on an assumption that short term consumer welfare gains would exceed any potential competitive harms. The paper determines that reviewing government agencies appear too willing to extend current assumptions about how “bricks and mortar” markets work to transactions occurring via broadband networks. By “fighting the last war,” these agencies fail to identify new risks to consumer welfare, particularly by ventures operating in multiple markets that do not readily fit into the conventional assessment of mutually exclusive vertical and horizontal “food chains.” The paper concludes that recent and future Internet acquisitions have a much greater likelihood of generating legitimate concerns about competitive and consumer harms, particularly as markets become ever more concentrated and often dominated by a single firm.

There’s Probably a Blackout in Your Television Future: Tracking New Carriage Negotiation Strategies Between Video Content Programmers and Distributors • Rob Frieden, Penn State University, Bellisario College of Communications; Krishna Jayakar, Penn State Bellisario College of Communications; Eun-A Park, Western Colorado University • This paper explains how changes in the video marketplace have triggered changes in strategies used by pay television operators seeking permission to deliver broadcast television and pay television content to cable and satellite subscribers. When video programmers and so-called Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (“MVPDs”) fail to reach closure on a new contract for carriage, MVPDs must “blackout” the content thereby triggering immediate consumer anger. This paper refutes conclusions made by reviewing courts, which approved AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, largely on grounds that AT&T would lack the ability and incentive to trigger blackouts even while controlling “must see” content such as HBO and CNN. MVPDs, do not operate as common carriers, such as public utilities, but nevertheless bear legal rights and responsibilities, predicated on marketplace conditions necessitating regulatory support for television broadcasters. Laws and regulations by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) now appear to be based on contestable assumptions about the public interest value in promoting local programming by offering broadcasters the option of mandatory carriage by MVPDs (“must carry”) in exchange for relinquishing demands for financial compensation. The paper concludes that ventures, such as AT&T and Comcast, have enhanced negotiating power in light of their ability to trigger blackouts as both as content providers and MVPDs. Judicial assumptions that numerous and lengthy blackouts cannot occur do not appear viable when consumers can access video content from more suppliers, including new Over the Top sources like Netflix, and major MVPDs can offer wired and wireless broadband access options.

* Extended Abstract * Meiklejohn, Absolutism and Hate Speech • W. Wat Hopkins, Department of Communication, VIrginia Tech • Hate speech is generally thought to be protected by the First Amendment because it does not fall into one of the classic categories of unprotected speech identified by the Supreme Court. Alexander Meiklejohn advanced the proposition, however, that only speech of self-governing importance is worthy of such protection, and the Court has adopted that position. This paper examines the proposition that hate speech, by default, is not protected by the First Amendment.

Traditional but Open: Research Paradigms in Communications Law, 2010-2019 • Brett Johnson, University of Missouri; Leslie Klein; Jeremiah Fuzy, Missouri School of Journalism • Communications law scholarship is diverse, employing various theories and methods across distinct paradigms. This paper relies on multiple points of empirical data to examine trends in communications law research from 2010 to 2019. Findings suggest that communications law research remains very theoretically and methodologically traditional, with social scientific perspectives in the distinct minority. Nevertheless, communications law research remains open to perspectives from scholars “outside” of the field.

“What are anti-disinformation laws for? – Analyzing anti-disinformation laws from an “information disorder” perspective” • Wei-ping Li, University of Maryland • Over the past years, many countries have enacted laws to fight against disinformation. This paper examines the laws from the perspective of information production. By using the elements extracted from the “information disorder” framework developed by Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan, this paper assesses recently enacted anti-disinformation regulations in Germany, France, and Singapore. It further discusses whether the laws could contribute to the battle against disinformation or would conversely suppress freedom of expression.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Virtual assemblies: Exploring problems of private spaces and press protections • Jonathan Peters, University of Georgia • The U.N. Human Rights Committee is currently drafting an authoritative interpretation of a treaty provision guaranteeing the right of peaceful assembly. This paper explores how the provision might be interpreted to protect virtual assemblies, with a focus on two discrete issues raised by the Committee’s latest draft: (a) the nature of assembly and expressive rights in private spaces, and (b) the role of journalists in documenting and reporting on virtual assemblies.

Free Papers and Free Speech: Home Delivered Free Newspapers as Litter • Eric Robinson, University of South Carolina • As newspapers attempt to survive as viable businesses, many are purchasing or creating free community papers. Such papers are often delivered door-to-door, leading to resident complaints that have led municipalities to enact ordinances limiting such distribution. Most courts have held these ordinances unconstitutional, but a recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reached a contrary result. This paper explores this issue and recommends solutions to balance the First Amendment and residents’ concerns.

* Extended Abstract * Restoring Access to Information – Can the U.S. Learn From Other Countries? • Amy Kristin Sanders, University of Texas at Austin; William Kosinski • The Supreme Court’s Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media decision – as well as decisions permitting third-party intervention – has opened the door for increasing opposition to public records requests. This fundamental shift has global implications for transparency as other governments may follow our lead. But approaches taken by other countries to constrain third-party intervention and limit the definition of confidential information – as well as possible legislative reform – offer a glimmer of hope for transparency advocates.

Freedom of speech and press in Muslim-majority countries • Shugofa Dastgeer; Daxton Stewart, Texas Christian University • This paper examines freedom of speech and press in the constitutions of 48 Muslim majority countries in relation to actual existence of these freedoms in these countries, using a scale based on rankings of Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House. First, the findings suggest that the inclusion of Islam as a state religion in a country’s constitution does not necessarily lead to exclusion of freedom of speech and press in the constitutions of Muslim-majority countries. Second, inclusion of Islam as a state religion in the constitutions does make a significant difference when it comes to actual freedom in Muslim majority countries, based on the ranking scaled developed by the authors. Third, constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not guarantee actual freedom for expression and press in Muslim-majority countries.

* Extended Abstract * Decisions & Justifications: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Low-Value Approach to Sexually Explicit Speech • Kyla Wagner, Syracuse University; P. Brooks Fuller • In First Amendment law, the notion that sexually explicit speech is less valuable than forms of expression like false political discourse is rarely disputed. This study revives that dispute with a focus on the Supreme Court’s justifications for axiomatically categorizing sexual expression as “low-value” in the first place. The analysis reveals that a shaky, sometimes, fallacious conceptual framework rooted in third-person perception guides the Supreme Court’s sexually explicit speech jurisprudence. The framework’s implications are discussed.

Pandering, Priority or Political Weapon: Presidencies, Political Parties & the Freedom of Information Act • A.Jay Wagner • The article explores the political nature of the FOIA by examining legislative history, party messaging, presidential actions and a quantitative analysis of FOIA administration from 1975 until present. The outcomes are both predictable—Reagan & Trump having deplorable records—and surprising—George W. Bush producing a relatively transparent record. The study’s findings suggest the failures of FOIA are likely less a consequence of presidencies and political parties than an indiscriminate symptom of contemporary U.S. governance.

Piercing the Veil: Examining the Demographics of State FOI Law Administration • A.Jay Wagner • Proactive disclosure is fashionable in the field of access to government transparency, yet FOI laws remain the keystone to government transparency. Statistical analysis of a 1,002-request FOI audit identifies demographic and political variables that significantly influence request outcomes, namely geography, race and Republican voting and representation. Pinpointing variables that affect FOI outcomes is necessary as the laws provide an individual, actionable right to government information that other mechanisms lack, making rehabilitating FOI invaluable.

Biometrics and Privacy: Regulating the Use of Facial Recognition Technology • Kearston Wesner, Quinnipiac University • Companies and government entities have increasingly used facial recognition technology (FRT) to protect the public from disease, apprehend criminals, ensure public safety, and provide seamless commercial experiences. However, FRT has been criticized for a variety of reasons. It is notoriously fallible, especially when called upon to identify women and people of color. And its use encourages significant privacy violations, with some scholars and advocates suggesting that it opens the door to a surveillance society. This paper analyzes FRT and argues against unrestrained deployment of this technology. It addresses four state statutes, as well as several local ordinances, that have been passed to regulate FRT. Drawing from these sources, particularly Illinois’ Biometric Privacy Act, as well as commentary from scholars and privacy advocates, the paper recommends a model federal biometric privacy statute. The statute incorporates notice, clarity, and testing elements. It also recommends provisions prohibiting employee retaliation and consumer discrimination.

<2020 Abstracts

Internships and Careers Interest Group

“Document Your Learning” Internships, student learning and program evaluation • Sharee Broussard, Belmont University • Directing students to “document your learning” in internships and establishing best practice-enabled internship program structure and tools yields thoughtful student reflection that demonstrates achievement of student learning outcomes. Through well-designed structure and tools, data collected in regular student and supervisor reporting can be used in program-level assessment as required by regional accrediting bodies and can inform program-level discussions and decision making.

* Extended Abstract * The Advertising & Public Relations Portfolio Imperative: Not Just for “Creative” Students Anymore • Margaret (Peg) Murphy, Columbia College Chicago • ““Creative” advertising and public relation students (art directors, designers, copywriters, etc.) are pushed to develop portfolios. However, an examination of 2020 coursework, websites, and career centers at 87 leading universities nationwide reveals “non-creative” ad and PR tracks seldom include portfolio work. Yet, academic and industry literature support portfolio development to highlight skills and differentiate candidates in competitive marketplaces. This author argues digital portfolios are a career preparation imperative for all advertising and public relations graduates.”

* Extended Abstract * Seeking ‘Skilled, Poised, Fluent’ Verbal Communicators: Aesthetic Labor and Signaling in Journalism Job Advertisements • Elia Powers, Assistant Professor, Towson University • Journalism job advertisements send important signals about skills and attributes that news organizations value. This study explores how advertisements convey expectations for how journalists should sound by conducting a thematic content analysis of U.S. journalism job listings (n = 510) for positions requiring substantial verbal communication (e.g., reporters and broadcast anchors). Requirements for exceptional verbal skills and explicit calls for vocal clarity create obstacles to occupational entry for journalists with speech disabilities or speech anxiety.

<2020 Abstracts

International Communication Division

James W. Markham Student Paper Competition
Twitter engagement and interactions with public agencies and citizens’ overall trust in the Nigerian government • Olushola Aromona, University of Kansas • Following the #OccupyNigeria protests in 2012, use of social media, particularly Twitter, for election monitoring, mobilization, and civic engagement has increased in Nigeria. The impact of social media on engagement and interactions between government agencies and their online citizens has been demonstrated. Research indicate that online interactions and engagement are relevant for citizens’ trust in the government. Using a content analysis and online survey, this pilot study examines the interactions between Nigerian government agencies and Nigerian Twitter users in fostering trust. Findings revealed negative patterns of engagement and interactions. While citizens engage and interact with government agencies, the discourses were largely negative; thus, the relationship between engagement, interactions, and trust is largely negative. However, this relationship is moderated by party affiliation, education, and age.

Peace, Harmony, and Coca-Cola: Decoding Coca-Cola’s Ramadan 2018 Advertisement • Reham Bohamad; Daleana Phillips • Coca-Cola’s 2018 Ramadan commercial was designed to foster unity and harmony through a multicultural marketing strategy for Dutch audiences. The Netherlands, as well as mainland Europe, is experiencing a wave of right-wing populism or nationalistic political ideologies since the terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussel’s in the mid-2000s. Dutch attitudes toward the steady influx of Muslim immigrants since World War II has shifted from acceptance toward hostility. Increasing nationalistic political rhetoric and xenophobia in The Netherlands reflects this growing hostility toward Muslims. This analysis of Coca-Cola’s Ramadan advertisement utilizes Stuart Hall’s Encoding and Decoding theoretical framework to examine readings from three different levels: dominant, negotiated, and oppositional. The dominant level reflects Coca-Cola’s encoded message that its product can generate racial/ethnic and religious harmony by providing a common platform of understanding through sharing a Coke. The negotiated level reflects Coca-Cola’s position as a major global corporation attempting to sell a product. The oppositional reading utilizes Critical Race Theory as an oppositional framework for interpreting Coca-Cola’s advertisement. This commercial utilizes an assimilationist strategy to build a sense of harmony and trust around a female Muslim representation that has been highly Westernized. Furthermore, Coca-Cola’s Ramadan commercial promotes the idea that the consumption of their product is the solution to ending discrimination toward Muslims in the Netherlands. Their advertising strategy results in contributing to post-racial ideologies that silence discussions about race/ethnicity and religion while allowing “law and order” rhetoric and policies to monitor Muslim immigrants’ movements through policing and surveillance.

Factors Influencing Nutrition News Reporting Among Ghanaian Journalits • Augustine Botwe • The media in Ghana can play a significant role in informing the public about health issues. But in Ghana coverage of nutrition is low. The results of a cross-sectional survey of Ghanaian journalists (n=105) show that reporting on nutrition is influenced by gender, media dynamics, journalists’ health orientation and the three constructs of the theory of planned behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Partisanship, News Uses, and Political Attitudes in Ghana: An Application of the Communication Mediation Model • Abdul Wahab Gibrilu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • “Past communication mediation studies have shown positive relationships between media uses and citizens political attitudes, but understanding the mechanisms underlying the relationship is limited because they often did not take into account the diverse affordances of the media uses and the environment it triggers effects. Using a national Afro-barometer survey (N = 2,400) in Ghana, the present study examined the relationship between media uses and a variety of citizens’ political attitudes and how such relationships are affected by partisanship. Based on series of regression analysis, findings showed that online news uses consistently predicted all levels of citizens political attitudes whilst traditional media use was only associated with citizens levels of presidential trust and confidence in government. When partisan differences were further examined, results showed that only online media uses by ruling party members exhibited direct effects on trust in president and democratic satisfaction. However, in all, traditional media uses based on ruling party support and no party members exhibited indirect effects on political attitudes. Oppositional members showed no effect.

Global Coverage of COVID-19: Examining CNN and CCTV news in guiding public sentiments • Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado-Boulder • This study set out to examine how CNN and CCTV news covered the COVID-2019 pandemic from December 2019 to February 2020. The aim was to investigate the role that the global mainstream media play in guiding public sentiments during a global pandemic impacting everyone across race, color, social status, and geographical boundaries. Comparative analyses suggest that both CNN and CCTV news were only partial in their coverage when reporting about themselves. When talking about each other, the two countries seemed to employ a problem-centered approach where stories focused on blame and the economic ramifications of the COVID-19. As CNN was being blamed for focusing on the social cost of the pandemic, CCTV news was equally blamed for the lack of transparency. Further findings suggest that both media failed to mediate the general public concerns about the coronavirus at a global level. In other words, both CNN and CCTV news failed to adopt a stabilizing role towards the panicking audience in the sense that they did not implement strategies of reassurance to the public in their reporting.

* Extended Abstract * News framing in Bangladesh, India and British media: Bangladesh parliamentary election 2018 • Kazi Mehedi Hasan, University of Mississippi • After the abolition of the non-partisan caretaker government probation from the constitution, for the first time all opposition parties participated in the 2018 parliamentary election under a party government in Bangladesh. This study examines how the media of Bangladesh, India, and Britain framed the election and finds that election conspiracy, intimidation, and conflict frames are dominant in Bangladeshi and British media. Remarkably, Indian media abases intimidation and conflict but emphasizes on the game and economic frames.

First-generation immigrants’ and sojourners’ susceptibility to disinformation • Solyee Kim, University of Georgia; Hyoyeon Jun • News consumption enhances the contact experience for first-generation immigrants and sojourners in their acculturation to the host culture. Using acculturation theory, this study explores interdisciplinary concepts. The authors argue that first-generation immigrants and sojourners’ level of the English proficiency, length of stay in the host culture and their news consumption impact their susceptibility to disinformation. As foreign-born residents make up close to 14% of the U.S. population, this study will provide meaningful insights.

Cultural Identity of Post-Colonial South Koreans: Through the South Korean Boycott against Japan in 2019 • Jisoo Kim, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Journalism and Mass Communication • The colonial history between South Korea and Japan as the once colonized and the once colonizing did not fade but continued to impact both nations. South Koreans nationwide boycott of 2019 against Japan engendered in this context. Through a critical discourse analysis on the news articles representation and online discussions concerning the boycott, the present study aimed at a better understanding of the cultural identities of post-colonial South Koreans that emerged amid the situation.

Journalism in continuous circulation: appropriations of language and knowledge through independent circuits of information on Whatsapp • Eloisa Klein • The paper analyzes how information circuits external to journalism appropriate journalistic characteristics of language and knowledge to build their own audience and operating logic. We carried out a study of a network of 50 Whatsapp groups, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, gathered under the name of News Hunters. We note the emphasis on the microlocal, as well as the predominance of a notion of factuality related to the interruption of regularity, in addition to an independent system of information mediation.

Network Agenda Setting, Transnationalism and Territoriality: Chinese Diasporic Media in the United States • ZHI LIN, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University; Ziyuan LI, Shanghai Jiaotong University • This study employs network agenda setting to explore transnationalism and territoriality between Chinese diasporic media, Chinese media and American media. Although Chinese and American media significantly influence Chinese diasporic media, influence of American media becomes non-significant after controlling Chinese media. Chinese media is influenced by American media because China is proactively responding to international media, during which its own agenda is set. Chinese media mediates agenda setting effects between American and Chinese diasporic media.

China in Gilgit-Baltistan: A comparative analysis of Pakistani and Indian newspapers • Muhammad Masood, City University of Hong Kong • Gilgit-Baltistan is the only border region of Pakistan connected with China. India, however, claims Gilgit-Baltistan as an integral part of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Nonetheless, China is very active in Gilgit-Baltistan, such as in the form of various Chinese projects. Thus, Gilgit-Baltistan possesses both geographically essential and geopolitically controversial position in South Asia. This study analyzes news framing and discursive legitimation of two competing newspapers’ coverages on “China in Gilgit-Baltistan” – Dawn and The Hindu.

Framing Chinese Investment in Africa: Media Coverage in Africa, China, the United Kingdom, and United States of America • Frankline Matanji, University of Iowa • This study is grounded on framing theory to understand tones and frames adopted by media from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, China, the United States, and United Kingdom in the coverage of Chinese investment in Africa, relying on news articles collected between 2013 and 2018. Results of this quantitative content analysis study indicate that each tone and generic frame was adopted with varying levels of intensity across the countries under study.

Hashtag feminism and lifting the ban on Iranian female spectators. The case study of #BlueGirl • Fatemeh Shayesteh, University of Kansas • This study examined how Iranian women’s stadium ban is discussed by Twitter users with the hashtag #BlueGirl in Farsi and English. I used the feminist theory and the literature of hashtag feminism to analyze the tweets about the death of Sahar, a soccer fan who self-immolated to protest the stadium ban. Using the qualitative content analysis, I identified the emerging narratives and themes, including feminist themes from 600 analyzed tweets.

Moderated Conditional Effects of Social Media Use, Political Discussion and Trust in Politics on Three Types of Political Participation: Cross-National Evidence • Yan Su; Xizhu Xiao • Anchored by the theoretical framework of the differential gains model, this study analyzes nationwide surveys from three Asian societies: Japan, Taiwan, and China, in terms of the moderated conditional effects of social media use, political discussion and trust in politics on contact participation, civic engagement and electoral participation. Results suggested that trust in politics was a significant predictor of electoral participation in all three societies, whereas social media use and political discussion had varying effects on different types of participation in different countries. The conventional differential gains model was partially confirmed in Japan and Taiwan, while it did not hold true in China. However, a significant moderated conditional effect emerged in China. This study extends the differential gains model into a moderated moderation model. Implications are discussed.

Good Rohingyas, bad Rohingyas : How Rohingya narratives shifted in Bangladeshi media • Mushfique Wadud, University of Nevada, Reno • This study investigates how Rohingya refugees are framed in Bangladeshi media outlets. Rohingyas are ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state facing persecution for the last few decades. Majority Rohingas fled to neighboring Bangladesh after a massive crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017. A total of 914,998 Rohingyas are now residing in refugee camps in Bangladesh (as of September 30, 2019). Built on framing theory and based on qualitative content analysis of 420 news stories and opinion pieces of five daily newspapers and two online news portals, the study first examines dominant frames used by Bangladeshi news outlets on Rohingya refugees. The study then goes on to investigate frame variation over time. It also investigates whether framings vary based on character of the news outlets and their ideologies. Findings show that frames vary over time and tabloid and online news outlets are more hostile towards refugees than quality newspapers. The study also finds that right wing news outlets are pro-refugees in Rohingya case. This might be due to Rohingya’s Muslim identity.

Depicting the mediated emotion flow: The super-spreaders of emotions during COVID-19 on Weibo • Jingjing Yi, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Jiayu Qu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Wanjiang Zhang, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study collected two million posts and reposts regarding COVID-19 on Weibo. Emotion analysis and social network analysis were used to examine mediated emotion flow by comparing it with information flow. Results indicated that both the emotion and information flow presents a multi-layer mode, while the emotion network has a higher transmission efficiency; Officially verified accounts are more likely to become super-spreaders of emotions; Good emotions were predominant but isolated from others in online discussions.

Robert L. Stevenson Open Paper Competition
Saudi Women Take the Wheel: A Content Analysis of How Saudi Arabian Car Companies Reached Women on Social Media • Khalid Alharbi, University of South Carolina; Kelli Boling, University of South Carolina; Carol Pardun, University of South Carolina • This study explored how automobile companies in Saudi Arabia used Twitter to market to women after the government lifted the ban on women driving. The study examined these 184 tweets and the 92 advertisements embedded in them using both quantitative and qualitative methodology. The results suggest that auto companies were supportive of women and presented them as more independent and authoritative than has historically been considered typical for Saudi Arabia.

Women refugees’ media usage: Overcoming information precarity and housing precarity in Hamburg, Germany • Miriam Berg, Northwestern University in Qatar • This study examines how women refugees in Hamburg, Germany, of whom many arrived either as minors with their family members or as unaccompanied minors (now young adults), have managed to overcome information precarity experienced as a result of limited and/or restricted access to the internet and/or traditional media. This study also examines whether the forced migration and constantly changing living conditions these women have experienced, from mass emergency shelters to refugee accommodation and youth flats (and for some, a return back to refugee accommodation), have impacted their media usage. Findings from 32 semi-structured interviews with refugee women originating from various countries (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Syria, and Turkey) have shown that their overall perception of precarity was amplified by limited internet access. Yet, refugee women were actively seeking to overcome this precarity and were extremely resilient and resourceful in finding ways to access the internet so as to utilize various digital media and information and communication technologies tools. Despite the fact that this study does not exclusively focus on mobile phone use, the findings indicate in particular that mobile phones represent a lifeline for refugee women and are seen as being as vital to their everyday lives as food or shelter.

Perpetual dependency syndrome: Journalism and mass communication education in Pakistan • David Bockino; Amir Ilyas, University of the Punjab • Utilizing the theoretical foundation of new institutionalism, this study explores journalism and mass communication education in Pakistan. Anchored by interviews across five programs in the city of Lahore, the study identifies key moments and people in the trajectory of these programs, explores the current connection between these programs and the larger journalism and mass communication organizational field, and examines why many educators within these Pakistani programs feel so constrained by the supranational institutional environment.

After the Revolution: Tunisian Journalism Students and a News Media in Transition • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University; Carolyn Nielsen, Western Washington University; Arwa Kooli, L’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information; Rafia Somai, L’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information; Joe Gosen, Western Washington University • A decade after the Jasmine Revolution ushered in the Arab Spring, Tunisia remains a bright spot for democratic reform and press freedom in the region. However, this transition is still tentative, and the reforms remain fragile. This study examines Tunisian journalism students (N=193) to understand their motivations for earning a degree in the field and how they conceptualize journalism’s role in society. By studying the extent to which future Tunisian journalists understand their professional roles as protectors of democratic values, we may gain a glimpse into how they are internalizing the lessons of the revolution. The results of this survey showed that students emphasized social responsibility motivations for studying journalism. Participants most strongly valued the role of journalists in promoting tolerance and cultural diversity, educating the audience, letting people express their views, reporting things as they are, and supporting national development. These results suggest that Tunisian students view their work as assuming monitorial and interventionist roles. Finally, they have mixed views about social media’s impact on journalism.

Survival in an Online-First Era: Exploring Social Media’s Effects on Indian Journalism & Resultant Challenges • Dhiman Chattopadhyay, Shippensburg University • With greater access to technology, countries in the so-called Global South are increasingly using social media platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook as a major source of breaking news. This study conducts a first-of-its-kind pan-Indian study of Indian journalists to examine how social media’s ability to break news first has affected journalistic practices in the world’s most populated democracy. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 senior editors at some of the country’s largest newspapers, magazines, TV channels and websites to understand editors’ own perspectives about how social media have affected gatekeeping practices, resultant challenges, and the way forward. Findings indicate Indian journalists face unique challenges because of the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-caste structure of the nation, and differences in politico-economic structure of the media industry also results in a different understanding of the Gatekeeping function and the Hierarchy of Influences Model. Implications are discussed.

How Public Deliberation Happens in an Unlikely Place:A Case Study on Ghana’s Deliberative Poll • Kaiping Chen, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Empowering ordinary citizens with the capacity to deliberate is a core issue in science communication. Despite growing deliberative practices in developed nations, it is significantly less understood how public deliberation can happen among impoverished populations who lack formal education in developing countries. This paper studied a case of a well-designed deliberation method, Deliberative Poll, in Tamale, Ghana. I examined how scientific expertise was used, the type of arguments raised, and the quality of people’s dialogues by analyzing thousands of speech acts from deliberation transcripts and the information material provided to participants. I found that in a well-designed deliberation environment, scientific expertise is well represented. Marginalized populations had thoughtful discussions on complex policy issues. Local policymakers even considered their opinions. This paper contributes to our understanding of how to effectively foster public deliberation among marginalized populations and systematically measure the nuances of scientific expertise and public reasoning on science

Cinema and the ethnic divide: Contemporary representations of Mexico and Mexicans in Hollywood Films • Gabriel Dominguez Partida, Texas Tech University; Hector Rendon, Texas Tech University • “Cinema produced in a country exhibits values and traits of the local culture. It also personifies members of out-groups seen as the other, portrayed with a series of particular characteristics easily distinguishable by the domestic audience. However, the preponderance of Hollywood’s products in the international film markets makes their representations more influential. The majority of its films depict the dominance of the white culture from a heroic and superior perspective about others.

In the case of Mexico and Mexicans, Hollywood films present the country and its inhabitants in a disadvantageous position. Nevertheless, previous studies indicate that the image of a lawless land plagued with bandits has gradually changed to a more positive one since NAFTA. This representation is vital as films contribute to developing an identity, and if these images present negative attributes, people tend to reject their own culture.

Hence, this study consists of a content analysis of 39 scripts from Hollywood films produced from 2000 to 2019 to analyze how they describe Mexico and Mexicans, the prevalence of negative and positive depictions, and how the incorporation of Mexican characters and Mexico as the central location influence these representations. Results suggest that a negative image of Mexico has been perpetuated in those films, relating the country and its inhabitants as dangerous, inferior, and primitive in comparison with the U.S. However, when productions include Mexican characters among the protagonists a tendency exists to reduce the negative image of the nation and its residents.”

Circling the Paradigmatic Wagons: A Comparative Analysis of Journalistic Paradigm Defense. • Lyombe Eko; Cassandra Hayes • This article explores, describes, and explains, the concept of journalistic paradigm defense from a comparative, international perspective, using as case studies a number of “mediatized meta-events,” problematic situations, and crises that posed perceived existential threats to the journalistic paradigm– or the freedom of speech and of the press on which it is grounded–in a number of jurisdictions. This analysis was carried out within the framework of journalism as a paradigm, a way of seeing, organizing and representing reality. When this paradigm is threatened, journalists from different cultural geographies of freedom of expression rise to defend it.

Understanding Latin American Data Journalism: Open-Coding Culture, Transparency, and Investigative Reporting • Maria Isabel Magaña, Universidad de La Sabana; Víctor García-Perdomo, Universidad de La Sabana • This study analyzes how Latin American reporters understand data journalism according to their social contexts, how they make sense of digital technologies and how technical artifacts (tools, data, software) shape their journalistic values and practices. Results show that reporters understand data journalism as a hybrid between investigative journalism and open-source culture. They value transparency over other traditional journalistic values, which creates activism towards open data, access and freedom of information.

The vox-pop, the victim and the active citizen: A Content Analysis of Citizen Sources in Non-Western International Broadcasting in Spanish • Miriam Hernandez, CSUDH; Dani Madrid-Morales, University of Houston • This study examines the salience of citizen sources, its news functions and its relationship to foreign policy objectives in three international State broadcasters: Iran’s HispanTV, Russia’s RT and China’s CGTN Español. Through a content analysis of news stories broadcasted in 2014 and 2017 (N = 1,265), results indicate the representation of ordinary sources follows well-known news functions (vox-pop, exemplars and active agents), but they also strategically respond to foreign policy interests. Implications and differences among broadcasters are discussed.

Have a Seat! How Digital-native News Organization in Colombia Built Consensus on the Topic of Venezuela Through Social Media • Vanessa HIggins Joyce, Texas State University • Correlation of different segments of society is a major function of mass media. However, little is known about how consensus building works in the networked, digital environment and in Latin America. This study tested the premise on a social media page from a digital-native news organization in Colombia, on the salient issue of Venezuela. It found support for consensus building between men and women (rs=.76, n=10, p<.05) on substantive attributes of the issue of Venezuela.

* Extended Abstract * Extended abstract: Blaming Others: Stigmas Related to COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia and Malaysia • Ika Idris, Universitas Paramadina; Nuurrianti Jalli, Universiti Teknologi Mara • This study investigates the stigmas formed around the COVID-19 through Twitter conversations in Indonesia and Malaysia. We collected 450,000 tweets related to the COVID-19 and analyzed 6,932 using quantitative content analysis. We found that the central stigma in Indonesia was ‘labeling’ while in Malaysia, it was ‘responsibility’ of a religious group amid the pandemic. Although differing primary stigmas, conversations in both countries inclined to blame on other actors as the cause of the pandemic.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: The Marriage of Inconvenience: An Exploratory Analysis of Media Convergence in Pakistan • Muhammad Ittefaq, University of Kansas; Ammar Malik Sheikh, Mashable Pakistan; Waqas Ejaz; Muhammad Yousaf, University of Gujrat; Shahira S Fahmy, The American University in Cairo • Based on the hierarchy of influence model and the diffusion of innovation theory, we explore perceptions on media convergence in Pakistan’s media industry and its socio-economic impact on journalists’ work and routines. Our study of in-depth interviews with Pakistani journalists, contribute to the growing literature on media convergence. It, therefore, will allow for a deeper understanding of the various aspects of modern (converged) journalism, specifically the challenges and opportunities of multimedia in the developing world.

Sakazuki, Kodokushi: Website Depictions of Japanese Seniors in the World’s Grayest Society • Hong Ji; Anne Cooper-Chen, Ohio u; Tomoko Kanayama; Eiko Gilliford • This study analyzed 355 images, including 167 elders and 136 staffers, who appeared in photographs taken at Japanese senior living facilities. The marketing-oriented websites showed primarily healthy, joyful-looking elders, 64.7% female and 35.3% male; 93.4% are pictured with others, and 21.0% are in wheelchairs. Results supported the universalism and endurance of Maslow’s (1954) Hierarchy of Needs and Hofstede’s (2001) Dimensions of Cultural Variability. The study partly redresses the dearth of research in English on Japan.

Perceptions of refugees in their home countries and abroad: A content analysis of la caravana migrante/the migrant caravan in Central America and the United States • Linda Jean Kenix, University of Canterbury; Jorge Freddy Bolanos Lopez, University of Canterbury • In October 2018, a group of Honduran citizens announced that they would walk towards the American South border looking to be allowed entry into the United States. This research asks how media in five Central American countries and that of several states in The United States covered these refugees during what was called ‘the migrant caravan.’ Any mediated differences found can translate to very real consequences for how these refugees are viewed in their home countries and in the country that they are moving towards. Repeated media imagery can form ideology and culture within a nation state. This research is important as these mediated representations can then form how refugees are treated, both in policy and through interpersonal interactions.

Innocence Killed: Framing of Visual Propaganda in the Recruitment, Radicalization and Desensitization of the Children of ISIS • Flora Khoo; William Brown • Millions of children living in the Islamic State have witnessed senseless violence as part of their daily lives and are targeted by ISIS for recruitment. This study examines the appeals ISIS uses to recruit children. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 22 ISIS child propaganda videos, results illuminate how the narrative of the glorification of heaven attracts potential martyrs and how families form a key part of the narratives used to recruit children.

Lone Wolf or Islamic State: A Content Analysis of Global News Verbal Framing of Terrorist Acts • ASHLEY LARSON • Scholars have identified the mass media plays a crucial role in the dissemination of terror messages. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, much attention has been paid to terrorism in the global television landscape. More recently, the discourse surrounding acts of terror has changed, due in part to the people behind the attacks. This study seeks to understand how global television news broadcasts verbally frame acts of terror based on two current threats: the individual terrorist (the Lone Wolf) and the organized group (the Islamic State). Findings indicate global news has strong similarities of the verbal framing of terrorist attacks, regardless of the classification of the attacker.

Winning Hearts and Minds Through Cuisine: Public Diplomacy and Singapore’s Bid for UNESCO Intangible Heritage Recognition • Seow Ting Lee, University of Colorado Boulder; Hun Shik Kim, University of Colorado at Boulder • “Food represents a common ground for all, enabling nation states to use gastrodiplomacy to build tangible and emotional transnational connections with foreign publics through food.

This paper examines middle power Singapore’s national and international campaigns to inscribe its hawker culture through UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Singapore’s UNESCO bid is motivated by a desire, in collaboration with non-state actors, to strengthen the value and standing of its nation brand through food.”

A Case Study of Foreign Correspondents’ Use of Twitter during the 2019 Hong Kong Protests • LUWEI ROSE LUQIU; Shuning Lu, North Dakota State University • Technological innovation has altered the power balance among journalists, news media outlets, and audiences. Twitter, for instance, has provided journalists with new opportunities to disseminate unedited content directly to the public, thus exercising freedom of press at the individual level. Informed by scholarship on journalistic normalization and news engagement, the research described here examined the sourcing, content, and engagement on Twitter among 20 foreign correspondents from Western legacy media during the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong. The analysis of this case study shows that these journalists interacted more with other journalists than with members of the general public, and also that they were more engaged in sharing factual information than in self-branding. Further, while few of the journalists’ tweets contained their personal opinion, these non-factual tweets generated more likes, comments, and retweets than those factual ones. This finding is significant because the expression of personal opinions can increase the transparency of reporting as well as engagement between journalists and their audiences. A profound implication of the findings presented here is that news outlets and journalists should rethink the relationship between objectivity and transparency in the networked environment.

The Cross-Culture Selfie Study: Exploring the Difference between Chinese and American Motivations for Taking and Sharing Selfies on Social Media • Yuanwei Lyu, The University of Alabama; Steven Holiday, The University of Alabama • Based on the cultural dimension framework, this study explores the motives for taking and posting selfies on social media in different cultural contexts. While cultural dimensions have been widely applied to understanding communication practices, a question remains concerning whether Hofstede’s (1994) original cultural aspects are still applicable in undergoing societies. Using the data collected from the United States and China, this research seeks to examine the differences and commonalities in motivations for taking and sharing selfies between these two technologically-progressive countries. The findings will validate past scholarship on the uses and gratifications (U&G) of selfies, but also provide support for the global online culture.

Dialectics of Complexity: A Five-Country Examination of Perceptions of Social Media Platforms • Gina M. Masullo, School of Journalism, The University of Texas at Austin; Martin Riedl, University of Texas at Austin; Ori Tenenboim, School of Journalism, The University of Texas at Austin • This study examined people’s lived experiences with social media through 10 focus groups across five countries: Brazil, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States. Findings demonstrate that social media make people’s lives less complex, but this belies heightened complexity as they negotiate four paradoxes when using social media. We describe these as dialectics between: convenience versus safety, helpful versus unreliable information, meaningful versus wasted time, and feeling better using platforms versus feeling worse.

Press Freedom in East Africa: Perceptions from journalists in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya • Karen McIntyre, Virginia Commonwealth University; Meghan Sobel Cohen • This cross-national comparative survey sought to understand how journalists in three East African countries — Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya — perceive their press freedom, what factors influence that freedom, as well as how accurately they view international press freedom rankings. Among other findings, the data revealed that journalists in all three countries reported similar threats to press freedom, with fear of government retaliation and repressive national laws as the factors that most influence freedom in the region.

Negotiating a digital self: Journalists’ use of Twitter and Instagram • Claudia Mellado; Amaranta Alfaro • Based on face-to-face, in-depth interviews with 31 Chilean journalists from national TV, radio, print, and online media, this study explores how they negotiate their identities and media use on Twitter and Instagram. The results suggest that, overall, Chilean journalists use Twitter and Instagram to stay informed, report the news, engage in branding activities, and interact with their audiences, expanding the scope of their work to include new professional roles and allow for the emergence of different but not mutually exclusive digital selves. Nevertheless, important differences were found based on the platform used and the journalists’ own perception of which practices are valid and important. Specifically, three groups were identified. While we found strong patterns of a reinterpretation of journalistic practices by normalizing some traditional functions into social media, which is represented by the “adapted”; we also found clear elements of redefinition of the journalistic work, represented by the “redefiners.” They disrupt traditional norms merging their different selves in both platforms, and use their accounts differently to target specific audiences. We also identified a group of journalists who resist the idea of mixing their professional work with social media practices, remaining “skeptical” to changes.

Whose News to Trust? Presidential Approval and Media Trust in the U.S. and Russia • Kelsey Mesmer, Wayne State University; Elizabeth Stoycheff • Trust in journalism has declined around the world. This study employs a comparative survey of two divergent political systems – the United States and Russia – to better understand eroding faith in their media institutions. We hypothesize that these declines have occurred, in no small part, as a result of support for authoritative political leadership that seeks to control the national news narrative. Survey results indicated a negative relationship between American citizens’ trust of national news media and support for U.S. President Donald Trump, and a positive relationship between Russian citizens’ trust of national news media and Russian President Vladimir Putin. We situate these findings in the context of each country’s media system.

* Extended Abstract * Cross-media Use in Civic Engagement : The Hybridity of Collective, Connective, and Individual Actions in Politics • Hailey Hyun-kyung Oh; Yoon Jae Jang; So Eun Lee • This research aims to explore the impacts of cross-media use for news upon political participation in the context of South Korea. Studies have shown that, under new media environment, people use a group of media for news and political information (Pew Research, 2008; Kang, & Kim, 2010; Dubois, & Blank, 2018; Newman, Fletcher, Kalogeropoulos, & Nielsen, 2019). The constellation of news media individuals draw for their daily news consumption was also identified as media repertoire (Van Rees & Van Eijck, 2003; Ksiazek, 2011; Yuan, 2011; Kim, 2014). Cross-media audience is a heterogeneous group that can be fragmented depending on what kind of media they use as the major source for news. The increasing cross-media audience reflects people are more likely to blend traditional and new media for consuming news, and this hybridity in media repertoire is also relevant to various political activities, from individual to collective actions leading to transnational-level social movements (Chadwick, 2013; Chadwick, O’Loughlin, & Vaccari, 2017). Assuming that political actions, encouraged by news media, vary across platforms—that is, a certain type of media platform encourages individual actions while others motivate more collective actions, or connective ones—this study identifies the audience using more than two types of news media among five, i.e. newspapers, television, radio, magazine, and the Internet, and categorizes this cross-media audience based on their media repertoire. After categorizing each type of cross-media audience, its demographic characteristics is identified respectively. Lastly, how this hybridity of media use influence civic engagement is tested.

Blurring the lines between fiction and reality: Framing the Ukrainian presidency in the political situation comedy Servant of the People • Nataliya Roman; Berrin Beasley; John Parmelee • This study examines presidential framing in the Ukrainian sitcom Servant of the People, which helped Ukrainian comedian and political novice Volodymyr Zelenskyy win the presidency in 2019. Building upon research into fictional framing (Holbert et al., 2005; Mulligan & Habel, 2011) and political satire verite (Conway, 2016), this study analyzes the roles and character traits of Vasiliy Goloborodko, a fictional Ukrainian president played by Zelenskyy. The findings expand framing theory to include fictional political leaders in sitcoms and provide insight into the role the comedy played in Zelenskyy’s historic presidential victory.

* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Networking (with Other) Crises: Translating the Refugee Crisis into Advocacy for the Roma • Adina Schneeweis, Oakland University • This article is a study of advocacy communication and the ideological translation of plight. It examines how activism for Europe’s largest minority group, the Roma (Gypsies), connects to, builds upon, borrows from, and distances itself from, the migrant refugee crisis that gripped Europe in the mid-2010s. Through discourse analysis of advocacy texts published by European NGOs between 2014 and 2018, the study concludes that advocacy discourses build a clear case that connects the plight of the Roma to the refugee crisis, through humanitarian appeals, highlighting the affinity of vulnerability, and by amplifying the crisis to shed light on the needs of Roma communities.

Competing Frames on Social Media: Analysis of English and Farsi Tweets on Iran Plane Crash • Hyunjin Seo, University of Kansas; Fatemeh Shayesteh, University of Kansas • This study conducted content analysis and word co-occurrence network analysis of tweets about the Ukraine plane crash in Iran in 2020 to analyze differences between English tweets and Farsi tweets in framing and discussing the major international event. Results from our computational analysis and human coding of the tweets show important differences and similarities between English tweets and Farsi tweets in terms of prominent frames and frequently co-occurring word pairs.

News and the neoliberal order: How transnational discourse structures national identities and asymmetries of power • Saif Shahin, American University • Comparing 15 years of news coverage of international aid from two donor nations (United States and Britain) and two receiver nations (India and Pakistan), this study makes three arguments. The dynamic between nationalist identification and transnational discourse is dialectical. This dynamic reinforces asymmetries of power, privileging some nations as superior while making others complicit in their subordination. Finally, newsmaking and foreign policymaking are mutually constitutive social phenomena—both reproduce a shared conception of national identity.

* Extended Abstract * Influencer Engagement With Chinese Audiences: The Role of Language • Zihang E; Ziyuan Zhang, The Pennsylvania State University; Ryan Tan, Penn State University; Olivia Reed, The Pennsylvania State University; Heather Shoenberger, The Pennsylvania State University • With the rise of platforms such as YouTube and TikTok influencers are seeking to increase their view-counts and spheres of influence globally. This study examines the differences in perception by a Mandarin speaking audience of beauty vlogs created in English and Mandarin on parasocial interaction with the influencer, perceived homophily, perceived authenticity, self-truth of the influencer, and purchase intent variables. Results will add insights to the area of influencers looking to communicate to international audiences.

Global Economy, Regional Bloc, National Interests: ASEAN Coverage in Philippine Broadsheets • Nathaniel Melican, City, University of London; Jane B. Singer, City, University of London • Let’s face it: Regional economic blocs are not inherently compelling, leaving journalists who cover them to search for frames to attract the attention of editors and audiences. This study draws on a content analysis of stories about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus interviews with Filipino journalists, to understand the nature of the information citizens receive – which focuses largely on national interests rather than broader ones — and the rationale for generating it.

* Extended Abstract * Health Misinformation in Kenya • Melissa Tully, University of Iowa; Kevin Mudavadi; David Biwott, USIU-Africa • The global spread of misinformation on social media and chat apps has led to increased interest of this phenomenon. Drawing on interviews with Kenyan adults, this study explores Kenyans’ exposure and response to health misinformation to provide much-needed data from the Global South. Findings suggest that health misinformation is prevalent and participants respond by looking for multiple sources of information. Although, when exposed to a misinformation exemplar, many were quick to accept it as “fact.”

* Extended Abstract * Syrian Armenian Refugees in Armenia: Social Cohesion and Information Practices • Melissa Wall, California State University – Northridge • This paper is based on interviews carried out in the spring of 2019 in Armenia with Syrian Armenian refugees who fled to their ancestral homeland due to the Syrian civil war. UNHCR officials and NGO personnel were also interviewed. The project examines the ways the refugees’ information practices – both via social media and interpersonally – can create opportunities to overcome information precarity and experience different forms of social cohesion in their new home.

Overseas Media, Homeland Audiences: Examining Determinants of News Making in Deutsche Welle’s Amharic Service • Tewodros Workneh, Kent State University • In the absence of credible news outlets, Germany’s public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (DW) has been one of the few foreign-based radio stations that successfully withstood the Ethiopian government’s crackdown on non-state-owned media. This study examines determinants of journalism practice and newsroom culture in DW’s Amharic Service. By adopting an analytical framework of ideological, geographic, and audience-generated determinants of news making, it charts homeland and host challenges that constrain journalistic autonomy in DW Amharic’s newsroom.

Social media, protest, & outrage communication in Ethiopia: Toward fractured publics or pluralistic polity? • Tewodros Workneh, Kent State University • In 2018, Ethiopia experienced a tectonic political shift following the culmination of years of public outcry against the ruling party, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Protest groups, predominantly organized along ethnic identification, have used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate strategies, recruit members, and galvanize support. Anchored on theories of collective identity and moral outrage, this study investigates the role of social media platforms in mobilizing Ethiopians toward political reform during the protest and post-protest periods. Data generated from a mixed method approach consisting of an online survey and interviews indicate social media platforms played a crucial role by drawing Ethiopian youth to participate in political discourse, empowering formerly marginalized groups to influence policy, and fostering ingroup cultural/political cohesion. However, evidence indicates participation opportunities created by social media platforms also brought apprehension including the rise of outrage communication as manifested by hate speech, political extremism, incitement of violence, and misinformation. I argue, in the context of a polity embodying highly heterogeneous and contested nationalisms—ethnic or otherwise—such as Ethiopia, social media platforms increase ingroup political participation but chronically diminish outgroup engagement. I conclude by discussing the limitations of regulating social media content through legislation. Furthermore, I highlight the need to integrate media and information literacy into education curricula as a long-term, sustainable solution to Ethiopia’s digital dilemma.

Predicting the Relationships among Country Animosity, Attitudes toward, Product Judgment about, and Intention to Consume Foreign Cultural Products • KENNETH C. C. YANG, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO; YOWEI KANG, NATIONAL TAIWAN OCEAN UNIVERSITY • This study employs the marketing concept of country animosity to study Taiwanese audience’s consumption of foreign cultural products from China and South Korea. This study uses a survey to collect data from 763 participants living in Taiwan, a democratic island with cultural, historical, and political relationships with these two countries. Linear regression analyses find that country animosity is an important predictor of how Taiwanese viewers judge Chinese television dramas, but less useful in predicting their judgment of South Korean television dramas. Overall, country animosity also explains intention to watch Chinese television dramas and offer partial support to intention to watch South Korean television dramas. Results conclude that predictive power of country animosity and its sub-dimensions depends on existing geo-political and historical relationships between Taiwan and China, as well as Taiwan and South Korea. This study concludes with theoretical implications and managerial recommendations to promote cultural products to audiences with different cultural, historical, and political background.

Transcending Third-Person Effects of Foreign Media in the US: The Effect of Media Nationality and Message Context on TPE and Support for Restrictions • Yicheng Zhu, Beijing Normal University; Anan Wan, Kansas State University • This study examines how social identities can transcend given distinct message contexts of foreign persuasion, and lead to support for restriction of foreign media in the US through TPE. With a US voter quota sample (N = 856), our results indicate that when foreign persuasion happened in a US-identity-provoking context, partisan differences in TPE are remedied. Moreover, the study found foreign media creates more TPE than domestic media. Within the category of foreign media, a friendly ally is perceived to have more effect on both self and others.

<2020 Abstracts

History Division

Robert Capa: War Photographer as Performance and Revision of the Myth • Christopher T. Assaf, University of Texas At Austin • This paper will examine the mythos surrounding war photographer Robert Capa. New research challenges whether Capa’s D-Day invasion film was ruined, the number of negatives he made, and Capa himself. Through the lens of Barthes’ (2013) “ideological myth,” this study questions Capa’s self-mythologizing; the narrative of Falling Soldier (1936); his elite photojournalistic status; and his photographs of June 6, 1944. Further inspection will illuminate Capa the war photographer via the hegemonic masculinity fueling his persona.

Democracy on the Skids: The Hutchins Commission’s Fears for America’s Future • Stephen Bates, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • Scholars often remark on the timeless quality of A Free and Responsible Press, the 1947 report of the Hutchins Commission. Yet some of the Commission’s most striking parallels to today did not make it into the book. In closed-door deliberations, Commission members worried that the democratic system in the United States faced grave threats, including a fragmenting and polarized electorate, foreign and domestic propaganda, and what we now call echo chambers, trolls, and deplatforming.

“Libbers’ March”: Newspapers and the 50th Anniversary of U.S. Women’s Suffrage • Dana Dabek, Temple University • This paper explores newspaper coverage of the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in the U.S. in 1970, including but not limited to the Women’s Strike for Equality, under the lens of memory studies. Situated within a larger conversation regarding how the U.S. suffrage movement is brought into collective memory by the media, this work contends that feminist message, preservation of memory, and media framing are often at odds.

Individual- and Role-Level Influences on Crisis Coverage: A Content Analysis of Columbine • Danielle Deavours, University of Alabama • Neutrality, to remove one’s emotions and beliefs from reports, is a norm of the journalism profession. A desire to be neutral is often fostered by an adherence to institutional and organizational norms enacted by individual journalists in their routine newsmaking decisions. Yet, when routines are less applicable, like during crisis event coverage, will journalists still adhere to the professional norm of neutrality or will they become more subjective as individual-level influences of emotions and personal beliefs take over? This study focuses on nonverbal expressions of broadcast journalists during crisis coverage, specifically during school shootings. Using a pivotal moment in American school shooting history, the shootings at Columbine High School in Columbine Colorado on April 20, 1999, this study seeks to understand a critical moment in journalistic history of individual and role influences of journalists during crisis. This work features the case study of the first 24-hours of national news coverage from Columbine and a content analysis methodology. As one of the first school shootings in the United States to receive 24 hour live coverage, the broadcasts of Columbine provide unique insight into a non-routinized event’s coverage. The findings in this study contribute to understanding of journalistic practices (specifically broadcast and visual journalism), nonverbal communication, journalism history, and school shootings.

‘Skeptics Make the Best Readers’: The Institute of Propaganda Analysis’ Pioneering Media Literacy Efforts and the Fight Against Misinformation (1937-1942) • Elisabeth Fondren, St. John’s University • This study examines the Institute for Propaganda Analysis’ efforts to build, manage, and expand American institutional media literacy programs before and during World War II. Most centrally, this paper explores the IPA’s visions and advocacy for propaganda literacy against the backdrop of rising nationalism during the period of 1937-1942. Through a historical and textual analysis of archival papers, notes, speeches, correspondence, newspaper articles and the Institute’s publication, the results of this study show how the Institute raised awareness and highlighted the need for information literacy during a time that precedes our modern attempts to promote critical thinking and engagement with political information. Supported by a network of elites, social scientists and editors, these efforts gained momentum. The Institute’s newsletter, Propaganda Analysis, and its educational programs, specialized leaflets and books were received favorably, however, the Institute could neither overcome its financial struggles nor thwart official pressures to cede its work, perceived as ‘un-American’ in light of the U.S. war mobilization. By examining how scholars of public opinion worked with the press, garnered publicity, and shared their expertise on propaganda publicly, the findings offer original insights into the pioneering efforts of the American anti-propaganda movement.

A Know-Nothing’s Portrayal of Mexicans in the 1850s Press: The Work of G. Douglas Brewerton • Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University • George Douglas Brewerton was among the first magazine correspondents to use first-person experience to describe the Spanish and Mexican people and culture in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands in the 1850s. His lengthy travel narratives published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1853 and 1854 chronicled his journey with Kit Carson across the Mojave and Old Spanish trails to Taos, New Mexico. The link between the Baptist, Southern, white, Anglo-Saxon, and nativist facets of his social identity and his demeaning portrayal of Mexicans is examined.

“Gladwin Hill and “‘The Wetbacks'”: The New York Times and the Mexican Migrant Security Threat” • Melita Garza, Texas Christian University • This study examines Gladwin Hill’s 1951 Pulitzer Prize-nominated series, “’The Wetbacks,’” as well as the journalist’s personal papers to show how the first Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times catapulted illegal immigration to a national topic from a regional one. Reporting at the height of the “Red Scare,” Hill framed Mexican immigrants as a national security threat, a mediated representation that inspired network news coverage, congressional action, and an enduring immigrant stereotype.

Enemy Words on American Airwaves: Cold War Radio Moscow Broadcasts to the U.S. • Kevin Grieves, Whitworth University • Most attention to Cold War broadcasting has been on the European context, and on Western radio reaching across the Iron Curtain to Soviet Bloc audiences. This study examines Americans listening to Radio Moscow during the Cold War era, particularly as reflected in the U.S. popular press. The study investigates the tensions behind American journalists casting Radio Moscow as a propaganda threat, but also reacting derisively and dismissively to Soviet radio content. This paper highlights efforts of Radio Moscow to reach American audiences via U.S. radio stations and traces shifts in American attitudes towards Radio Moscow over time.

History of the Black Power Movement: Going Beyond Mediated Images • Adrianne Grubic, The University of Texas at Austin • The Black Power movement is best known for its iconic images. The movement was so much more than that, despite media in the 1960s promulgating that it had only one purpose, that of violence. This paper will analyze articles and books from historians and movement leaders looking at how their revolution was viewed by the media and themselves, along with how Black power was demonstrated in mediated spaces such as the arts and literature.

Film Censorship’s Last Stand: The Memphis Board of Review 1967 to 1976 • Thomas J. Hrach, University of Memphis • Memphis, Tennessee, was the last major American city to continue the practice of censoring films when its Board of Review was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in 1976. Memphis held on so long to the practice of censoring films because of the city’s legacy of censorship and its goal of retaining old world values in the changing era of the 1960s and ‘70s. A history of the Board of Review in Memphis shows how censorship was an attempt to hold onto old-school thinking in uncertain times.

Platform life, platform death: civilian counter-histories of military-made social media • Muira McCammon • The purpose of this article is to analyze the creation, use, and termination of TroopTube by the Department of Defense for the sharing of messages and videos by, between, and for U.S. servicemembers. Drawing on news coverage of the platform and an interview with a designer, this research uses the grounded theory approach to demonstrate that the public civilian response to this military-made social media platform was not a continuous narrative; rather, the press presented different platform narratives, which highlighted different imagined and actual affordances of the platform as imagined by the state. The research demonstrates that while newspapers, magazines, and blogs promoted and actively encouraged the use of TroopTube, it was, in fact, imperiled from the start. Drawing on press accounts and semi-structured interviews with those who imagined, contracted, and explained the platform to American civilian and military audiences, I offer up the concept of the platform counter-narrative—of which there are two types, the platform counter-narrative and the platform counter-memory. The first arises during the time of the platform’s life, and the second, follows its death.

* Extended Abstract * The Nation’s First Press Secretary: Ray Stannard Baker and the Lessons of Publicity • Meghan McCune, Louisiana State University; John Maxwell Hamilton • American journalist Ray Stannard Baker is primarily remembered by historians as a prominent muckraker. This paper argues that Baker had another important distinction that has been overlooked; he qualifies as the nation’s first presidential press secretary. In his role as chief spokesman for President Woodrow Wilson during the Paris Peace Conference, which marked the end of the First World War, Baker set an exceptionally high standard for the position. At a time when governments around the world developed large-scale propaganda systems for war, Baker held a democratic view of his position as press secretary. A progressive with a strong faith in publicity, Baker believed he was not only as a spokesperson for the President, but also an advocate for the press.

From Prohibition’s Demon Drink to Acceptable Indulgence: Distillers and the Battle to Normalize Liquor in America • Wendy Melillo, American University • The liquor industry’s image enhancement strategies following the repeal of Prohibition were specifically designed to erase the negative legacy of America’s great social experiment. The distillers’ goal to normalize liquor products in the minds of Americans was about much more than just increasing market share against their beer and wine competitors. To achieve cultural acceptance, the liquor industry would have to dismantle the lesson Prohibition taught Americans, which was to treat liquor as “hard” and more dangerous when compared to other types of beverage alcohol. By establishing a self-regulatory advertising code, infusing its ads with drink responsibly messages, positing alcohol equivalency, and associating liquor with the nation’s heritage, the liquor industry has established the drinking of its products as part of a culturally acceptable American lifestyle.

Influence of the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision on southern editorial arguments during the “massive resistance” to integration • Ali Mohamed • We examine the role of the Southern press in the “massive resistance” to the High Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954 on school integration, and the extent to which newspaper editorials relied on social and legal rationales for segregation based on the High Court’s earlier Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. All three of Plessy’s rationales for institutionalizing segregation — states’ rights, a dual system of “social rights” based on race, and the doctrine of “separate but equal” — were widely adopted by the press. However, newspapers took the “equal” part of Plessy’s “separate but equal” doctrine much more seriously than did elected officials in the South – causing significant friction between the press and political leaders – especially in Alabama and Mississippi. A content analysis of the Birmingham News from 1960 to 1964 found that, although the News supported segregation through arguments of “states’ rights” and a dual system of “social rights” as laid out in the Plessy decision, the paper’s editors remained consistently committed to equality and the rule of law throughout the turmoil of the civil rights movement.

Shaping Billboard Magazine: Lee Zhito’s Rise From Part-time Writer to Vice President, 1945 to 1993 • Madeleine Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University; Gregory Pitts, Middle Tennessee State University • The name Billboard is recognized in the music and entertainment industry, but the journalists behind the publication’s rise to prominence have not been recognized. Lee Zhito—with his red handlebar mustache and constantly present pipe—spent nearly fifty years with Billboard, starting as a writer and working his way up to become publisher and vice president. He was arguably one of the earliest music and entertainment journalists, covering the music industry but also keening aware of new technologies and distribution platforms that would impact the entertainment industry and consumers. He defended the publication’s integrity to advertising critics by maintaining a strong ethical center, while always advancing the prominence and influence of Billboard in the music and entertainment industries. Despite Zhito’s impressive career and impact at Billboard, academic studies about his reign have not been conducted. Surprisingly little has been written about Billboard, beyond encyclopedia entries or academic studies about its various music lists. Zhito helped grow Billboard, which in turn helped grow radio and the recording industry; a symbiotic relationship in many ways. This study is based on the newly acquired Lee Zhito collection at the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University. The collection—donated by his daughter Lisa Zhito—contains ten linear feet of manuscript materials, including correspondence, periodicals, clippings, tapes and films. The collection technically covers the years 1956 to 1995, but there are some items dating back to the 1930s. The bulk of the collection is from 1975 to 1995.

Our Forgotten Mother: Daisy Bates and Her School Integration Campaign • Lori Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee; Monique Freemon, University of Tennessee • Answering calls of public relations historians, this study seeks to recover the role of Daisy Bates in the Little Rock school integration campaign and to serve as an intervention into the great men’s account of public relations history. Culling available archival sources and published news texts in White mainstream and Black Press, we examined the public relations tactics that Bates implemented in her campaign for school integration, analyzed the motivations behind her deployment of the public relations tactics, and evaluated the successes and failures of her strategies.

‘Complaining,’ Campaigning,’ and everything in between: media coverage of pay equity in women’s tennis in 1973 and 2007 • Shannon Scovel, University of Maryland • This paper analyzes the media coverage of pay equity in women’s tennis in three newspapers during the 1973 U.S. Open and 2007 Wimbledon tournaments, the first and last Grand Slams to offer equal pay. A content analysis of over 100 articles demonstrates that journalists portrayed the female athletes involved in the pay equity conversations in 2007 as empowered advocates, marking an important shift from the “emotional” and “demanding” descriptions reporters applied to women in 1973.

Framing women’s roles in 20th century farming: A content analysis of cover images • Catherine Staub, Drake University; Amy Vaughan; Alina Dorion • This content analysis examined how women are portrayed throughout the 20th century on the covers of two high-circulation farm magazines. Coders identified gender, age, activity, gendered stereotypes, and predominance of the figures in 801 farm magazine cover images. Findings suggest an under-representation and stereotypical portrayal of women on the covers throughout the 20th century. This research contributes to an understanding of the framing role of farm magazines in the representation of women’s contributions to agriculture.

Capturing “The Real Thing”: James Ricalton Brings the Russo-Japanese War to American Parlors • Natascha Toft Roelsgaard; Michael S. Sweeney • James Ricalton was one of a handful of photojournalists who covered the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which has been cited as “World War Zero” for its scale, weaponry, and use of press controls. The war also was the first covered with widespread use of halftones, marking a milestone in photographic history. Ricalton used a stereographic camera to produce twin images sold by Underwood & Underwood on cardboard cards for home viewing. This article aims to restore the work of a masterful photojournalist to its proper place in history. In addition it critically analyzes a selection of his photographs of the Japanese army using John Szarkowski’s typology of photograph as “window” and “mirror,” revealing, respectively, the subject and the mind of the photographer.

“A True Newspaper Woman”: The Career of Sadie Kneller Miller • Carolina Velloso, University of Maryland, College Park • This paper examines the life and career of Sadie Kneller Miller, a journalist working at the turn of the twentieth century. Miller earned a prominent contemporary reputation, but her career has been largely lost to posterity. This paper uses traditional historical research methods to reconstruct Miller’s career and show the ways Miller both challenged and conformed to norms and expectations of women journalists of the period. This is the first scholarly work on Miller.

“Don’t Waste The Reader’s Time”: The Journalistic Innovations and Influence of Willard M. Kiplinger • Rob Wells, Univ of Arkansas • The newsletter format has witnessed a popular resurgence in digital media but little is known about the origins of this multi-billion dollar industry for specialized information. This paper examines a newsletter industry pioneer Willard M. Kiplinger, whose Kiplinger Washington Letter claims to be the oldest continuously published newsletter in the U.S. This publication perfected a type of reporting that influenced publications ranging from Newsweek to U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg, Axios and others. A 1967 Newsweek obituary of Kiplinger said at the time, “There are at least 1,000 newsletters in the country today. Many of them borrow heavily from the Kiplinger techniques.” ⁠ The Kiplinger Washington Letter once boasted being “the most widely read business letter in the world.” It was influential during the New Deal, with Kiplinger serving as a crucial bridge between conservative business leaders and New Deal regulators. His reporting and engagement with both camps embodied the “corporate commonwealth” ethos that promoted business stability through self-regulation and voluntary cooperation through trade associations. Kiplinger’s weekly newsletter nurtured a close reader engagement through a specialized research service and extensive correspondence with his subscribers, a type of early crowdsourcing that anticipated the active audience interaction in digital journalism.

How the 1910 Bombing of the Times Building Destroyed the Socialist Party and the Unions • Daniel Wolowicz • This paper examines how the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building, which killed 20 employees and was dubbed “the crime of the century,” led to the defeat of 1911 Socialist mayoral candidate Job Harriman and resulted in the federal prosecution of the leaders of the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Iron Workers union who were responsible for a nearly decadelong terrorist campaign to bomb non-union worksites across the United States. At the center of this sweeping story stands Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher and owner of the Los Angeles Times, a man whose iron will helped transform L.A. from a gritty frontier town into one of the fastest-growing cities in the world and home to Hollywood. The far-reaching investigation and ensuing trial included Detective William S. Burns, the man known as “America’s Sherlock Holmes,” as well Clarence Darrow, one of the most famous attorneys in U.S. history. It was an epic battle between organized labor and the cabal of Los Angeles powerbrokers who would do anything to keep unions and Socialists from gaining a foothold in the City of Angels at the turn of the century.

“The paper of record of the women’s movement”: The national identity of off our backs • Kate Yanchulis, University of Maryland • off our backs, subtitled “a women’s news journal,” built and maintained national coverage of the feminist movement and a national reputation within that movement from its first issue in 1970 until it folded in 2008, yet it remains largely neglected by scholars. Through interviews with staff members and archival material from the periodicals’ offices, this paper shows how off our backs forged its national identity and strived to be the front page for the feminist movement.

<2020 Abstracts