Visual Communication Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Crisis Management in this Visual Era: How People Perceive a Crisis-hit Brand Through News Media Pictures • Mohammad Ali, Syracuse University; Dennis Kinsey, Syracuse University • Visuals in a crisis phenomenon remain largely understudied. This paper analyzes the post-crisis pictures relating to the 2020 Mauritius oil-spill incident. Utilizing Q Methodology, designed to understand people’s subjective perceptions, we identify at least two groups of people who had variant perceptions of recognizing various pictures as (un)forgiving of this crisis-hit Japanese company. The Attribution Theory is used to explain what pictures are more likely to shift people’s perceived crisis responsibility attributions toward the company.

Research Paper • Student • Video [Dis]Convergence and Discernable Logocentrism: Visual Journalists’ Experience during Video Implementation • Christopher T. Assaf, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN • This project examines visual journalists’ experience with legacy print leaders’ logocentrism during video platform implementation. Recognizing video’s potential as a digital-disruption solution, with prospects for increasing revenue and reaching new audiences, organizational leaders chose individual photojournalists for still and video platform convergence. Adhering to a word-centric ideology, leadership underestimated guidance, communication, and knowledge factors, creating uncertainty and slowing adoption. Collected through 14 interviews with visual journalists and viewed through Rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovations theory.

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended abstract – From “Betty, la fea” to “Betty in NY” – the impact of digital storytelling on telenovelas • Alejandro Bruna, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile • This work investigates whether digital narrative (or “digital storytelling”) affects visual language and structure of Latin America’s most relevant television product: telenovelas. Using the most successful telenovela in television history (Ugly Betty) two versions were analyzed at a dramatic and narrative level: the original Colombian version (Yo soy Betty, la fea) and its most recent adaptation (Betty in NY). Findings show that digital narrative influences the melodramatic matrix of telenovelas, themes, motivations, plot and situations.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Extended Abstract: Cognitive and Attitudinal Processing of Visual Frames in 360-Degree Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Messages • Sungwon Chung, Ball State University; Johnny Sparks, Ball State University • This experiment examined the influence of visual content frames (gain vs. loss) and presentation modality (non-360 vs. 360-degree videos) on cognitive and attitudinal processing of environmental corporate social responsibility (eCSR) messages on viewers’ memory and attitudes. Frame and modality influenced storage (cued recall) of company names, but only modality influenced encoding (recognition) of company names. However, neither frame nor modality affected encoding of company logos. Content frame also impacted perceived message effectiveness.

Extended Abstract • Student • Visualizing criminal jury trials: A quantitative content analysis of images in U.S. news outlets • Umberto Famulari, Indiana University Bloomington; Lesa Hatley Major; Osman Mohamed Osman • “This study will contribute to the scholarship of visual framing and journalism by analyzing for the first time how U.S. news outlets visually represented criminal jury trials in the last eighty years. Drawing from visual framing theory (Coleman, 2010; Bock, 2020), the images that accompanied all the news stories about criminal jury trials from 1940 to 2020 were analyzed at the denotative and stylistic level (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011).

Preliminary findings showed differences between different types of news outlets (national U.S. televisions, cable news, local news outlets and newspapers) in relation to how defendants, victims and jurors were portrayed in terms of gender, race, emotions and camera distance used. Implications of the study were discussed and analyzed.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Paradise or propaganda? Jack Delano’s FSA images of public housing in Chicago • Robin Hoecker, DePaul University • This study looks at Jack Delano’s 1942 photographs of the Ida B. Wells homes in Chicago, and how they shaped narratives of public housing and wartime propaganda. Delano’s photographs show well-dressed Black families in immaculate, furnished apartments, with structured community programs. These images are part of the U.S. government-sponsored photography project of the Farm Security Administration, later Office of War Information, that documented life among working class Americans between 1935-1944.

Research Paper • Student • Revealing the Veil in Internet Memes and GIFs: A Comparative Framing and Stereotyping Analysis • Omneya Ibrahim, The University of Texas at Austin; Shahira Fahmy, The American University in Cairo • This study bridges a gap in visual communication research based on an integrative framing analysis of internet memes and GIFs using the hashtag #Hijab following the 2019 attacks on Muslim mosques in New Zealand. We analyzed both the textual and visual elements used in these digital tools to unravel their framing and stereotyping of veil. While significant differences between memes and GIFs existed, both tools displayed support for the hijab, revealing clear patterns regarding a new progressive image of hijabi women in the contemporary digital environment. Findings show that memes and GIFs challenge the traditional stereotyping and submissive image of Muslim women that has long been portrayed in media. They also suggest that memes and GIFs are each unique and, although sometimes regarded as one by scholars, ought to be evaluated and examined separately and independently from each another in future research.

Research Paper • Faculty • Crisis of Cosmopolitan Citizenship in Hong Sang-soo’s Films • Jin Kim, The College of Saint Rose • Drawing on complex narrative as a heuristic tool, this study aims to provide one reading about narrative structure of Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s films. While his movies seemingly lack logic and coherency, the Korean auteur creates a unique sense of meaningless, intuition, and fragile memory in his movies. Examining similarities and differences among his 2017 and 2018 movies (The Day After, Grass, Hotel By The River, and Claire’s Camera), one of the major arguments of this study is that Hong’s film narratives consist of repetition, fragmentation, looped causalities, lucid subjectivities and, multiple universes. While Hong might defy ideological-social analysis of his films, one of the major arguments in this study is that is resistance against spatial-temporal linearity and narrative consistency is symptomatic to understand crisis of citizenship within global pandemic and political turmoil.

Extended Abstract • Student • Truly Korean? A Quantitative Study of Film Style Under a Colonial System • William Kohler, Southern Illinois University; Yuhosua Ryoo, Southern Illinois University • Was Korean cinema identical to or distinct from Japanese cinema in its use of film techniques during the colonial period? Using a statistical style analysis, we demonstrated that the two are different in every stylistic category, including sound, cinematography, editing, and mise-en-scene. We concluded that Korean films retained their own film style and identity under colonization and should be considered just as truly Korean as films from any other period.

Extended Abstract • Student • A powerful, spiritual, win-win situation: Commercial authenticity in professional birth photography • Anat Leshnick, University of Colorado boulder; Rivka Ribak • Online repositories of professional birth photography present a radical alternative to the medicalized depiction of birth in commercial reality programs. Arguably, birth photographers allow women to see birth and learn about it, document it from their own perspective, and share this personally significant event in the public sphere. However, these images are produced and consumed within a market economy in which notions of resistance – and compliance – appear naïve (Banet-Weiser, 2012). From this perspective, rather than medicalized as opposed to natural, and rather than passive as opposed to resistant, we propose to see birth photography as a site of commercial authenticity, in which birth photographers and birthing women co-produce a neoliberal birth story that is at once liberating and cynical. Drawing on interviews with nine birth photographers and nine women who hired photographers to document their birth, we explore the ways in which these artisans develop professional and aesthetic practices that distinguish them from others in the delivery room, highlighting the complicated ways in which authenticity is created and sold in contemporary cultural production.

Research Paper • Student • Constructing Love: Visual Representation of Blackness in the Obama Marriage • Ajia Meux, University of Oklahoma • A content analysis of 346 images was employed to study differences in racial presentations of Barack and Michelle Obama between the White House and African American media. The literature on symbolic interactionism, presidential and first lady presentation, African marriage, minority media, framing and visual representation suggested that there would be differences by medium in portrayals of the president and first lady on racial variables (egalitarianism, marital affection, racialist, ethnic/cultural, kinship, political). Findings indicate that, across White House and African American media, the couple were often presented as egalitarian and affectionate. Statistical testing indicate that African American media were significantly more likely to depict Michelle Obama with racialist elements and the Obamas as a happy and affectionate married couple than the White House. A contradictory finding indicated that the White House was significantly more likely to focus on the extended family bonds of African Americans by depicting the Obamas in the presence of other black people. This study is important because the Obamas are the first ethnic minority to hold the offices of president and first lady of the United States, and this study is the first to explore the two as an African American married couple. Findings extends research on how minority media help construct reality for their audiences and have implications for new White House image management strategies of presidents and first ladies.

Research Paper • Faculty • A Winning Combination: Effects of Visual Frames in Solutions Journalism Stories • Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota; Robert F. Potter; Ryan Comfort, Indiana University • Solutions journalism approaches in recent years have tried to combat pessimistic and avoidant responses in audiences by producing stories about social issues that also focus on attempts to solve the problems. Although scholarship on visuals in solutions journalism has lagged behind research about text, some studies have shown that visual framing emphasizing solutions leads to higher levels of narrative engagement and behavioral intentions (Dahmen, Their & Walth, 2019) and lower levels of negative affect (McIntyre, Lough & Manzanares, 2018) than visual framing emphasizing problems. This study adds to theory about visual frames in solutions journalism with an online 2 (story topic: drug addiction, homelessness) x 4 (visual frame condition: no photo, solutions only, problems only, combination) mixed design experiment that investigated the question of what visual frame might arouse the ideal mix of affective responses to leave people concerned and interested in solutions journalism stories. The results have implications for visual communication theory and for photojournalism practice.

Research Paper • Faculty • Frames and Journalistic Roles in Chinese Reporting on HIV: Insights from a Content Analysis and Qualitative Interviews Focused on the Verbal and Visual Modalities • Chunbo Ren, Central Michigan University; Viorela Dan • Extant work largely neglects visuals’ contribution to news framing and how journalists perform their professional roles. We address this research gap in two studies, and use HIV reporting in China as a test case. Study 1, a content analysis in seven newspapers (2000-2015), shed light on how words and visuals suggest different frames and journalistic roles. Study 2 used in-depth interviews with journalists to contextualize the findings in Study 1, especially on the word-visuals rapport.

Research Paper • Student • Cross-Platform Visual Framing: Climate Visuals on News Websites and Twitter • Yimeng Sun, New York University; Hiu Yan Ping; Lei Guo; Boqi Chen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; David Assefa Tofu • To examine how the U.S. news media visually frame climate change, the study investigates how news media of different political orientations frame the issue differently across media platforms. We used content analysis to analyze 761 images covering climate change from news websites and Twitter. The results show that major U.S. news media of different political orientations used different visual elements to frame the issue, including various image types and image subjects.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • What “Lens-Based Workers” Are Owed: An Exploration of the Photo Bill of Rights • Keith Greenwood; Ryan Thomas; Cory Macneil • This study will examine the Photo Bill of Rights, a recent initiative that centers the rights of “lens-based workers” and which presents an opportunity to evaluate the position of photojournalism within an evolving society. Through a textual analysis of the Bill’s contents, and a comparison with traditional ethical codes, the paper argues that the Bill represents a challenge to existing frameworks about what journalists owe the public by focusing on what journalists are themselves owed.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Extended Abstract: Ye Olde Europa Gin Mill: How war looked in isolationist cartoons of 1941 • Darryl Frazier; Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • This paper uses fantasy theme analysis to examine the rhetorical vision created by cartoonists for three major isolationist newspapers in the months leading up to US entry in the Second World War. These cartoons draw on both indexical and allusive properties to challenge or reinforce interpretations of current events, whether it is Uncle Sam stumbling toward a fight in someone else’s bar or a brave Charles Lindbergh landing at an unfriendly field.

Research Paper • Student • Multimodal Analysis: Researching Short-form Videos and the Theatrical Practices • Yiting Wang, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa • “Short-form video is one of the major approaches for people to present themselves on visual social media, such as TikTok. What is behind this type of visual communication? With the emerging field of social media and performance studies, can theatrical or performative discourse make sense of the video data? What would be a good method to study user-generated short-form videos (UGSVs)?

Digital living is performative, and theater is often integrated with social or political practices. This paper uses multimodal analysis for video analysis and draws concepts and practices from Chinese and western theater. Building on three theories (situation, suspense, and mimesis) in which the ontology of theater is often discussed, this paper demonstrates the modes and modalities of five videos originating from TikTok. The preliminary findings suggest three types of suspense and three types of mimesis practices that respectively answer how attention of audiences is retained, and how and why videos are reproduced and disseminated. We argue that imitation as a phenomenon and as a process can generate memes, and memes in turn invites more imitation. The crux at the back are the video practices that ridicule and critique, when different levels of resistance to politics, authority, or societal classes are shown.

Video analysis, under today’s ubiquitous visual data, requires robust updates. In addition to the contribution of a performative and theatrical perspective for the sense-making of short-form videos, this paper also contributes to the methods of video analysis in general and video analysis by using modes and multimodalities.”

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended abstract: [Multifaceted protest paradigm: the visual coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests in international news] • Frankie Ho Chun Wong • This study probed into the intersection between the protest paradigm and influence from national interests in news images, crucial in nonverbal news framing, in international news. International outlets’ visuals in reporting an iconic episode in the 2019 Hong Kong protests were comparatively investigated through framing and critical discourse analysis. Results suggest visual news frames consisted of spectacles but not explaining underlying causes, yet showing a between-outlet variance where frames reflected outlets’ political values at home.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • That’s a Good Sign: The Typography and Design of Political Yard Signs • Shannon Zenner, Elon University • Most political communication researchers have focused on the textual content of political messaging, while ignoring how that same text is conveyed visually. This study is a content analysis of yard signs (n=151) posted in North Carolina during the November 2019 and March 2020 elections and the typography and colors used in those yard signs. Preliminary analysis indicates an overall preference for sans serif, all “caps” treatments but with some compelling differences by political party.

2022 Abstracts

Scholastic Journalism Division

2022 Abstracts

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • The Future of the Field: Journalism Degree Motivations, Roles and Relevancy of the Field • Brian J. Bowe, American Univ. in Cairo / Western Washington Univ.; Lucinda Davenport, Michigan State University; Robin Blom, Ball State University • “Journalism students represent the future of the industry. Learning how they conceptualize journalism may build understanding of the field’s evolution. This survey research examines the motivations and perceptions of journalism students about the profession. Preliminary results show that students’ top motivations for pursuing journalism were related to creative reporting skills, continual learning, and travel in their job. They were also interested in current affairs and displayed a modest drive for addressing social injustices.”

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Student Activism vs. Student Journalism: Racial Justice, Free Speech, and Journalism Ethics in College Newspapers • Jason Shepard • Using two recent controversies involving campus social justice protests and student news organizations, this study uses an interdisciplinary lens to examine free expression and normative journalism ethics discourse. It explores themes related to First Amendment rights and values, journalism ethics, and racial justice, asking which are evident and absent in opinion journalism focused on the cases. It examines universities’ dual missions of supporting free expression and advancing the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • Extended Abstract: “We’re Playing a Telephone Game”: Understanding How Teenagers Engage with News Through a Simulation • Theresa de los Santos, Pepperdine University; Elizabeth Smith, Pepperdine University; Jillian Johnson, Pepperdine University • With misinformation at an all-time high, this study explores how high school students cope with inaccurate information and perceive journalists through observation of their skills in a breaking news simulation and post-study interviews. Results reveal that young people desire accurate information but lack the tools to correct it and that immersive learning experiences, like the one used in this study, can teach about the role of quality journalism in stopping the spread of false information.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • The long-term value of networking and diverse professional experience in online communication master’s program cohorts • Shanetta Pendleton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson • A survey of alumni from a 10-year-old cohort-based online master’s program in digital communication showed that respondents felt high levels of sense of community both during the program and after graduation. Respondents reported regular interteraction with cohort members and valued the ability to network with peers from a wide range of communication subfields. Results suggest a cohort structure has strong networking benefits for online master’s students, although more identity-based diversity among cohort members is needed. Universities that currently utilize a cohort structure should more robustly promote this aspect of their programs in marketing and recruitment efforts. They should also take steps to maximize interactions between and among cohorts after graduation to enhance connections with a professionally accomplished base of alumni.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Pandemic grading strategies: A natural experiment with audio feedback in an introductory mass communications course • Carolyn Hedges, Syracuse University • The COVID-19 pandemic realities of the Fall 2020 semester provided an opportunity to try integrated technology grading strategies. The natural experiment deployed personalized and generalized feedback to two sections of an introductory mass communications class for their first written assignment. A survey captured students’ perspectives about ‘helpfulness’ and ‘purpose’ of the grading implements. The results indicated that personalized feedback is preferred, and the combination of grading efforts, in general, is helpful.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • The Inconsistency of Journalism Education and Trauma-related Instruction • Joe Hight, University of Central Oklahoma; Elana Newman, University of Tulsa; Ilissa Madrigal; Bret Arnold • Although journalism educators believe trauma topics are important, curricular coverage is inconsistent. This survey examined the extent educators covered specific trauma topics. Participants rated the importance and extent of coverage across four domains in required classes: self-care, trauma-informed interviewing, trauma impact on community, and best community reporting practices. The commonly deemed highly valued topics include ethics of accuracy, sensitivity, respect for survivors, and privacy rights. Self-care was deemed important but often not covered in courses.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy • You Li, Eastern Michigan U; Ye Wang; Yugyung Lee; Huan Chen, University of Florida; Alexis Nicolle Petri; Teryn Cha • This study notices a significant gap of data literacy between communication students and science students across four U.S. universities. This project develops an experiential teaching and learning platform (OCEL.AI) and proposes a story-centric approach to teach data gathering, analysis, modeling, application, and ethics to students. The results showed that the storytelling approach had significant impacts on students’ knowledge, appreciation, motivation, confidence, and competence in data science, even after controlling the effects of major and gender.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Student Journalists Exhibit Different Mindsets, Agree on the Need for Truthful Reporting • Greg Munno, Syracuse University; Megan Craig, Syracuse University; Alex Richards, Syracuse University; Mohammad Ali, Syracuse University • “This study investigates journalism students’ beliefs about the profession they seek to enter. Using Q methodology to explore the participants’ subjective conceptions of journalism, we map their attitudes and beliefs along four dimensions: impartial, neutral, point-of-view, and involved. Participants (n = 54) sorted 28 statements about journalism from “most like” their journalistic mindset to “most unlike.” Factor analysis identified two distinct mindsets among the participants, one expressing a traditional journalistic mindset, the other embracing a more involved, vocal journalism. Yet both factors expressed strong support for many facets of traditional journalism.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • A Systematic Review of Media Literacy Interventions and the Case for Teaching a Logic-Based Debunking Approach • Alexander Sussman; Elia Powers, Towson University • This study uses a systematic review to examine pedagogical approaches used to teach media consumers to debunk falsehoods and evaluate claims. We find that the fact-based “checklist approach” is dominant. This approach, while useful in some contexts, is limited. We make the case for teaching media literacy lessons through a less commonly used logic-based debunking approach in which students ask the question: In what world could this information or claim possibly be true?

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • A mission-based argument for private K-12 student press • Erica Salkin, Whitworth University Department of Communication Studies • While the First Amendment does not guarantee student press within public schools, it does help affirm the value of such opportunities to student communities. Private schools do not enjoy such constitutional support, but may have a more powerful tool closer to home: their own school mission statements. This study analyzes nearly 500 private K-12 school mission statements to determine if the priorities identified by these programs align with the documented benefits of student journalism.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • An Exploration of and Intervention to Increase Children’s Critical Analysis of News • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Anne Vlaanderen; Kirsten Bevelander, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University and Medical Centre.; Mariska Kleemans • To take the first steps in increasing children’s critical analysis of fake news, this study (N = 298, 10–12 y/o) looks into children’s fake news knowledge (qualitative) and a theory-based fake news e-learning intervention for children (quantitative). Results show that children do have knowledge on fake news, but that there a large individual differences. The fake news intervention (e-learning) did not increase children’s fake news knowledge and awareness, but it did increase their self-efficacy.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • How to Increase News Literacy via Interventions: Insights from Early Adolescents • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Mariska Kleemans; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University, Behavioural Science Institute; Inge Molenaar, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Tibor Bosse, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University • As a first step in the development of news literacy interventions for early adolescents, we discussed with the target group what a successful intervention targeting their own age group’s news literacy should look like. In the focus groups, participants mentioned that it is a challenge to motivate their news literacy, but also discussed intervention elements that they believe can be effective. These are: competition and rewards, tailored content, the accessibility of the intervention, and interactivity.

2022 Abstracts

Public Relations Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Faculty • Award submission: Doug Newsome • Public Relations and Sustainability across the African Continent: Using Afro-Centric Philosophies to Remember What’s Been ‘Forgotten or Lost’ • Donnalyn Pompper, university of oregon; Eric Kwame Adae, Drake University • Assuring sustainability across the African continent – the cradle of humankind – is an ethical public relations responsibility. There is insufficient research about public relations as a tool for supporting sustainability goals across the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent (Volk, 2017); one that the rest of the planet relies upon for forests serving as “lungs of the world” (Fleshman, 2008). To begin filling the gap, we address challenges of making sustainability happen here, given a long history of negative colonial and neocolonial forces operating in many of Africa’s nations. Despite these impediments, enduring are indigenous, pre-colonial Afro-centric philosophies of communalism/collectivism and harmony with the natural environment that support sustainability efforts. We interrogate six indigenous philosophies which resonate with values that make contemporary public relations ethical. We discuss why professional public relations shaped by Afro-centric philosophies is welcomed, globally, and is critical for addressing sustainability across the continent.

Research Paper • Student • Award submission: Doug Newsome • From Saving Face to Saving Lives: Prioritizing the Public in Public Relations • Erika Schneider, University of Missori • Traditional crisis communication literature emphasizes how organizations use communication to protect reputation by shifting attributions of crisis responsibility. The purpose of this study is to reevaluate this approach by comparing proposed framework strategies that serve to protect stakeholders with reputational messaging. Findings from this between-subjects experimental design study provide insight on how informed organizational decision-making, such as corrective action and organizational learning, can reduce feelings of anger while prioritizing stakeholder wellbeing in public relations.

Research Paper • Student • Award submission: Race & Public Relations • Racism and Social Issues Management: Examining State Universities’ Responses to the Killing of George Floyd • Drew T. Ashby-King, University of Maryland • Colleges and universities are social institutions often called on speak about social issues, such as responding to instances of racism on campus. Critics have suggested that when responding instances of racism on their campus, institutional leaders often ignore the racist act and harm caused and focus their discourse on diversity and inclusion. Considering this critique, this study used social issues management as a framework to explore how state flagship universities in the United States (U.S.) responded to an instance of racism that did not occur on their campuses. A qualitative analysis of all 50 U.S. state flagship universities’ initial public statement in response to the police killing of George Floyd led to three key findings: (1) institutions were made to speak on the issue by larger social discourse; (2) through their statements institutions (re)defined the issue as one of diversity and inclusion rather than racism and police brutality; and (3) guided by the logic of whiteness institutions legitimized their definition of the issue. Based on these findings, I argue that the initial conceptualization of social issues management did not adequality consider the power organizations have to define social issues through their discourse. Therefore, I conclude by suggesting an approach to social issues management that centers those most effected by the issue in order to promote social justice.

Research Paper • Student • Award submission: Race & Public Relations • Rethinking cultural factors in government communication: A survey of environmental professionals working for indigenous governments • Ryan Comfort, Indiana University • This study examined the use of and attitudes towards communication media by environmental and natural resource management personnel employed by indigenous nations in the U.S. Survey data on professionals’ use of media, attitudes, and perceived obstacles to better use of media for science & environmental communication revealed that concerns about sharing cultural ecological information may carry significant weight in the communication decision making process of indigenous environmental agencies.

Research Paper • Faculty • Award submission: Race & Public Relations • The Hybrid Firestorm: A Qualitative Study of Black Lives Matter Activism and the COVID-19 Pandemic • Tiffany Gallicano, UNC Charlotte; Olivia Lawless; Abagail Higgins; Samira Shaikh; Sara Levens • The combination of a global pandemic and an ignited social justice movement has created a saturated digital environment in which people turn to social media to navigate a hybrid firestorm fueled by both the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the circuit of culture has been studied in the context of a pandemic (Curtin & Gaither, 2006) and digital activism (Han & Zhang, 2009), research using any theoretical model to study a hybrid firestorm could not be found. This study consists of interviews with 25 participants involving their experiences in the hybrid firestorm. The circuit of culture is used, which is a model composed of five moments, to explore how meaning is created, interpreted, and contested in the context of a social justice movement and a global pandemic.

Research Paper • Faculty • Award submission: Race & Public Relations • Discriminated Against but Engaged: The Role of Communicative Behaviors of Racial Minority Employees • Yeunjae Lee, University of Miami; Jo-Yun Li • Grounded in the situational theory of problem-solving (STOPS), two survey studies investigated how racial minority employees in the U.S. perceive and communicate about the discriminatory situation within their organizations and how it affects their engagement levels. In Study 1 (N = 461), experiences and observance of both formal and informal discriminatory acts at work reduced racial minority employees’ engagement level, while their situational perceptions increased their communicative behaviors toward direct supervisor and peers, respectively. Communicative behaviors with supervisors, not peers, in turn, increased their engagement. Study 2 (N = 454) replicated and extended Study 1 in different contexts, revealing the moderating role of a diverse climate in increasing racial minority employees’ problem and involvement recognition and decreasing their constraint recognition about workplace discrimination situation. Theoretical and practical implications for race in public relations are discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Award submission: Race & Public Relations • Silence Has No Place A Framing Analysis of Corporate Sociopolitical Activism Statements • Yvette Sterbenk, Ithaca College; Jamie Ward, EMU; Regina Luttrell; Summer Shelton, Idaho State University • This study used a quantitative framing analysis to examine the company statements delivered by 105 Fortune 500 companies across 21 sectors in June 2020 in response to three social justice issues that took prominence that month in the United States: Black Lives Matter, immigration laws, and LGBTQ rights. The study uncovered which companies and sectors did not make statements, and, among those that did, what messages were most common.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Serving Public Interests and Enacting Organizational Values: An Examination of Public Interest Relations through AARP’s Tele-Town Halls • Lindsey Anderson, University of Maryland • Public interest relations (PIR) is an approach to public relations scholarship and practice that contributes to the social good by integrating the concept of public interest into organizational goals and values. The need for PIR was emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic as publics looked to organizations for information about a variety of topics (e.g., symptoms, vaccines). AARP created a series of tele-townhalls to communicate with its publics, who are considered to be members of a “vulnerable population” during the pandemic. In order to understand how AARP’s Coronavirus Tele-Town Halls reflected the practices of PIR, I completed a critical thematic analysis of 28 virtual sessions that were hosted in 2020-2021. The analysis, which was guided by the tenets of PIR, found that AARP’s communication (1) highlighted common life course milestones of its publics, (2) emphasized the quality of the information, and (3) provided avenues to engage with the organization and its experts. Based on these findings, I developed theoretical implications that reflect a critical perspective on PIR and suggest future research avenues that seek to build this ethical and socially meaningful approach to public relations.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Understanding the implementation of Enterprise Social Media on Employee Communication: An Affordance Perspective • Song AO, University of Macau; XIAO QIAN, University of Macau • The research adopts the technological affordance approach to examine the role of enterprise social media (ESM) in employee communication in the context of mainland China. The research postulated that organizations can actualize affordances of ESM to achieve certain goals. Using Enterprise WeChat (EWeChat) as the example, the research interviewed 37 participants to explore organizational goals and actions of EWeChat affordance actualization in mainland China. Thirteen EWeChat affordances and means of actualization (i.e., association, control, diversity, feedback, outeraction, perpetual contact, persistence, personalization, portability, privacy, social presence, synchronicity, and visibility) for specific organizational goals were identified. The research explicates ESM affordance actualization as the interaction between ESM and organizations, and also between ESM and employees. The research sheds light on how organizations in mainland China can effectively configure their ESM for certain purposes of its mobile application in employee communication.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Relational Tensions and Publics during Disasters: Investigating Organizational Relationships Ethnographically • Anita Atwell Seate, University of Maryland; Brooke Liu, University of Maryland; Samantha Stanley; Yumin Yan; Allison Chatham, University of Maryland • Relationships are essential for a fully functioning society. Through a multi-sited rapid ethnography, we show how organizations achieve their mission through organizational partners and active publics in the context of disasters. We provide insights into relational tensions that occur in organization-public relationships (OPRs) and how communication can address those relational tensions. In doing so, we answer calls for broadening methodologies to examine OPRs. Overall, we demonstrate the value of continuing to theorize the network approach.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Exploring Online Opinion Leadership: An Analysis of the Influential Users on Twitter During the Online Conversation Around Anthem Protests by Prominent Athletes • Brandon Boatwright • The current study explores the role of online opinion leaders on Twitter in conversations around anthem protests by prominent athletes. The aim of the study is twofold: (1) identify the influential opinion leaders in Twitter conversations related to Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, and (2) further understand how and why social media users participate in conversations online about controversial subjects. Ultimately, results from this study extend the network paradigm in public relations research by examining the role of individual users in the construction of a discursive landscape of issue networks. The study combines social network analysis with in-depth interviews in order to adopt a more wholistic framework for studying online opinion leadership in the context of public relations research.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Extended abstract: Promoting diversity and inclusion: How Fortune 500 companies talk about diversity on Twitter • Denise Bortree, Penn State University; Michail Vafeiadis; Pratiti Diddi, Lamar University; Ryan Wang • This study examines more than 11,000 tweets on diversity topics posted by Fortune 500 companies in 2019. It identifies the 18 most common topics in six general areas – workplace diversity/inclusion, gender/women, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, disability and activism. Corporations with higher CSR ratings tend to post more diversity-related tweets. Analysis suggests that companies tend to use different topics in original posts and retweets/replies/comments on diversity. Engagement rates on diversity topics vary widely.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Extending civic values in architectures of listening: Arendt, Mouffe and the pluralistic imperative for organizational listening • Luke Capizzo, James Madison University; Meredith Feinman • This conceptual paper introduces the concept of civic listening to augment organizational listening theory and practice. Drawing from the writing of Arendt and Mouffe, it centers pluralism, agonism, deliberation, and reflection as central to listening and delineates the functions and values of civic listening to add to existing architectures. This new perspective points toward deeper, more nuanced, and more equitable organizational engagement in civic discourse and firmer ground for contentious issue engagement.

Extended Abstract • Member • Open Competition • Extended Abstract: Toward an Audience-Centric Framework of Situational Corporate Social Advocacy Strategy: A pilot study • Ioana Coman, Texas Tech University; Jiun-Yi Tsai, Northern Arizona University; Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University • Increasingly companies engage in Corporate Social Advocacy or Political Activism. Yet how publics expect companies to take a stance (sometimes even action) on controversial issues remains unclear. We propose an audience-centric approach to investigate how audiences expect companies to act on hot button issues and their reasoning process, through a mixed-method analysis of a survey (N=388) conducted at a public University. Results highlight a need to further understand CSA from audience perceptions.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Exploring the Mediating Effect of Government–Public Relationships during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Model Comparison Approach • Yuan Wang, City University of Hong Kong; Yi-Hui Christine Huang, City University of Hong Kong; Qinxian Cai, City University of Hong Kong • This study proposed, tested, and compared two models to examine the antecedent and outcome of government–public relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic. It conducted three surveys of 9,675 publics in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It found that publics’ perceived governmental responsiveness leads to their satisfaction with and trust in the government, which influence their word-of-mouth intention about the vaccines. Furthermore, relational satisfaction and trust mediate the relationship between perceived responsiveness and word-of-mouth intention.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • A Comparison of Twitter Use by Different Sector Organizations • Taisik Hwang, Suffolk University • “Given the shifting nature of communication environment, this study attempts to discover how leading nature education organizations utilize social media to effectively reach and build relationship with their audiences. Specifically, it employed a content analysis to examine how the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), U.S. National Park Service (NPS), and National Geographic (NG) take advantage of Twitter to better communicate with their external publics. Out of a total of 6,286 tweets sent by these organizations for a six-month period from January to June 2018, a random sample was used for quantitative analysis. Findings show that there are significant differences in these organizations’ use of message functions as well as mentioning of brand names associated with them. For example, both UNESCO and NPS tend to focus on building community with their external stakeholders, whereas NG’s tweets mainly involves the information function. The current study

will benefit other non-profit organizations by revealing ways in which these organizations purposefully use social media to fulfill their mission and suggesting practical guidelines to strategic communicators in public-sector organizations.”

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Feeling elevated: Examine the mediation role of elevation in CEO activism on employee prosocial engagement • Grace Ji, Boston University; Cheng Hong, California State University Sacramento • With a survey of 600 U.S. employees, this study investigated the effect of authentic leadership on employees’ prosocial advocacy engagement in the context of CEO activism. Employees’ moral elevation and organizational identification were examined as mediators. Results showed authentic leadership elicited employees’ positive emotion of elevation and enhanced their identification with the company. In turn, employees’ affective (elevation) and cognitive (organizational identification) responses mediated authentic leadership’s impact on motivating employees’ activism participation.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Influence of identification, relationship, and involvement of a donor on attitudes towards and behavioral intentions to online donation via SNS • Eunyoung Kim, Auburn University at Montgomery; Sung Eun Park, Webster University • This study seeks what factors predict publics’ behavioral intentions to online donate and share words via social media. Relevant literature was reviewed, and an online survey was conducted to examine hypotheses. The results show that identification, involvement, perceived credibility, and attitudes towards online donation predict intention to donate via social media, while attitudes towards helping others, identification, involvement, and site features affect the intention of Word-of-Mouth. Theoretical and practical implications are presented in the discussion and conclusion.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Public Expectations of Government Pandemic-Crisis Communication What and How to Communicate during the COVID-19 Pandemic • Sora Kim, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • Through two representative online surveys in Hong Kong (HK) and the U.S. (US) during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates, from a public-centric perspective, public expectations of effective government pandemic-crisis communication. It looks specifically at what publics want to be communicated in times of a global pandemic and how. In each region, the findings identify four significant dimensions. Three are culturally universal dimensions—basic responsibility, locus of pandemic-crisis responsibility, and disfavor of promotional tone. The fourth is culture-specific—personal relevance for HK and frequency for the US. Among the significant dimensions, the most highly expected is what people consider government’s basic responsibility in pandemic communication, that is, a basic responsibility dimension. This includes providing instructing and adjusting information and securing accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in pandemic communication. In both regions, respondents preferred by far traditional media and non-governmental sources to social media and governmental sources.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Revisiting SMCC Model: How Chinese Public Relations Practitioners Handle Social Mediated Crisis • Sining Kong, Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi; Huan Chen, University of Florida • As social media is widely used by Chinese organizations, this study comprehensively examines how Chinese public relations practitioners cope with social mediated crisis and how culture interacts with social mediated crisis response. An in-depth interview was used to collect data from twenty-three Chinese public relations practitioners, who had experience in dealing with crises and issues via social media. Results showed that Chinese public relations practitioners use diverse social media platforms to satisfy the publics’ gratifications and social media usage preferences. Besides, results also showed the importance of matching information form and information source in responding social mediated crisis. Furthermore, it revealed how the uniqueness of Chinese culture moderated Chinese public relations social mediated crisis response, such as maintaining harmony and avoiding direct confrontation, collaborating with opinion leaders and influencers to shape publics’ opinions, using no response, apologizing, and self-mockery, and emphasizing the importance of media relations.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Social Listening using Machine Learning to Understand Sense Making and Content Dissemination on Twitter: A Case Study of WHO’s Social Listening Strategy During COVID-19 Initial Phase • Sushma Kumble, Towson University; Pratiti Diddi, Lamar University; Maggie Whitescarver • The study utilized unsupervised machine learning techniques to the CERC framework on 6.1 Million Tweets between January to March 2020 to understand the sensemaking process during COVID-19 among Twitter users. The study also used content analysis to examine WHO’s response to the popular emerging conversations. Results indicate that while WHO’s messaging addressed the dominant topics during the timeframe but did not effectively address misinformation. The paper discusses the implications and recommendations for health communication practitioners.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Global Companies’ Use of Social Media for CSR Communication During COVID-19 • Sun Young Lee, University of Maryland–College Park; Duli Shi, University of Maryland; John Leach; Saymin Lee; Cody Buntain, New Jersey Institute of Technology • The purpose of the study was to examine how companies have communicated their efforts to address COVID-19 on Facebook and Twitter and to evaluate the effectiveness of their message strategies. We conducted a content analysis of 992 Facebook posts and 1,957 tweets between March 11 and May 20, 2020, from the 2020 RepTrak’s 100 most reputable companies. About one-third of the messages (n = 1,059) were related to companies’ responses to COVID-19. Companies mostly highlighted CSR efforts related to their expertise, partnership efforts, or financial resources. The majority of messages did not specify a particular group’s interests, but when they did, the most impacted groups, such as frontline personnel and employees, were addressed. Companies mostly used social media to employ one-way message strategies, but incorporating multimedia and expressing appreciation to others were found to be effective message strategies for engaging publics emotionally. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • What do you mean by doing the right thing?: Examining corporate social advocacy frames and transparency efforts in Fortune 500 companies’ website • Hyunmin Lee, Drexel University; Emma Whitehouse, Drexel University • This study examined the state of corporate social advocacy (CSA) initiatives among Fortune 500 companies via a content analysis of their official websites. There is a need to critically examine the ways in which CSA is communicated to create a normative understanding as to what constitutes of ethical and transparent CSA communication. Findings showed that episodic frames were popularly utilized to communicate about CSA and transparency efforts varied according to CSA type and location.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • How Nike and Gillette Survived the Tension between Corporate Social Advocacy and Boycotting Backlash • Juan Liu, Columbus State University; Bruce Getz, Columbus State University • Both 2018 Nike’s Colin Kaepernick and 2019 Gillette commercial campaigns received backlash on social media over their messages addressing controversial social-political issues. Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study examines how polarized boycotting and advocating messages on Twitter affect interactive engagement and perceptions of corporate social advocacy. In both Nike and Gillette conditions, individuals who expressed strong value alignment with brands’ campaigns, were more susceptible to be affected by polarized tweets. When evaluating brands’ motivations for corporate social advocacy, results showed that individuals with weak value alignment were more likely to be affected by polarized messages. However, this pattern is only found in the Gillette condition. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Public Perceptions of Using the Wireless Emergency Alert System for COVID-19: Lessons for State Government Crisis Communication • Stephanie Madden, Penn State University; Nicholas Eng, Penn State University; Jessica Myrick, Penn State University • On November 25, 2020, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) sent out a COVID-19 public health message via the Wireless Emergency Alert system. Using survey (N = 212) and interview (N = 19) research, this study sought to understand the targeted publics’ reaction to this message and factors impacting potential behavior change after receiving this message. Because COVID-19 response has relied on state governments, this research provides important findings for government communicators at the state level.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Communicating the Big Picture with Employees: The Impacts of CEO Vision Communication on Employee Engagement • Yufan “Sunny” Qin, University of Florida; Alexis Fitzsimmons, University of Florida; Eve Heffron, University of Florida; Marcia DiStaso, University of Florida • Communicating an organizational vision with employees can be critical to help employees internalize the vision, which might in turn increase their willingness to get engaged with the work and subsequently achieving higher goals. The aim of this study is to examine whether and how CEO vision communication could influence employee engagement. This study also proposes employees’ perceptions of work meaningfulness and organizational identification as the potential underlying mechanism that mediate the relationship between CEO vision communication and employee engagement. An online survey was conducted with employees across various industries in the U.S.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Internal Activism at Amazon: Rhetorical Strategies and the Public Relations Response • Margaret Ritsch, Washington State University; Erin Tomson, Washington State University • “This study examined the public relations response to employee activism at Amazon during the Covid-19 pandemic. Public relations has typically been examined from a functional perspective, which largely ignores the power dynamics between an organization and its employees, who are important stakeholders that contribute to the organization’s public image. Critical theory provides a useful lens to examine the dynamics of organizational power and control, although this approach has typically been applied to the study of internal communication dynamics. The study addresses this gap by using a critical rhetorical approach to examine Amazon’s response to employee activism. Researchers conducted qualitative content analysis of news media coverage and Amazon’s company content (e.g. websites and public statements). The data indicates that Amazon spokespeople used aggressive rhetorical strategies in their communication with and about employee activists that discouraged unionization and ultimately attempted to prevent current and former Amazon employees from speaking up about their experiences working for the company.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Unpack the Relational and Behavioral Outcomes of Internal CSR: Highlighting Dialogic Communication and Managerial Facilitation • Baobao Song; Weiting Tao • The current study examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication and management contributes to internal public relationship building and employees’ megaphoning behaviors. Specifically, it investigates how organization-public dialogical communication (OPDC) about CSR and the organizational leaders’ facilitation behavior towards employee CSR engagement influence employees’ perceptions of two different distinct types of organization-public relationships (OPRs), i.e., communal and exchange relationships. Structural equation modeling results of 660 on-line survey responses suggest that OPDC has a positive association with communal relationship and negative association with exchange relationship. Facilitation behavior positively contributes to employee exchange relationships. Both communal and exchange relationships are positively associated with employees’ positive megaphoning. Whereas negative megaphoning is negatively linked with communal relationships and positively linked with employees’ exchange relationships with the companies. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on internal CSR communication and management. More importantly, this study uncovers nuanced effects of CSR on internal public communal and exchange relationship building.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Public Communication in the Age of Fake News • Edson Tandoc Jr; Pei Wen Wong, Nanyang Technological; Chen Lou; Hyunjin Kang, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological U; Shruti Malviya, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological U • The rise of fake news has posed threats to societies around the world, affecting various institutions. One area that has not been sufficiently explored is how it has affected public communication. This study examines how the rise of fake news has affected the roles, resources, and routines of public communicators in Singapore. Through in-depth interviews, this research explores how various communication officers across Singapore’s government agencies perceive, and respond to, the fake news crisis.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The role of community and social capital in community building • Brooke Witherow, Hood College • While the role of social capital in community building has been discussed previously, the terms community and community building are rarely defined (e.g. Dodd et al., 2015; Jin & Lee, 2013; Sommerfeldt 2013a, 2013b). This qualitative case study examines the role of community and social capital in community building through community policing. 26 semi-structured interviews with police administration, patrol officers, and community leaders were conducted. The interviews with patrol officers occurred during seven ride-alongs.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Examining Value Congruence and Outcome-relevant involvement as Antecedents of Corporate Political Advocacy • Leping You; Linda Hon, University of Florida; Yu-Hao Lee • Drawing from the theoretical foundation of corporate political advocacy (CPA), this study aims to understand value congruence and outcome-relevant involvement as the antecedents of CPA that companies should consider when taking a stance on contentious sociopolitical issues. This study conducted a 2 x 2 online experiment to examine how both antecedents affect consumers’ attitudinal evaluation on the credibility and legitimacy of a CPA and predict consumers’ supportive behavioral intentions toward a CPA.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Navigating change in the Era of COVID-19: The Role of Top Leaders’ Charismatic Rhetoric and Employees’ Organizational Identification • April YUE, University of Connecticut • “The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had tremendous and swift effects on organizational change. This study examined how organizations can leverage leadership and employee resources to facilitate positive change outcomes. Drawing from the self-concept based motivational theory of charismatic leadership and substitutes for leadership theory, the current study proposed a theoretical model connecting top leaders’ charismatic rhetoric, employees’ affective commitment to change, and employees’ turnover intention. Furthermore, the study investigated contingencies that may modify the relationship between leadership communication and followers’ outcomes. Results from an online panel of 417 U.S. employees showed that top leaders’ use of charismatic rhetoric during change led to followers’ affective commitment to change, which decreased their turnover intention. Furthermore, employees’ organizational identification moderated this relationship. When employees have low identification with their organizations, top leaders’ charismatic rhetoric to address the immediate change is more needed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The influence of issue attitude on consumers’ reaction toward corporate social advocacy: A moderated mediation path through cognitive dissonance • Xueying Zhang, North Carolina A&T State; Ziyuan Zhou, Bentley University • Corporate social advocacy (CSA) has gained increasing attention in public relations research. The psychological mechanisms regarding how consumers react to a CSA position that conflicts with their own have not yet been examined. Employing cognitive dissonance theory, this study examines how consumers’ preexisting attitude toward an issue influences their reaction to CSA through cognitive dissonance. An experiment (study1) and a survey (study 2) were conducted on Qualtrics with participants recruited from MTurk. Gay marriage rights and gun control issue were chosen as the CSA topics. The results indicated that a conflict between a consumer’s preexisting attitude and a corporation’s stance on a controversial issue leads to cognitive dissonance. Dissonance mediates consumers’ responses to counter-attitudinal CSA, in terms of perceiving the company as biased and intending to boycott the company. Value involvement and CCI significantly moderated the effect of consumers’ attitudes toward CSA on cognitive dissonance, but the effect varies between the two issues. The results help PR practitioners to better understand the segmented consumer audiences and provide a few pieces of practical advice to minimize the potential risk of expressing advocacy on a position of a controversial social political issue.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Matching words with actions: Understanding the effects of CSA stance-action consistency on negative consumer responses • Ziyuan Zhou, Bentley University; Chuqing Dong, Michigan State University • Corporation social advocacy (CSA) is a popular topic in public relations research. However, few studies have considered the issue of consistency between corporations taking a stance on a controversial issue and acting accordingly. This study proposed a new concept, CSA stance-action consistency, to investigate the negative consumer responses when corporations violate their CSA promises. A 4 × 2 between-subject experiment indicated that CSA stance-action consistency significantly predicted negative word-of-mouth and boycott intentions. Besides, social issue activism moderated such an effect, while CSA record did not. This study added one more piece of evidence on the risks of CSA and encouraged corporations to fully understand stakeholders’ expectations of CSA before getting involved with controversial issues.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • How China used Twitter to Repair Its Image amid the COVID-19 Crisis • Ayman Alhammad, University of Kansas • “In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have suffered in different ways politically, economically, and socially because of this health crisis. China registered the first case of COVID-19 and found itself the recipient of negative publicity, some of which, stated by scientists, blamed China for the virus in a Wuhan laboratory, or covered the nature of the disease until it was out of control (Verma, 2020). Because of comprehensive widely negative consequences, China’s image has been distorted in many countries. That led the Chinese government to use a different medium to deal with the crisis, one of which is social media platforms. As Saudi Arabia is one of China’s important economic partners, Beijing is concerned that health crises could affect negatively its economic interests in Saudi Arabia. In fact, China has faced serious obstacles in terms of import and export goods (Hayakawa & Mukunoki, 2021).

China decided to employ digital diplomacy by making its ambassadors communicate with the local and international communities (Brandt & Schafer, 2020). Chinese ambassador, Chen Weiqing, speaks to Saudis via Twitter as Saudi Arabia is ranked eighth in the world with 12.45 million users (Statista, 2020). This paper examines the image repair strategies that the Chinese ambassador in Saudi Arabia employed during the coronavirus pandemic to restore China’s image there. This study adopted rhetorical analysis, building on the theoretical framework proposed by Brinson & Benoit (1999).

An examination of the ambassador’s tweets revealed a variety of image restoration strategies, including denial, bolstering, compensation, and minimization.”

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • The Networked Huawei Agendas during the US-China Trade War: The Interrelationships between Huawei, the News Media, and Public Tweets • Zahedur Arman, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study examines interrelationships between the networked Huawei agendas, the U.S. and Chinese news media agendas, and Twitter users’ issue agendas on Twitter during the US-China Trade War. Social network analysis is used as a theory and method to analyze Huawei’s public relations activities on Twitter, news media, and Twitter users’ network. This study found that Huawei’s direct networked agenda setting to Twitter users is more successful than the news media’s networked agenda-setting to the Twitter users. This study is among the first to explore cross-nation networked agenda building and networked agenda setting effects on Twitter. It also found that the US media did not follow Huawei’s networked agendas, but the Chinese media followed the corporation’s issue agendas during the US-China trade war. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • I Distrust You All Because One of You Did Something Wrong: Spillover Effect of Distrust Elicited by an NPO’s Crisis on Overall NPOs • Bugil Chang, University of Minnesota • This study examined how public distrust formed by the crisis of an NPO spills over to other organizations in the same and different sectors through experiment. Overall, when faced with a crisis, the participants distrusted not only organizations in the same sector as the crisis-stricken organization but also organizations in a different sector. The effect was fully mediated by participants’ perceived distrust toward the crisis-stricken organization.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • From CSR to Employees’ Megaphoning Behavior: The Roles of Communal Relationship and Corporate Reputation • Enzhu Dong, University of Miami; Dongqing Xu • This study examined how employees’ perceived overall CSR activities impact employees’ positive megaphoning through the mediation of employees’ perceived communal relationship and communal willingness, taking the moderation effect of perceived reputation into consideration. To address the hypotheses, a survey among employees across different organizations was conducted. Results of the moderated mediation examination supported the hypotheses. These findings contributed to the understanding of CSR effects on employee communication behavior and provided implications for organizational management.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • Examining Publics’ Comparative Evaluations of Government Communication and Strength Ties as Predictors of Country Reputation • Yoosun Ham, Indiana University; Ejae Lee, Indiana University; Eugene Kim, The Media School, Indiana University Bloomington; Sung Hyun Lee • During the COVID-19 outbreak, media tended to report on how different Asian countries — China, Japan, and South Korea — were handling the situation by using comparisons. U.S. citizens have been exposed to information about Asian countries and could compare and evaluate how those countries’ governments communicate with their citizens to help contain the new coronavirus. This study attempted to examine how country reputation could be associated with publics’ comparative evaluations about the dialogic communication competency of a foreign country’s government through news media exposure about how that government contained and/or mitigated the new coronavirus. This study also investigated associations between the perceived tie strength between the U.S. and Asian countries and those countries’ reputations. This study used online experimental surveys. Its findings suggest that country reputation was significantly associated with comparative evaluations about mutuality and openness in Asian countries’ government dialogic communication and perceived tie strength with the U.S. government. Theoretical implications and practical contributions are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • Can CEO Activism be Good for the Organization? The Way CEO Activism on Sexual Orientation Equality Achieves High Young Employee Work Engagement • Jie Jin, University of Florida • “Whether a CEO should speak out about controversial issues is a hotly debated topic across the United States. In today’s politically polarized environment, Americans have changed their expectations about whether companies and CEOs should lead social change. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that CEOs shouldn’t avoid taking actions unrelated to their business, the purpose of this study is to examine how CEOs’ pro-sexual orientation equality statements may lead to young employee work engagement from the perspective of social exchange theory. A conceptual model with nine propositions is proposed to reveal how CEO activism generates positive employee outcomes.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • Twitter styles by the leaders of the 116th US House: A concurrent triangulation • Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour, University of New Mexico; Timothy Kwakye Karikari, University of International Business and Economic, Beijing, China • Situating our study in the context of a global pandemic and a time of seeming polarization in the US, we analyzed the tweets (n = 480) of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. We employ the concurrent triangulation approach and blend three theoretical approaches to analyze their credit-claiming behavior, position-taking, attacks as well as the salient frames in their tweets. Findings indicate there is no significant difference in their position-taking and credit-claiming tweets, however, Majority Leader McCarthy tweeted more negatively than Speaker Pelosi. We uncover four salient frames which are: Economic debate, electoral integrity, COVID-19 response, and the appointment of Supreme Court Justice. Ultimately, we juxtapose the qualitative frames with the quantitative findings to give deeper understanding into the three quantitative categories and provide insights into the implications of such tweets.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • How has the United Nations portrayed International Women’s Day before and after founding UN Women? • Michelle Rossi • By applying feminist theory and framing for public relations, this research explored the range of debate within press releases distributed about International Women’s Day before and after the founding of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UN Women, in 2011. Using Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA), this study found that press releases were more descriptive about events in the decade before, and more focused on actions in the decade after.

Research Paper • Student • Student competition • Different Brands Stealing Thunder: How Brand Personality Impacts Crisis Response Strategy Choice • Dongqing Xu • This study aimed to examine the impact of brand personality on participants’ brand perceptions and crisis response evaluation. To be more specific, the study aimed to examine how stealing thunder (i.e., brands disclosing the crisis and response before revealed by the third-party) as a proactive response strategy could impact brands with different personalities in crises. Employing a 2 (brand personality: sincere vs. exciting) × 2 (crisis response type: proactive vs. reactive) experimental design, the study found the buffering effect of sincere brand personality on participants’ perceived credibility, brand attitude, and purchase intention in crisis. In terms of crisis performance evaluations, brand personality was found moderating the effectiveness of the stealing thunder strategy, such that stealing thunder lost its power when employed by a sincere brand. These findings contributed to the extant brand personality literature and suggested a potential boundary of the stealing thunder strategy.

Research Paper • Faculty • Teaching competition • Teaching Philanthropy: How Can Public Relations Courses Prepare Future Fundraisers and Motivate Giving? • Virginia Harrison, Clemson University • Scholars have suggested that fundraising education is a specialty of public relations. This study examines how a fundraising-specific service-learning project may help prepare future fundraisers. A survey of qualitative and quantitative data was administered to public relations students in a fundraising-focused class and in other service-learning classes. Students in the fundraising-focused class were more knowledgeable about nonprofits but were not more inclined to enter the profession. However, they were more motivated to donate after graduation.

Research Paper • Faculty • Teaching competition • Dynamic Capabilities and Social Media Education: Professional Expectations and Curricular Preparation • KiYong Kim • “When Covid-19 impacted regular communication dynamics for organizations, social media became even more prominent in brand communications. A growing body of research confirms training in social media is an essential part of knowing “”how to”” reach one’s organization’s publics (Kruset et al., 2018; Plowman et al., 2015), making social media a mainstay in the public relations educational curriculum (Meganck et al., 2020). This study seeks to bridge the themes found by Kim (2021) related to public relations practice and dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2007) with social media educational practices. This study suggests that there is a link between dynamic capabilities and social media educational practices.

Research Paper • Faculty • Teaching competition • Leveling the Playing Field: Assessing Issues of Equity, Transparency, and Experiential Learning in the PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition • Amanda Weed, Kennesaw State University; Adrienne Wallace, Grand Valley State University; Betsy Emmons, Samford University; Alisa Agozzino, Ohio Northern University • This study provides the first academic research examination about the Public Relations Student Society of America Bateman Case Study Competition. Research-based insights identify varying perspectives on if the competition meets current students’ needs. Through insights gained from a survey of faculty and professional advisers of 2017-2020 Bateman competition teams, the authors have identified critical perspectives and areas for improvement to the competition along the issues of equity, transparency, and experiential learning. Study results address alignment of knowledge, skills, and abilities identified by the Commission on Public Relations Education and university curricula.

2022 Abstracts

Political Communication Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Faculty • Engaging with vilifying stereotypes: The role of algorithmic use in perpetuating misinformation about Muslim congresswomen • Saifuddin Ahmed; Teresa Gil-Lopez • We examine the role of algorithmic use in believing and sharing misinformation about US Muslim congresswomen. Analysis of survey data suggests that those with more frequent algorithmic use and lower cognitive ability were more likely to believe and share misinformation. Those high on nationalism and prejudice against Muslims were also likely to believe misinformation. Most importantly, higher algorithmic use tends to strengthen such beliefs. The study highlights the role of algorithms in perpetuating misinformation.

Extended Abstract • Student • Iran and the U.S. Elections: Building an Agenda of Anxiety and Concern • Osama Albishri, University of Florida; Ghada Alwaily, University of Leicester; Ahmed Alqarni, Virginia Commonwealth University; Wyne Wanta • This study investigates the relationship among political candidates’ messages, news coverage, and congressional legislation regarding Iran’s related issues during four U.S. presidential elections between 2004 and 2020. A dictionary-based approach and sentiment analysis were conducted to explore the three levels of agenda-building. The preliminary analysis shows that U.S. interests in the Middle East was the most salient issues for media and Congress, while Iran’s nuclear program was the most emphasized issue in the presidential debates.

Research Paper • Student • To share or not to share? Political actors and the spread of political misinformation on Twitter • Shola Aromona, University of Kansas • The continued interest in misinformation remains unarguably relevant, given the political climate not just in the US but all around the world. In a post-truth era, social media has not only been used to spread information that are untrue, but it has also been used to counter false narratives. Also, the connectedness of the world makes information travel faster and social networks and social media play a role in how misinformation is spread. Nowadays, it is easier for information to be shared within one’s close social networks which usually consist of friends and family, especially if the information originated from someone in that network. However, little is known about other potential sources of misinformation, such as political elites, who are not necessarily one’s friends or family and who do not belong in one’s close social network, but who are opinion leaders and are influential in the information that an individual consumes on social media. This pilot study used an online experiment to investigate individuals’ likelihood to spread political misinformation based on whether a political leader or non-political leader is the initiator of the [mis]information. By looking at the political attribute of a misinformation initiator, this study contributes to scholarship on misinformation as it extends our knowledge on how misinformation is diffused on social media.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Polarization, Emotion and Race in Social Media: Innovative Methodologies and Challenges of Affective Discourse Analysis • megan boler, University of Toronto • In the context of the so-called “post-truth” crisis, emotions have resoundingly replaced facts in our fast-moving, affectively-driven internet-based culture. Scholars are challenged to develop innovative methods for studying emotion and affect within studies of popular culture, social media, and political communications. This talk presents methodological innovation and research findings from our cross-platform digital ethnography of social media from Twitter, Gab, and Facebook, and qualitative discourse analysis of 1800 social media posts related to Black Lives Matter and the Capitol Riots. Our work provides a significant contribution to a nascent field of studies by specifically engaging an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that includes affect theory or politics of emotion alongside qualitative research of social media.

Research Paper • Faculty • The 2016 presidential election coverage: Use of Twitter as a source and the media framing of the race • Porismita Borah; Rico Neumann • Informed by gatekeeping, agenda-setting, and framing theory, the main purposes of this paper are to examine (1) the use of Twitter as a source in the media coverage, and (2) the media content of that coverage to better understand how they framed those stories, and if there was any relationship between the two. Findings show that compared to Clinton, Trump’s Twitter posts got more attention, and the media coverage continue to be more strategically framed.

Research Paper • • “Strong enough to battle the liberals”: How social identity solidified White evangelical Christian women’s support of Donald J. Trump and sustained their distrust of news outlets • Gayle Jansen Brisbane • This research examines White evangelical Christian women’s social/religious identity and how this distinctiveness influences their political standpoints, voting behaviors, and opinions of perceived out-groups, including news outlets. While appreciating that numerous theoretical aspects are at play in this complex subject matter, an analysis of social/religious identity can provide focal insight and understanding when deliberating Christianity, politics, gender and the media in reference to the nature of evangelical Christian women’s support of Donald J. Trump as the United States President.This qualitative study employed focus groups and semi-structured in-depth interviews with evangelical Christian women. The participants in this study consider their religious identity as such a vital aspect of their character, it motivates their viewpoints in numerous aspects of their lives, including individual motivations, group stimuli and political impulses. Consequently, how they construct their religious identity, as well as how and why they react to in-group threats is a focal element for this exploration.

Research Paper • Faculty • The Anxiety Factor: Moral Traditionalism, Interpersonal Contact Diversity and Support for Transgender Candidates and Rights • Xiaoxia Cao, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Atinc Gurcay, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • An online survey was conducted to investigate what influence public support for transgender candidates and rights. It found that moral traditionalism was negatively associated with support for transgender candidates and rights. The diversity of interpersonal contact with transgender individuals not only was positively related to the support but undermined the negative relationships between moral traditionalism and the support. More importantly, the study showed that anxiety toward transgender people mediated all the relationships observed here.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • (Extended Abstract) The Contagion of Political Incivility in Response to Donald Trump’s Election Campaign Videos on YouTube • Yingying Chen, University of South Carolina • This study examines what factors predict the contagion of political incivility in response to a highly polarized political campaign video on Donald Trump’s official YouTube channel. It perceived incivility as a behavioral contagion process and examined the formation and the evolution of incivility in YouTube comments. I used dynamic network analysis to track the temporal changes in the uncivil comments from the most controversial presidential election campaign video on Donald Trump’s official YouTube page. The study contributes to the current literature by understanding what explains online political incivility. Findings also provide implication to the platform intervention to the spread of uncivil behavior.

Research Paper • Faculty • When exposure to fake news and fact-checking promote fake news sharing: The moderating role of partisan strength and need to evaluate • Hsuan-Ting Chen, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Wai Yin, Ivy Fong • Using data from a panel survey, this study examines the extent to which exposure to fake news and fact-checking lead to fake news sharing and investigates the moderating roles of partisan strength and need to evaluate that represent motivated reasoning in the relationship. The findings suggest that exposure to fake news not only directly but also indirectly affects fake news sharing through fact-checking. In addition, partisan strength enhances the direct effect of exposure to fake news on fake news sharing, while need to evaluate strengthens the indirect effect of exposure to fake news on fake news sharing through fact-checking. This study highlights the threat of exposure to fake news, but also calls attention to the risk of politically motivated and biased fact-checking for the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended Abstract: [Understanding Citizens’ Reaction to Political Scandals in Taiwan: A Survey Study] • Yujia Cheng, Department of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist University • Previous research on public opinion towards politicians’ scandals shows that citizens may have different perceptions on them: some scandals may have severe consequences while some may not. Based the theory of motivated reasoning and literature on media influence, this article constructs a model that draw political attitudes, media use, perceptions on scandals and evaluation of the politicians together to explain the underlying mechanism of political psychology and media preference. Most of the hypotheses are supported.

Research Paper • Student • Behavioral Effects of Partisan URLs sharing on Social Media Users: How Partisan Coverage of Vaccines receives differential Networked Sharing and Interaction on Facebook • Shreenita Ghosh, University of Wisconsin -Madison; Porismita Borah • Vaccination is widely known as one of the most successful methods of preventing communicable infectious diseases (Andre, Booy, Bock, Clemens, Datta, John, Lee, Lolekha, Peltola, and Ruff, 2008). However, researchers have noticed a hesitation in many individuals to take the vaccine ranging from cautious adapters to outright deniers (Puri, Coomes, Haghbayan, and Gunaratne, 2020). Researchers argue that an individual’s information consumption (Dixon, 2021) and political affiliation (Krupenkin, 2020) may impact both how they perceive the vaccine and have a behavioral impact on whether they get vaccinated. Past research has concentrated self-reported behavioral impact of self-reported surveys (Krupenkin, 2021), social media data (Puri et. al. 2021; Jennings, Stoker, Willis, Valgardsson, Gaskell, Devine, McKay and Mills, 2021), or news media data (Dixon, 2021) on people’s Covid-19 related behavior. However, given the hybrid hyper-partisan media ecology which engulfs citizen, it is important to analyze the interaction between traditional media and social media coverage on Vaccines to understand its impact on public’s thoughts, affect and behavior. This study fills this gap in current literature by analyzing the articles by 23 publications (8 left-leaning, 7 right-leaning, and 8 centrist). A triangulation of topic modeling, Facebook link sharing analysis, and ANOVA analysis help the study conclude that partisan news URLs with differential topic prevalence have varied sharing patterns and emotive responses from the public.

Research Paper • Faculty • Pathways to Political Persuasion: Linking Online, Social Media, and Fake News with Political Attitude Change Through Political Discussion • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Salamanca/Penn State University; Pablo González-González, University of Salamanca; Manuel Goyanes, Carlos III University • “There is a vast research tradition examining the antecedents that lead people to be politically persuaded. However, political opinion and attitude change in social media has received comparatively scarcer attention. This study seeks to shed light on this strand of the literature by theoretically advancing, and empirically testing a structural equation model linking online, social media, and fake news exposure, with political discussion, and political persuasion in social media. Drawing on autoregressive causal tests from a two-wave USA survey panel data collected in 2019 and 2020, results indicate that online, social media, fake news and political discussion are all positive predictors of individual political attitude change. Furthermore, structural equation tests reveal that online and social media news lead individuals to be exposed to fake news which, in turn, predict higher levels of political discussion, ultimately facilitating political persuasion in the social media realm. Limitations and further suggestions for future research are also included in the study.

Keywords: Fake News, Misinformation, Online News, Social Media News, Fake News, Political Discussion, Political Persuasion.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Effects of the News Finds Me Perception on Algorithmic News Attitudes and Social Media Political Homophily • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Salamanca/Penn State University; Zicheng Cheng, Pennsylvania State University; Pablo González-González, University of Salamanca • Prior literature on political filter-bubbles suggests an overall positive association between social media use and political news diversification. Sometimes, this might not be the case. There is a burgeoning literature examining three important but distinct strands of scholarship: news finds me perception (NFM), people’s attitudes toward algorithmic news, and political homophilic discussion and information networks. For the first time in the literature, this study theoretically and empirically connects these independent but interrelated issues. We argue that NFM or the perception that ‘one’ can be well informed about public affairs without actively seeking information as news will find ‘me’ through ‘my’ networks, also tend to nurture a positive attitude towards news being presented by algorithmic decisions, rather than human editorial ones. We also contend that the NFM’s over-reliance on news generated from peers within one’s social network support the development of homogeneous political networks in social media (political homophily). Results based on a variety of OLS regression models (e.g., crossectional, lagged, and autoregressive) from a US representative panel survey, as we all as autoregressive structural equation model tests, indicate that this is indeed the case. This study serves to specifically clarify when and how social media and the NFM facilitate politically homogeneous filter-bubbles.

Research Paper • Student • Examining how digital platform diversity contributes to social media news engagement in China • Jing GUO, Chinese Univeristy of Hong Kong • This study examines how digital platform diversity contributes to social media news engagement in China with an on-line survey among mainland Chinese adult netizens regarding their reading of China-U.S. trade war news on-line. Moderated mediation analysis of the data shows that pro-attitudinal exposure and news elaboration are mediating the positive relationship between platform diversity and social media news engagement while inner political efficacy is playing a moderating role on the relationship between the two mediators.

Research Paper • • Wealth Mindset and Political Division • Mark Harmon • “The researcher investigates “attitude toward wealth” as a marker containing implicit assumptions that connect politicians with voters. The researcher notes conservative or right-wing individuals, much more than liberal or left-wing individuals, see poverty as a person’s moral failing and wealth as consequence of good choices and moral uprightness.

This research examines the universality of that difference by looking at corollary extrapolations on the source, value, and public policy toward wealth. These examinations are done through secondary analysis of five major public opinion surveys: U. S. General Social Survey, 1972-2018; American National Election Study 2016; World Values Survey wave six, 2010 to 2014; European Social Survey, round nine, 2018; and Latinobarómetro, 2018. The researcher also tests corollary extrapolations on four smaller domestic U.S. polls.

The connection between political philosophy (left v. right, liberal v. conservative) robustly correlated with the vast majority of 70 measures of wealth-related opinions across all nine surveys analyzed.

The researcher cautions these rather consistent correlations do not imply causation. Instead, political communication should consider wealth attitudes as a globally relevant marker of left-right differences, and an important message factor signaling to voters a shared worldview about the nature, source, value, and desirable public policy about wealth.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Due and undue impartiality. How context policed BBC reporting during the UK and US elections • Ceri Hughes, Cardiff University; Marina Morani, Cardiff University; Stephen Cushion, Cardiff University; Maria Kyriakidou, Cardiff University • Democracy presupposes an informed electorate, an electorate which largely must rely on media sources to relay the requisite information from the politicians on the ballot. In the UK media ecology, how such information is relayed is strictly mandated during elections and thus often typically operationalised with a “she-said-he-said” style of reporting. This research, with an examination of BBC reporting of the four leading politicians involved in the 2019 UK and 2020 US general elections, questions whether such a model remains apposite when two of the he-saids have a propensity for misinformation. This research further examines the contexts and ways BBC journalists interact with politician’s claims and the manner they employ correctives to instances of misinformation. An uneven employment of fact-checking style reporting is found and a continued employment of balance masquerading as impartiality.

Research Paper • Student • Conspiracy Mentality, Motivated Reasoning, Conspiracy Adoption: Effects of Ideology and Participation on Electoral Conspiracy Endorsement • Yanru Jiang, University of California, Los Angeles • From voting fraud to Russian interference, electoral conspiracy theories have circulated on social media since the 2016 presidential election with alarming magnitude. This study selects popular conspiracies reflecting various political ideologies and conducts multiple survey rounds (n=500) to compare and contrast the effect of partisan affiliations on conspiracy endorsement. Based on econometric modeling and the theories of conspiracy mentality, motivated reasoning, as well as the social aspects of conspiracy adoption, the results indicate that higher levels of political affiliation and knowledge correlate to stronger conspiracy endorsement for conservative conspiracy beliefs over liberal ones. Additionally, increased political participation heightens the endorsement of liberal conspiracy theories among both Republicans and Democrats.

Extended Abstract • Student • Effects of Hong Kong Local Identity on the Intention to Use Health Code during COVID-19 • Xin Jin, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong; Zimeng An; Yanru Jiang, University of California, Los Angeles • Combining Kong Kong local identity scale and health belief model, this study proposed an integrative model and confirmed the indirect and negative effect of Hong Kong people’s local identity on their intention to use the health QR code during COVID-19 through the mediation of perceived benefit of using the health code

Research Paper • Student • Macedonian Name Dispute: Contentious Securitization and the Perceived Role of Media and Journalists in Greece • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • While research into securitization studies have focused extensively on all the essential elements of Securitization Theory (securitizer, emergency acts, securitized object, acceptance of the audience, and the successful securitization process) the connection amongst the securitization process and the role of the media and journalists are still under-researched. This paper situates itself in that gap. For examining this gap, interviews with 42 important political actors were conducted, such as anti-fascists, Greek parliamentarians, and their staff members. The interviews focused on researching the events associated with the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND), which overshadowed the Greek discourse from 2018 to 2019, leading to solving one of the oldest and the most potent territorial name disputes of the globe. This research paper shows that the process of securitization can be contentious, as there were at least two securitization processes in the MND. One that was promoted by the government and the other one by the dominant right-wing opposition party of New Democracy, which became the new government eventually after the national elections on the 7th of July 2019. In this contentious process, the side that controlled the media and the journalists resulted in successfully maintaining longer its securitization.

Research Paper • Student • Communicating the Macedonian Name Discourse on the Candidates’ Websites in Northern Greece‘s Regional and Municipal Elections of 2019 • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • Territorial name disputes are used as political tools at a national or international level to attract people’s interest and to shape the relevant discourse. These disputes can lead to the empowerment of specific actors in political competitions. There are differences though amongst these disputes. For instance, some do not have actual territorial claims, such as the Arabian/Persian Gulf or the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND). Besides, even if there are actual territorial claims, these disputes are represented and perceived as independent entities in the countries’ discourse, primarily when they become a tool in political competition. Nevertheless, they have not been studied in-depth through the lenses of the communication field. Thus, this research paper employed critical discourse analysis (CDA) to study the use of the MND on the websites of the eight most prominent candidates of the regional and municipal elections of 2019 in Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia, as MND is one of the oldest territorial name disputes in the world. Furthermore, it has been used in the political competition of Greece for almost 30 years, primarily through the last years (2018 & 2019) due to the ratification of the “Prespes Agreement” amongst Greece and the country now-named North Macedonia. This study revealed that politicians employ this communication tool for provoking powerful emotions linked with the Greek identity. After all, MND, like other territorial name disputes, seems to preserve a dominant discourse in which the emotional factor dictates the truth and goes against those who oppose this existed regime of truth.

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended Abstract: Reason and Emotion in Right-Wing Media Critique: A Qualitative Study of Affect and Trust in Twitter, Facebook and Gab • Gordon Katic, University of Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; megan boler, University of Toronto • Alternative media – especially right-wing media – often critiques mainstream media (MSM) for not being trustworthy. Through a digital ethnography of right-wing Twitter influencers, we investigate what role emotions play in their media critique. We find strong emotions are frequently used, though influencers sometimes assume detached objectivity and lambasted their opponents for supposed emotionality. These findings suggest a paradox: emotions are a powerful tool in fomenting media distrust, but deriding emotionality is too.

Research Paper • Student • Do Twitter Comments Influence Credibility Perceptions of News Posts? Exploring MAIN Model • John Kelsey • Online comments continue to offer a means through which media users can gain information and learn from others as well as express opinions and participate in global conversations. Comments can lead to thoughtful deliberation and present new ways of thinking, but have also demonstrated themselves to be divisive and exacerbate polarization. Collectively, social media networks (SMNs) such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit hold almost 3.5 billion users and provide commenting, liking, and sharing as featured affordances through their platforms. Due to such large audiences likely being influenced and learning socially through online comments, an online, 2 X 2 experiment (N = 250) informed by the Modality-Agency-Interactivity-Navigability (MAIN) model tested how susceptible to the effects of user generated comments (positive vs. negative) and metric cues (likes and shares) readers are in their evaluations of credibility, issue importance and comment position. Findings indicate the valence of a comment to be highly predictive as to how credibility may be assessed and the likelihood that a comment position will be adopted; however, engagement cues vary in their influence and predictive ability. Study results also indicate the MAIN model’s bandwagon concept to be a robust tool in explaining information processing and the relationship between identity, collaborative filtering, and credibility.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • The Self-Censoring Majority • Devin Knighton, Brigham Young University; Christopher Wilson, Brigham Young University; Alycia Burnett • This study examines the spiral of silence theory in the context of social media and political communication. It finds that the majority of self-censoring to the hardcore minority on both ends of the political spectrum. This study is in progress; however, all data has been collected and most of the analysis is complete.

Research Paper • Faculty • Creative self-efficacy, political decision-making, and offline and online political participation: Findings from a cross-national survey • Matthew Kushin, Shepherd University; Francis Dalisay, University of Guam; Jinhee Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology; Amy Forbes, James Cook University; Clarissa David, University of the Philippines, Diliman; Lilnabeth Somera, University of Guam • This study examined the role of creative self-efficacy in political engagement and civic outcomes. A cross-national survey of participants living in Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, and the U.S. (U.S., Hawaii and Guam) (N = 807) was conducted. Findings suggest that creative self-efficacy was positively associated with political efficacy and skepticism and negatively associated with apathy. Creative self-efficacy was indirectly associated with offline and online political participation through political efficacy and skepticism.

Extended Abstract • • The Antecedents and Consequences of Conspiracy Beliefs Around COVID-19 • Taeyoung Lee; Melissa Santillana; Ivan Lacasa-Mas, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya; Ivy Ashe • This study examines several factors that may contribute to COVID-19 related conspiracy beliefs, and the relation between conspiracy beliefs and attitudes toward protective health behaviors. Findings from a U.S. nationally representative, two-wave online panel survey (W1: N= 1,119; W2: N= 543) showed a negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and mask-wearing attitudes, indicating harmful, real-world consequences hindering global preventive behaviors. We also found the reciprocal causal relationship between trust in scientific institutions and conspiracy beliefs.

Extended Abstract • Student • Users’ Engagement to Online Forum in Social Crisis • Danielle Ka Lai Lee, Washington State University; Tsz Wa Yip; Mina Park; Kyu-Min Lee • Civil resistance is facilitated by online discussions and citizens’ engagement is crucial to bring forth collective actions. Under the backdrop of Anti-ELAB movement in Hong Kong, we investigated online discourse that contributed to user’s engagement to forum discussions. With content analysis of 329 posts from a popular online forum, we found that posts that reflected collective intelligence contributed to users’ engagement, whereas posts that purely expressed emotions did not affect the engagement. Implications are discussed.

Research Paper • • Which Way Do I Go? Need for Orientation, Media Use, and Knowledge about COVID-19 • Taeyoung Lee; Tom Johnson; David H. Weaver, Indiana University • The present study explores the relationship between the need for orientation (NFO) and knowledge/misperception about COVID-19 using a two-wave national representative survey (W1: N= 1,119; W2: N= 543). The findings suggest that moderate-active NFO rather than high NFO better explains individuals’ level of knowledge and misperception. We also found that different media use (vertical media and horizontal media) and individuals’ epistemic beliefs (intuitionism and rationalism) have distinct implications for knowledge and misperception about COVID-19.

Research Paper • Faculty • Platform-dependent Effects of Incidental Exposure to Political News on Political Knowledge and Political Participation • Sangwon Lee, New Mexico State University; Andreas Nanz, University of Vienna; Raffael Heiss • Encountering news on social media is common even for individuals not actively looking for it – a phenomenon referred to as incidental exposure to political news (IE). A growing body of research has explored how IE on social media relates to political knowledge and participation. Yet, little research has considered that the effects of IE may differ across platforms. This study examined platform-dependent effects (across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) of IE on political knowledge and participation using panel data collected during the 2020 U.S. election. We found that IE might not be entirely beneficial. While IE on Facebook and Twitter does not affect knowledge or participation, findings suggest that IE on YouTube can dampen political learning. However, at the same time, IE on YouTube leads to more political participation, especially for those with higher level of need for orientation. This raises important questions of the consequences of uninformed political participation.

Research Paper • Student • How Fans Become Nationalists in China? Effects of Idol Adoration and Online Fan Community Engagement • Xining Liao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Alex Zhi Xiong Koo, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison • While some studies about Chinese fandom politics see Chinese fan groups as a potential force that may challenge the existing political orders, others scholars argue that the Chinese government has been co-opting fan groups and idols to transform fans into nationalists. By utilizing online national survey data collected in 2019 (n=510), this study seeks to test these competing claims. The findings suggest that among individuals who have participated in online fan community activities, stronger idol adoration is associated with stronger nationalistic sentiments, and eventually leads to more frequent online pro-government expression. Moreover, the degree that a fan participates in online fan community activities positively moderates the effect of idol adoration on nationalistic sentiments. While among individuals without online fan community engagement, the aforementioned indirect effect almost disappeared. The implications of these findings to our understanding of fandom nationalism in China are discussed.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Examining the Effects of Social Media Fact-checking and Political Knowledge on False Beliefs • Juan Liu, Columbus State University; Bruce Getz, Columbus State University; Lydia Ray, Columbus State University; Florence Wakoko-Studstill, Columbus State University • This study examines the interplay between two mechanisms (e.g., fact-checking and political knowledge) on misinformation belief during the 2020 Presidential Election. Results show that political knowledge acts a moderator between the effect of exposure to false claims on perceived credibility and belief in misinformation. Participants, who possessed higher levels of political knowledge and were exposed to misinformation with a fact-checking label, perceived the message as less credible and less likely to believe in that claim.

Research Paper • • All’s (Un)fair in Trade and War: Linguistic Framing Effects in News about U.S.-China Tariffs • Jo Lukito • This study examines news framing of tariff policy during the U.S.-China trade war using two methods: a computational content analysis and a survey experiment. The results of the former show that outlets varied in their sentiment towards tariffs; however, the majority of articles about U.S.-China used war metaphors. Results of the experiment reveal how pro-tariff framing devices and war metaphors can subsequently affect people’s perceptions of China and language use.

Extended Abstract • Professional • Pre-Election Confirmation Bias vs. Informational Utility: Election Outcome Prediction Affects Selective Exposure • Kate Luong; Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, The Ohio State University • Extant research theorized a reduced preference for ideologically consistent information for partisans who anticipated the opposite party to win an upcoming election, here termed election prediction. The current study explicitly measured election prediction immediately before the 2020 election and tracked selective exposure to consistent and discrepant information. Additionally, stimulus sampling was employed to increase the generalizability of the findings, which provided the first direct evidence for the influence of election prediction on pre-election confirmation bias.

Research Paper • Student • Citizen Videos vs. Legacy Media Visual Reports: The Coverage of the 2019 Iranian Oil Protests • Douglas Porpora, Drexel University; Afrooz M., Drexel University • In response to nationwide protests to a government hike in the price of petrol, the Iranian government shut down the internet for over a week during November 2019. The only information to make it out were some 500 citizen videos of the protests. This paper shows how those citizen eyewitness imageries were an important adjunct and corrective to what the Western legacy press otherwise reported.

Research Paper • Student • Social media engagement against fear of restrictions and surveillance: The mediating role of privacy management • Macau K. F. Mak, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Alex Zhi Xiong Koo, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Hernando Rojas, University of Wisconsin-Madison • As various countries implement restrictions on online speech and online surveillance programs, their impact on social media engagement was widely investigated in communication studies. However, these studies did not capture the moment when these restrictions and programs were just implemented and citizens experienced a high level of uncertainties. Addressing the implementation of national security law in Hong Kong, this study uses two-wave panel data to understand political engagement on Facebook shortly after the implementation of new legal restrictions. The analysis showed that pan-democratic and localist users (those who tend to oppose the government) were less likely to engage on Facebook, compared with pro-establishment users (those who support the government). Meanwhile, we also found a serial mediation path in which pan-democratic and localist users showed greater fear, which encouraged more active privacy management and subsequently a higher level of engagement. This mediation path is moderated by political disagreement encountered on Facebook.

Research Paper • Faculty • Strategic issue management and COVID-19: Analysis of Twitter from 50 governors • Michael McCluskey, U. of Tennessee, Chattanooga; Nagwan Zahry, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga • Governors used Twitter to communicate strategic issue management of COVID. Analysis of 51k tweets from 50 governors demonstrated politically polarized differences among followers, with Democrats favoring COVID themes and Republicans liking non-COVID themes. Pandemic fatigue explained less emphasis on COVID tweets over time. Evidence suggests stronger polarization among followers than among the governors’ messaging.

Research Paper • • In a Hurry, Bored, Angry at Professors: How Punitive Populism Infiltrates Media Education • Mike McDevitt • This study explores how professional enculturation channels anti-intellectualism into the formative attitudes of college students as they begin to identify with populist conceptions of the press. In this first study of how punitive populism infiltrates media education, data are drawn from questionnaires distributed to undergraduates at five US colleges. A concluding section contemplates implications for cross-national research on media education and for illuminating the hidden curriculum that gives traction to punitive populism.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Fox News, political comedy, and (motivated?) reasoning in beliefs about global warming: Evidence from a large-scale panel survey • Patrick Meirick, University of Oklahoma • A panel survey (N = 6,862) examined the roles of media use, party, political knowledge, and their interactions in the dynamics of belief in global warming. After controlling for prior belief and a host of covariates, 2012 Fox News viewing was negatively related and 2012 political comedy viewing and other news viewing were positively related to belief in global warming in 2016. All three findings were moderated by three-way interactions with party and political knowledge.

Extended Abstract • Student • Differential Outcomes of Political Meme Exposure and Engagement: A Path Towards Political Trust and Participation • Milos Moskovljevic, City University of Hong Kong; Muhammad Masood, City University of Hong Kong • The aim of this research is to illuminate both expressive and reception effects of political memes. Most scholars nowadays link online political memes with the qualities of participatory civil culture since they are often seen as a form of political and social critique. The survey data collected from Hong Kong in February 2021 (N = 933) proves that political meme engagement and exposure is correlated to political participation.

Research Paper • Student Member • Gender and Presidential Candidates’ Self-presentation on YouTube Videos • Dinfin Mulupi, University of Maryland, College Park; Linda Steiner, University of Maryland • This study interrogates gender differences in the self-presentation strategies of entrants in the 2020 U.S. Democratic Party presidential primaries via campaign advertising-style videos posted on their official YouTube accounts. A qualitative analysis of videos of 18 candidates indicates men and women employed similar props, tropes, and rhetoric, and self-presented as friendly. However, women emphasized their motherhood status more. Women candidates also used clothing to establish professionalism while men did not.

Research Paper • Student • Seeing Political Information Online Incidentally. Effects of First- and Second-Level Incidental Exposure on Democratic Outcomes • Andreas Nanz, University of Vienna; Joerg Matthes, University of Vienna • We distinguish two levels of incidental exposure (IE) to political information, first-level (mere scanning) and second-level (effortful processing). In three panel surveys (N1 = 450, N2 = 524, N3 = 901), we investigate the effects of the two levels of IE on multiple political outcomes. We find null effects on political knowledge for both levels. However, second-level IE affects online political participation, social media use for political information, and political expression positively. Implications are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Vice-presidential candidates, language frames and functions across two continental divides: An analysis of acceptance speeches • Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour, University of New Mexico; Godwin Etse Sikanku, Ghana Institute of Journalism • Given calls for the more inclusion of women in the political space and political studies, we analyze the nomination acceptance speeches of two female vice-presidential candidates, from countries with different socio-economic backgrounds. Our analysis builds on two institutionalized theories for studying political discourse. The authors uncover in both speeches, four similar and salient feminine language frames synonymous to women in the political space. We advance the argument that the similarities in the language frames employed by both candidates can be attributed to the biological orientation of women as well as the connection between the role of a vice-presidential candidate and the traditional role of a spouse. Our findings also highlight a slight difference in the salience of functions of political campaign discourse between both politicians. Our findings provide insights into the implications of the language frames employed by both politicians and reinforces the possibilities of comparative studies across continental divides.

Research Paper • Student • The Politics of Resistance: An Ethnographic Examination of Political Alienation and Radical Disengagement of the Rural Underclass • Danny Parker, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study is an examination of the political identity of the rural White American underclass. Topics investigated were political beliefs, information consumption and sharing, and the influences of deprivation and institutional trust on political identity formation. To accomplish this, this study conducted observations daily for a month of a small rural underclass community and conducted five extensive interviews with low-income, rural White people to understand how their lived experiences have shaped their perceptions of democracy.

Research Paper • Faculty • Perceptions of Media Bias in Reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: On The Influence of Antisemitic Attitudes in Seven Non-Partisan Countries • Philip Baugut, U of Munich; Sebastian Scherr, Texas A&M University • News about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is of global relevance, and it has been the focus of communication studies aiming to expand our understanding of hostile media perceptions. Drawing on the different faces of antisemitism, this study explains hostile media perceptions among a sample of N = 7,001 individuals from seven non-partisan nations (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the USA). The findings indicate that both traditional Judeophobic attitudes and anti-Israelism, a contemporary expression of antisemitism, lead news audiences to perceive media hostility towards Palestine, particularly when the issue has greater subjective importance. However, in line with motivated reasoning, we also observed that anti-Israelism was associated with perceived media hostility towards Israel. These findings demonstrate that individuals may simultaneously perceive hostile media bias towards two parties in a conflict. Arguably, if observers of a conflict are hostile towards one party in the conflict, they will side with the party’s enemy and may be motivated to perceive their hostile attitudes as consistent with mainstream media coverage.

Research Paper • Student • Asking the Enemy of My Enemy for Help: Transnational Grassroots Outreach on Twitter in #HongKongProtests • Cheryl Shea, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Yanru Jiang, University of California, Los Angeles; Wendy L.Y. Leung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study extends the organizational-centred transnational advocacy network by presenting how grassroots users strategically utilize social media platforms for achieving their diplomatic and individual-centered engagement with foreign actors. The network analysis and natural language processing of Twitter outreach on Hong Kong protests (N = 88,800) identify the key opinion leaders and the grassroots narratives under three core themes: geopolitics, moral values and humanitarian concern. The low threshold of Twitter participation provides extra direct channels for grassroots users to engage with foreign politicians and get their narratives heard. The grassroots found to tailor more emotion-charged discussions to trigger sympathy, rather than appealing by traditional moral values. The digital grassroots advocacy network also found to have more actors such as corporates and celebrities being involved, given the ability to instantly respond to political incidents and controversies.

Research Paper • Student • The Politics of Behaving Badly: How Ingroup-Outgroup Conditions Affect Individuals’ Perceived Credibility and Partisan Ambivalence • Jian Shi, Syracuse University; Adriana Mucedola, Syracuse University; Tong Lin; Kandice Green • This study inquired how political ingroup biases affect judgments of politicians when they address sexual misconduct allegations. 198 participants viewed a news article about an accused politician in a 2 by 2 between-subjects posttest only factorial design. Results indicated a positive relationship between ingroup perceptions and politician credibility, and a positive relationship between ingroup perceptions and perceived ambivalence. Ingroup-outgroup conditions also moderated the relationship between perceived credibility and perceived ambivalence. Implications are discussed below.

Research Paper • Student • Perceiving Affective Polarization: How Media-Induced Meta-Perceptions Drive Affective Polarization • Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard, The University of Texas at Austin • Two studies establish perceived affective polarization, or perceptions about affective polarization, as a theoretically important concept. A nationally representative survey (n = 1,010) reveals that Americans think their political opponents dislike them more than is the case. I theorize a conceptual framework, positing that news and social media content drives perceived affective polarization, which then fuels affective polarization. An experiment (n = 549) provides preliminary evidence of this causal pathway. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Living is Easy with Eyes Closed: Avoidance of Targeted Political Advertising in Response to Privacy Concerns, Perceived Personalization and Overload • Marlis Stubenvoll; Alice Binder; Selina Noetzel; Melanie Hirsch; Joerg Matthes, University of Vienna • The following study investigated the effects of privacy concerns, perceived personalization and overload on three different avoidance behaviors in response to targeted political advertising. Findings of a two-wave panel study (N = 428) in the context of the [EUROPEAN CITY] election showed that privacy concerns increased attention withdrawal and privacy protective behaviors. In contrast, perceived personalization decreased avoidance through attention withdrawal and blocking. Attention withdrawal behaviors further inhibited privacy protective behaviors over time.

Research Paper • Student • The conditional indirect effects of traditional and social media news use on political participation in Hong Kong: Examining the communication mediation model • Yan Su • In Hong Kong, multiple political activities have attracted the world’s attention recently. However, the extant evidence about the conditionalities under which traditional and social media news use could affect political participation in Hong Kong remains sporadic rather than conclusive; mixed results have abounded. Against this backdrop, the current study is anchored by the communication mediation model and analyzed the 7th wave of the World Value Survey (WVS) data. Findings suggested that both traditional and social media news use were positively associated with political participation in Hong Kong. Moreover, political discussion was a significant mediator between traditional media news use and political participation. Additionally, post-materialistic value was found to be a significant moderator upon which the indirect effect of traditional media news use on political participation was contingent. Findings provided insights into nuanced media effects as well as understanding of social movements in Hong Kong.

Research Paper • Faculty • Speak Up or Quiet Down? The Spiral of Silence, Opinion Leadership, Social Capital, and Presidential Candidate Support on Social Media • Alec Tefertiller, Baylor University; Jacob Groshek, Kansas State University; Raluca Cozma, Kansas State University • Recent polling results suggest voters might be hesitant to express their voting intentions in presidential elections, despite the vibrant social media activity of candidate supporters. Using a national, representative survey, this study sought to determine if the spiral of silence influenced social media sharing, or if other factors encouraged the sharing of political endorsements. Based on the study findings, the best predictors of social media sharing intentions were opinion leadership and bridging social capital.

Research Paper • Student • Anti-Muslimism in a Partisan Hybrid Media Environment: Examining the Relationships Between Media Exposure, Biased Views, Social Trust, and Acceptance of Muslims • Yu Tian, Syracuse University; Lars Willnat, Syracuse University • This study examines how media exposure might influence Americans’ acceptance of Muslims in a partisan hybrid media environment. Results indicate that Republicans exhibit significantly lower acceptance of Muslims compared to Democrats and Independents. Conservative news reduced acceptance by soaring biased views toward Muslims whereas liberal news increased acceptance by cultivating more social trust. Furthermore, frequent social media use fostered acceptance of Muslims via the mediation of social trust. Thus, social trust functioned as an important mediator between media exposure and higher acceptance of U.S. Muslims.

Extended Abstract • Student • Victimhood, Morality, and Identity Politics in Social Media: Understanding Affective Polarization during the US Election • Amanda Trigiani; megan boler, University of Toronto • As people use social media to discuss the US Election and Jan 6 2021 Capitol riot, often in conjunction with the BLM protests from Summer 2020, polarized narratives surface as people try to make meaning of the circulating views and position themselves within those discourses. This cross-platform digital ethnography of social media from Twitter, Facebook, and Gab, and qualitative discourse analysis of 1800 social media posts from the political left and right related to Black Lives Matter and the Capitol riots. We engage the concept of ressentiment to deepen our understanding of affective polarization on social media and how the binary oppositions of “us/them” within social media debates reinscribe collective identities rooted in “victimization”, virtues, and perceptions of “others” as perceived threats. The different stories told by in-groups and out-groups shed light on the affects surrounding moral judgment, influenced by race relations, which distinctively shape affective polarization.

Research Paper • Student • Tracking Moral Divergence with DDR in Presidential Debates Over 60 Years • Mengyao Xu, Missouri School of Journalism; Lingshu Hu • This study discovered the formation of one crucial challenge that US presidential debate is facing – lack of real clash and issue discussion – from an institutional perspective, manifesting how the transformative process in politics caused by mediatization contribute to this challenge drawing upon Moral Foundation Theory as a prism, and therefore shedding lights to the development of more pointed and fruitful political conversations that may better serve our democracy.

Research Paper • Faculty • An Examination of Social Media Use and Campaign Participation from Cross-Cutting Communication and Social Identity Perspectives • Masahiro Yamamoto, University at Albany; Jay Hmielowski, University of Florida • This study, drawing from the literatures on cross-cutting communication and social identity theory, tests the interactive effects of political use of social media, partisan-ideological sorting, and social media network heterogeneity on campaign participation. Data from a two-wave web survey show significant three-way interaction effects. The relationships news consumption and opinion expression on social media have with campaign participation are contingent on levels of sorting and network heterogeneity, such that the relationships are positive for those whose have an aligned political identity and heterogeneous social media networks.

Research Paper • Faculty • Risk Governance during The COVID 19 Pandemic: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Governors’ Narratives on Twitter • Michael McCluskey, U. of Tennessee, Chattanooga • We content analyzed 7000 governors’ tweets using the CDC’s Crisis Emergency Risk Communication model. We found that the most salient communication objectives included addressing rumors and misunderstanding, followed by describing response efforts. Acknowledging crisis with empathy and segmenting audience were the least communication objectives. Our results suggested that the salience of communication objectives vary by political partisanship and crisis phases. New emergent sub-categories included attention to mental health, call for social influencers, and hope for the future.

2022 Abstracts

Newspaper and Online News

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Deceptive Power of Fake News: Perception of Believability Centers around Visuals, News Media, Social Media and Shared Values • Mohammad Ali, Syracuse University; Dennis Kinsey, Syracuse University • This paper examined a sample of 32 different types of fake news items to understand people’s perceptions of deception in various types of fake news items, regardless of communicators’ intend to deceive. Using Q Methodology, this study yielded five types of fake news content (e.g., visuals, social media, congruence, news media, and unknown sources) that different groups of people perceive as (un)likely to be deceptive. Findings should help better understand and combat fake news.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Rethinking hybridity in diaspora journalism: A study of exiled Syrian journalists’ advocacy networks and role perceptions • Rana Arafat, City University of London • Using digital ethnography and in-depth interviews, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of how diaspora journalists maintain connections with their authoritarian homeland and advocate for transnational human rights and political reforms after fleeing its repressive political sphere. To this end, the paper examines how anti-regime Syrian diaspora journalists engage in transnational advocacy practices through building hybrid digital networks that blur boundaries between journalism, activism, human rights advocacy, social movements, and civil society work. The paper further investigates how these advocacy practices shape the diaspora journalists’ perceptions of their roles as well as their understanding of the different political, economic, procedural, organizational, and professional factors that influence how they perform them. Findings demonstrate that diaspora advocacy journalism poses various challenges to traditional journalism paradigms as journalists’ roles go beyond news gathering and publishing to include petitioning, creating transnational solidarity, collaborating with civil society organizations, and carrying out various institutional work. Sensational coverage, state intervention, journalists’ political leanings, funding pressure, and accessibility of sources also pose serious limitations to diaspora journalists’ advocacy efforts. An advanced theoretical model that maps out the influencing factors on news reporting and advocacy networking in the unique transnational conflict context is further proposed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Elite Journalists’ Narrative Evolution in the 2018 Midterm Elections on Twitter and in Print • Mitchell Bard, Iona College; Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee • A qualitative textual analysis of tweets and articles by elite newspaper journalists on and after election night in 2018 relating to the shifting narratives relative to whether or not the Democrats enjoyed a “blue wave” victory in the midterm elections. Results show that frames set on Twitter on election night persisted for five days in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal before a new narrative took hold.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The Impact of Public Transparency Infrastructure on Data Journalism: A Comparative Analysis between Information-rich and Information-poor Countries • Jason Martin, DePaul University; Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University • This study surveyed data journalists from 71 countries (N=345) and analyzed 483 data journalism projects from 50 countries to compare how transparency initiatives influence data journalism process and product. Differences in data journalists’ attitudes toward data from public institutions, types of data used, and topics covered in data-driven projects were examined. We find cross-national differences are explained by contextual factors related to transparency infrastructure, which influences the potential of data journalism to hold government accountable.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: The Impact of Covid-19 on Digital Subscriptions • Hsiang Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin • A persistent problem facing U.S. newspapers is users’ lukewarm response to their digital offerings. The print edition, despite continued disinvestment and dramatic price hikes, remained the most consumed format for most newspapers. Has COVID-19 changed this and narrowed the persistent print-digital gap? Among the 20 newspapers under study, most reported substantial growth in digital subscriptions. However, the quickened declines in print circulation and the gigantic print-digital price gap have caused a decline in overall revenue.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Promises granted: Venture philanthropy and the tech industry’s increasing authority over the journalism field • Brian Creech, Temple University; Perry Parks, Michigan State University • The past half-decade has seen the rise of venture philanthropy as specific kind of charitable giving in the journalism industry driven by actors in tech industry, primarily Google and Facebook. This paper interrogates venture philanthropy as a specific kind of shift in the journalistic field, discursively intervening in order to define sustainability and market success as partially dependent on actors and structures from the tech industry.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Diversity Sourcing Tool: Intentions, Self-Observation and Learning • Lucinda Davenport, Michigan State University; Joseph Grimm, Michigan State University • By intentionally engaging the diverse groups that comprise a community, journalists build trust that all people are being represented and informed. This research used mixed methods to learn if a new sourcing tool helps students in real-time to intentionally include diverse sources in their coverage. Preliminary results appear to indicate that the sourcing tool is successful, which could have implications for building trust with audiences and helping journalists analyze sources real time instead of after-the-fact.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Reciprocal Journalism’s Double-Edged Sword: How Journalists Resolve Cognitive Dissonance after Experiencing Harassment from Audiences on Social Media • Danielle Deavours, University of Montevallo; Will Heath; Kaitlin Miller, University of Alabama; Misha Viehouser; Sandra Palacios Plugge; Ryan Broussard • Reciprocal journalism is a daily practice for most American journalists. Previous studies have shown this practice benefits journalists, their newsrooms, and the audience (e.g. Coddington, Lewis & Holton, 2018; Barnidge et al., 2020). Although scholars like Lewis, Zamith, and Coddington (2020) provide evidence that journalists experience harassment when interacting with audiences online, causing them to view audiences less favorably, further explanation is needed as to why journalists would continue to practice reciprocal journalism if it subjects them to online abuse. Through in-depth interviews with professional journalists, the study finds journalists experience cognitive dissonance after experiencing harassment during reciprocal journalism, but they are not likely to stop practicing interacting with audiences due primarily to organizational and individual benefits that are perceived as greater than the negatives in audience interactions. Additionally, the study finds journalists feel personally responsible for resolving feelings of dissonance and often use unhealthy dissonance resolution techniques like avoidance, victim blaming, or perspective-taking to deal with online abuse. The end result could mean dangerous consequences for individuals and the industry long-term. Results suggest a cultural shift in the industry would be necessary to significantly ease dissonant cognitions among individual journalists. Through the examination of harassment’s effect on journalists’ willingness to interact with audiences on social media, this study expands current understandings of the normative practice of reciprocal journalism.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Struggling to stay alive: Russia’s provincial journalism adapts to the COVID-19 pandemic • Elina Erzikova, Central Michigan University; Wilson Lowrey • This study adopts an ecological approach in examining Russian regional journalists’ adaptations to COVID-19. Interviews with journalists showed that a worsened economic situation has led to increased dependence on government subsidies. Generally, journalists avoided questioning authorities’ response to COVID, with some publishing government press releases and others focusing on practical tips for readers. There was also some minor deviance via social media. Overall, the crisis aggravated ongoing problems that have already been crippling these newspapers.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • “I Didn’t Know How We Were Going to Survive”: COVID-19’s Disruption of U.S. Community Newspapers • Teri Finneman, University of Kansas; Will Mari, Louisiana State University; Ryan Thomas • As journalists dealt with a nonstop news cycle in the early months of the pandemic, many of their newspapers also faced financial distress. Unable to rely on their centuries-old, ad-centric business model, U.S. community newspapers had to turn to other resources to survive. This study features oral histories with 24 journalists and state newspaper association directors in six states for a deeper understanding of how community newspapers survived the industry’s economic crisis in early 2020.

Research Paper • Professional • Open Competition • Elephant in the room: A study of the impact of emotional experiences on burnout among Chinese reporters • Lei Guo • Drawing on Grandey’s model of emotional regulation at work, this study is conceived to examine emotional experience of Chinese frontline reporters and its effects on their job burnout. The survey with 276 Chinese reporters reveals the effect of the demand on emotions at work and reporters’ experience of engaging in emotional labor magnify their levels of job burnout. Meanwhile, the use of problem-focused coping strategies can help reporters reduce their job burnout caused by emotional labor engagement. Findings in this study fill the gap in understanding the mechanism of reporters’ emotional labor engagement and its impacts on their job burnout. The theoretical and empirical implications of these findings are discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • How partisan is partisan? Media framing of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act • Amanda Comfort; Beverly Horvit, University of Missouri; Camille McManus • In 2017, Congress passed huge changes to the tax code. A mixed methods framing analysis of Fox News and CNN online news and Associated Press coverage shows they reported the same issues – the wealthy and corporations would benefit, and deficits would rise. All three relied most on Republican sources, but Fox News turned more frequently to conservatives than did CNN, and CNN cited more liberal sources than Fox. AP coverage fell between the two.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Predicting News Sharing in Social Media from an Integrated Approach • Su Jung Kim, University of Southern California; Jacob Nelson, Arizona State University • News sharing on social media has become one of the central components of news production, consumption, and (re)distribution. Yet studies of social media platforms as a news channel have suffered from three significant limitations: a failure to consider the interplay between situational and individual factors, a dependence on U.S.-based data, and a lack of distinction between types of sharing behavior. The result is a portrait of social media news sharing that exaggerates the role of news content and downplays the characteristics of social media platforms as well as people’s own preferences and perceptions when it comes to news and social media more generally. This study addresses these gaps by drawing on survey data collected from a representative sample (N=1,008) of the South Korean population by Nielsen Company Korea (Nielsen, hereafter) to examine how individual and situational factors within the social media environment influence different types of social media news. Our results offer a clearer portrait of how and why people share news via social media, one where the individual characteristics of both news stories and news audiences are just one piece of the puzzle that determines news sharing.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • A Reckoning for the Media Industry: Examining the implementation of CSR communication on diversity • Allie Kosterich, Fordham University Gabelli School of Business; Ziek Paul • In this paper, we aim to understand if and how corporate social responsibility communication related to diversity from news organizations deemed to have more successful diversity practices differs from that of those with less successful diversity practices. Understanding the relationship between successful, institutionalized diversity practices and CSR communication is important, especially as news organizations attempt to integrate and institutionalize their diversity commitments within the context of other CSR priorities and the news media landscape at large.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Media and Good Governance: Examining Role of Valenced Framing in Perceptions of Good Governance • Juan Liu, Columbus State University • Media play a vital role in strengthening and promoting good governance. This study explores how valenced frames affect perceptions of good governance by examining two governance issues (Flint water crisis and Syrian refugee crisis). The study reveals that participants exposed to good governance framing of issues yield higher approval of government performance than participants exposed to bad governance news stories. An analysis of moderating influence of political knowledge reveals that participants with higher levels of political knowledge are more susceptible to valence framing effect, but this pattern is only found in the case of Syrian refugees. These findings contribute to a growing body of research and literature around valence framing effect. The study then addresses these results in the context of on-going critical governance issues.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Getting News from Social Media Influencers and from Legacy News Media in Seven Countries: The ‘More-and-more’ Phenomenon and the New Opinion Leadership • Justin Martin; Krishna Sharma • This study examined media use and media-related attitudes as predictors of getting news from social media influencers (SMIs) in seven Arab countries (N=5,166). The study hypothesized that getting news from SMIs is not an “alternative” for people who are disenchanted with mainstream news, but rather that SMI news use is, itself, a form of mainstream news consumption. Specifically, we hypothesized that getting news from legacy digital media and even from print media would positively predict SMI news use. This hypothesis was largely supported. In all seven countries, digital legacy news use was a strong, positive predictor of actively acquiring news from SMIs, providing strong evidence of the more-and-more phenomenon first identified by Lazarsfeld et al. (1944). Moreover, in none of the countries was a belief in media credibility negatively associated with acquiring news from SMIs, a relationship we would expect to see if SMIs represented a mainstream news alternative. Implications for research on SMIs, digital news acquisition, and media credibility are discussed.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Evaluating the effects of solutions and constructive journalism: A systematic review of audience-focused research • Karen McIntyre, Virginia Commonwealth University; Kyser Lough • The practice and study of constructive and solutions journalism has been growing in recent years, led by claims of positive audience effects. However, the results sometimes conflict with one another. At this stage, we find it necessary to systematically review the existing literature on the effects of solutions and constructive journalism in order to 1) better understand the bigger picture of potential effects and 2) provide guidance for future research.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • The Role of Self-Categorization and Perceptual Media Effects in Selective Exposure to Election Fact-Checking • Dylan McLemore, University of Central Arkansas; Christopher Roland, University of Central Arkansas • As newsrooms devote more resources to fact-checking, this study considers the social psychological factors that influence whether people will actually read them, and if they do, what perceptions they’ll take away. Third-person perception and hostile media perception predicted avoidance of fact-checking election content. The degree to which a supporter self-categorized with a candidate, however, did not significantly affect selective exposure to or perceptions of fact-checking. A summary of the study is presented within the confines of a 1,500-word extended abstract.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The numbers game: How local newspapers used statistics to frame the coronavirus pandemic • Newly Paul, University of North Texas; Gwendelyn Nisbett, University of North Texas • Data and visualizations are an important part of local health news. Systematic data sourced from credible sources provide context to stories and educate audiences. Data visualizations help simplify complex statistical information and increase audience interactivity. Journalists associate statistics with objectivity, and use them to quantify risk in crisis situations. This study explores how local news used data to cover the coronavirus pandemic. We examined 170 data-driven articles published in the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle to examine the predominant data sources, data-driven narratives, and use of interactive elements. Results indicate reliance on government sources, prevalence of hard news stories, localization of statistics, contextual presentation of data, and abundant use of visualizations. However, the coverage lacked human-interest stories, interactivity in infographics, and failed to adequately reflect the diversity of the communities covered by the two newspapers. Data-driven stories did not always provide access to the underlying databases; nor did they always explain the methodology used to gather and analyze the data. While the readable format of the articles and the updates on infection rates can inform audiences, we argue that coverage that ignores broader data trends can cause readers to feel negative, which can push them toward news avoidance.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • How Journalists Think About the First Amendment Vis-à-Vis Their Coverage of Hate Groups • Gregory Perreault; Jon Peters; Brett Johnson; Leslie Klein • This study, based on in-depth interviews with U.S.-based journalists (n=18), explores the increasingly fraught circumstances in journalistic reporting on white supremacists. We examine how journalists think about the First Amendment vis-à-vis their coverage of hate groups. Through the lens of media ecology, and First Amendment principles and theories, we argue ultimately that journalists who cover hate groups use the First Amendment to identify their place in the journalistic environment.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • #BREAKING in L.A.: Twitter Use in a Regional News Market • Frank Russell, California State University Fullerton; Miguel Hernandez; Korryn Sanchez • This quantitative content analysis, based on gatekeeping theory, examines Twitter use by Los Angeles news media. Network broadcasters, nonprofit news media, and the Los Angeles Times demonstrated skillful use of Twitter affordances: quote tweets, retweets, hashtags, mentions, and video. However, commercial broadcasters used these functions mainly for branding. Broadcasters were more likely to post or share tweets about weather, crime, and traffic, while two resource-constrained newspapers were more likely to post about sports.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Seeing Red: Reading Uncivil News Comments Guided by Personality Characteristics • Arthur Santana; Toby Hopp • Whether on a news or a social networking site, comments following news stories are often beset with incivility. This article uses a Uses & Gratifications framework to understand why certain people are more drawn to uncivil comments than civil ones. Using eye-tracking technology, this research compares the attention a reader gives to uncivil comments and compares it against certain personality characteristics. Findings suggest that certain readers spend more time reading uncivil comments than civil ones.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Who, What, and How: Analyzing Judicial Constructions of Journalism in Twenty-First Century Cases • Jared Schroeder, Southern Methodist University • Emerging technologies have increasingly challenged the role of journalism in the information ecosystem, leaving journalists and journalism scholars to reexamine the role and mission of journalism in democratic society. At the same time, state and federal judges have constructed a discourse regarding how they define journalism in the twenty-first century. They have done so while facing a variety of cases in which bloggers, message board posters, website publishers, and others have claimed protections that have historically been primarily associated with traditional journalists. Ultimately, judges have constructed a discourse about journalism that combined concerns regarding how closely the process and practices the publishers used to gather and communicate the information aligned with traditional journalistic work, the public-service value of the information, and the journalistic credentials of the publisher. Though concern for how the work was created and who communicated it, jurists consistently conveyed the public-service role was most instrumental in their evaluations, often rationalizing broad expansions of what legally constitutes journalism.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Intermedia Agenda Setting during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Computational Analysis of China’s Online News • Hanxiao Wang; Jian Shi, Syracuse University • Based on intermedia agenda setting, the current study examines how official media and semi-privatized commercial media on Weibo platform covered the COVID-19 pandemic. Both supervised machine learning and time series analysis were employed to analyze 350,059 Weibo posts released by 3,883 news sources between December 2019 and April 2020. Our results indicated that China’s official media did not necessarily set the agenda for semi-privatized commercial media in this highly controlled media environment. Implications were discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Flooding the Gates: Conservative Media, Hunter Biden’s Laptop Conspiracy and Gatekeeping in the Social Media Era • Burton Speakman, Kennesaw State University; Aaron Atkins; Marcus Funk • Social media have eroded gatekeeping abilities of traditional, mainstream journalists and publications, allowing coordinated campaigns to force popular social media topics into mainstream news coverage. Analysis of a coordinated conservative campaign to promote a baseless conspiracy about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the waning weeks of the 2020 general election indicates that far right actors can overwhelm gatekeeping functions at conservative media by flooding social media with constant conversation on a favored topic. Similar efforts to flood mainstream news media with the same topic were partially successful but failed to overwhelm or manipulate mainstream gatekeeping. Findings suggest a new concept of “gateflooding” to describe manipulative and repetitive social media activity.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • An Evolutionary Approach to Why People Seek and Avoid More Information About Negative News Stories • ESTHER THORSON, Michigan State University; Carin Tunney, Michigan State University; Kevin Kryston, Michigan State University • Americans are awash in negative news. This study examines how people respond to reading negative stories. The amount of fear induced, story importance, efficacy feelings, and individuals’ attributes of optimism and perceived utility of news are all significant predictors of the degree to which people report intending to seek and avoid more information about the stories. The evolutionary psychology of human approach and avoidance is the guide to the design and interpretation of the study.

Research Paper • Professional • Open Competition • Redemption vs. #MeToo: How Journalists Addressed Kobe Bryant’s Rape Case in Crafting His Memory • Patrick Walters, Kutztown University • This study examines how journalists addressed Kobe Bryant’s 2003 rape case in coverage of his death. The qualitative textual analysis examines 488 stories, produced by 18 news organizations across the U.S. between Jan. 26 and Oct. 31, 2020. It finds most omitted the case, and that stories referencing it often included a sanitized version as part of a redemption narrative, a speed bump on Bryant’s road to greatness.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Auditing whiteness: Structural barriers to antiracist newsrooms • Andrea Wenzel, Temple University • Newsrooms across the U.S. are struggling to address the effect of structural racism on stories they tell and who gets to tell them. This study explores the efforts of one news organization to pursue greater equity and inclusion. Using a combination of participant observation and interviews, it follows a metro newspaper through the process of conducting a diversity and inclusion audit of its content and newsroom practices. Drawing on Gidden’s structuration theory, it examines how whiteness is supported by layered and invisible structures including journalism norms, traditions, and practices that overrepresent white sources and center white audiences, structural racism that limits workplace opportunities, and limited local journalism funding. It then explores how journalistic agents either reproduce these norms and traditions or seek to transform the institution and its practices. Finally, taking a normative stance that more inclusive and antiracist journalistic practices are a goal that can and should be pursued, the paper reflects on how transformation may be aided by efforts that attempt to make visible and challenge structures of whiteness.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Competition • Passive News Consumption, Social Media Use, and Public Perceptions of Journalistic Roles • Lars Willnat, Syracuse University; Yu Tian, Syracuse University • This study explores the relationship between passive news consumption (“News Finds Me”) and public support for traditional journalistic roles. Based on data from an online survey conducted in March 2021 with a national sample of 1,200 U.S. adults, we investigate how the individual components of the “News Finds Me” concept are associated with perceptions of journalists, trust in media, and four traditional journalistic roles (interpreter, disseminator, adversarial, and populist-mobilizer).

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Discerning Whether It’s ‘Fake’ News: The Relationship Between Social Media Use, Political Knowledge, Epistemic Political Efficacy, and Fake News Literacy • Avery Holton, University of Utah; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Salamanca/Penn State University • This study contributes to unpacking mechanisms that help people identify fake news, seeking to theoretically connect people’s general social media use, political knowledge, and political epistemic efficacy with individuals’ fake news literacy. Results from a two-wave panel US survey data suggested that the more people used social media, were politically knowledgeable, and were able to find the truth in politics (epistemic political efficacy), the better the chances they could discern whether the news is ‘fake.’

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • What You See and What You Think: Exploring News-ness Perceptions and News Media Repertoires in Singapore • Jingwei Zheng, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University; Edson Tandoc Jr • This research explored how audiences in Singapore define news (i.e., news-ness) and how such understanding is shaped by the ways they access news (i.e., news media repertoires). Through a national survey, this study found five types of news repertoires as well as five types of news-ness perceptions. We also found that news-ness perceptions are related to how users access news. For example, news-ness perceptions of news omnivores differ from those of other types of users.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • A profession in flux: How Covid-19 coverage is pushing the boundaries of traditional journalism • Kathleen Alaimo • This study argues that Covid-19 is a “critical incident” leading journalists to reconsider how and why they conduct newswork. A textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse in webinars and newspaper op-eds examines how journalists are evaluating news practice in response to Covid-19. Findings indicate that to protect standards of accuracy journalistic role conceptions, norms, and practices are in a state of renegotiation as journalists push the boundaries of “normal” journalism toward an emerging “post-normal” journalism.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • It’s all rhetoric: Dominant climate change discourses in a UK and US newspaper • Kathleen Alaimo • This study argues that media discourse is influential in the formation of national climate legislation. Using the dominant climate discourses identified by Leichenko and O’Brien (2019), critical discourse analysis was employed to investigate the language of The Guardian and the New York Times. Findings indicate that UK elite press coverage is more integrative and critical than US reportage. Regarding the UK’s policy success US media might consider incorporating integrative and critical discourse in climate coverage.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • How Newspapers’ Social Media Editors in Bangladesh Use Official Social Media Accounts • Ahmed Shatil Alam, University of Oklahoma; Wahida Alam, New Age • For the last several years, the newspaper industry in Bangladesh has been using social media for disseminating news and connecting with readers. This exploratory study sheds light on both issues through the lens of the Gatekeeping theory. Following interviews with 17 social media editors who worked for 14 national newspapers in Bangladesh, the study found that the overall traditional gatekeeping roles of these journalists had undergone substantial changes as they were heavily concerned about audience demands and reactions. Social media editors also feel pressured from their bosses, advertisers, and the audience to maintain their gatekeeping roles. These journalists even considered their jobs as “marketing” or “selling” of news and experienced volatile treatments from their colleagues in the newsrooms. Although they are in charge of multiple most of them had no prior training of any sort in social media management.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • Journalists as Platypuses? — Understanding the Hysteresis and Habitus of media startups • Matthew Chew, Nanyang Technological University • “Media startups tend to stretch the boundaries of journalism, but are still influenced by values and ideas from legacy journalists. Guided by Bourdieu’s field theory, this study will utilize in-depth interviews to examine the disconnect between these new entrants and legacy newsrooms. This study proposes that there is a hysteresis in the field, which set the stage for media startups to flourish. These new agents don a media startup habitus, a blend of the traditional journalistic habitus and the startup habitus that is developed out of circumstance and as a response to the changing requirements of media and journalistic work.

Keywords: Field Theory, Startups, Habitus, Hysteresis, Journalistic Identity, Qualitative, Innovation, Mismatch”

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • For People, For Policy: Journalists’ Perceptions of Peace Journalism • Meagan Doll, University of Washington • Compared to studies on peace-journalism content, little research examines journalists’ perceptions of peace journalism despite theoretical suggestions that individuals influence content production. To address this relative disparity, this study examines the social conditions shaping journalists’ perceptions of peace journalism using a hierarchy-of-influences perspective and data from 20 interviews with East African journalists. Findings suggest that journalists understand peace journalism as either more people-oriented or policy-oriented and these perceptions correspond to varying degrees of professional precarity.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • The Public’s Frame: News outlets, YouTube comments and the 2018 Teacher Strike in West Virginia • Laura Harbert, Ohio University • This paper summarizes a study of comments (N=1,961) posted on YouTube videos about the 2018 teacher strike in West Virginia. Analytics software and a hand-coded qualitative analysis of the text showed that themes of teachers, education, and people were prevalent, along with the nature of work in education, and fairness in teacher pay. Interdisciplinary and inter-methodological approaches in social analytics were discussed as a way to deepen understanding of media and journalism texts.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • Post-Ghosting: The depletion of local government coverage after a county’s newspapers became ‘ghosts’ • Andrea Lorenz Nenque, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This case study documents the decline over time of news about a rural county’s local government entities through quantitative and qualitative content analysis as the community lost its newspapers, finding that despite multiple online startups that sought to fill the gap, local government coverage suffered significant declines in both the quantity and quality of news stories once the newspapers disappeared. The community’s critical information need for local government news was left unfilled in the years following the closures.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Papers • Extended Abstract: The State of Online News Advertising • Margaret McAlexander, University of Memphis • This research explores the prevalence of display and native advertising in online print news media. To achieve this goal, this research uses a content analysis of three newspapers ranking highly in circulation among major U.S. outlets over a full calendar year. This research provides an analysis of the state of online news advertising in 2020 through the collection of data regarding the presence or absence of advertisements and the qualities of such advertisements.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Papers • Busking the News: Metajournalistic Discourse and Author-Audience Relationships on Substack • Rowan McMullen Cheng, University of Minnesota: Twin Cities – Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication • This study examines author-audience relationships through Substack newsletters. Using the metajournalistic discourse framework, newsletter discourse is analyzed around two primary trends: (1) author-audience relationship maintenance, (2) boundaries between legacy media and newsletter authors. A qualitative textual analysis of 57 texts across 25 newsletters identifies that authors construct boundaries between themselves and legacy media as well as encourage audience participation. This study furthers research on journalistic labor, news audiences, metajournalistic discourse, and emerging digital formats.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • An “assumption of bad faith”: Using fake news rhetoric to create journalistic teaching moments • Kelsey Mesmer, Wayne State University • Using the Communication Theory of Resilience, this project explores how journalists negotiate, adapt, and work to transform a social climate of hostility toward news media. Interviews with 38 journalists who frequently encounter anti-media rhetoric revealed strategies for mitigating this rhetoric, most commonly by turning conversations into teaching moments. By doing this, journalists educate the public about the purpose of the press and journalists’ routines, illuminating a critical, overlooked aspect of media and news literacy interventions.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Papers • “Without a fixer, it is just an idea, but with a fixer, it will be a story.”: Bangladeshi local news producers’ perspectives on their work and extant challenges • Sohana Nasrin, University of Maryland; Bobbie Foster, University of Maryland Phillip Merrill College of Journalism; Md Mahfuzul Haque • Local news producers (referred to as LNP hereafter), sometimes known as “news fixers” or “fixers,” are an integral part of foreign news production. These local media workers serve as the eyes and ears of foreign correspondents in an unknown land and ensure the safety of foreign correspondents, especially in conflict zones. But perhaps the most important contribution of their labor is rendered through their interpretation of the events and occurrences so that the rest of the world can make sense of it all through the lens of journalistic storytelling. In this study, we present Bangladeshi local news producers’ case to understand their perspectives on their job. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews, we try to understand who they are and what impact they seek to have on the global journalism industry through their work. All of our interview participants identified cultural differences as a challenge. Our most important finding perhaps is that the local news producers still operate within a colonial framework. By focusing on Bangladeshi local news producers, we inform the existing literature in three significant ways: 1)We introduce local news producers labor in a developing country (i.e., Bangladesh) that usually gets international media attention while grappling with frequent natural disasters, poverty, migration, and other social anomalies, 2) We add the non-western perspective by focusing on the Global South, and 3)We contribute to understanding of the local news producers’ perspectives on their job instead of focusing on the foreign correspondents’ views on the local producers’ jobs.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • How different market oriented news organizations portrayed news coverage about the CARES Act? • Michelle Rossi • Drawing from the CARES Act’s news coverage, this study investigated how different funding models in news organizations modulated the debate on the most expansive stimulus bill in modern American history. Market theory, news sources, and journalistic role performance in news content were the frameworks applied to this qualitative study. Some of the findings consist of differences in the assessment of objectivity as a journalistic norm, and similarities as the indirect use of government-official sources.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • The Role of Anonymity and Race in Online News Story Comment Sections • William Singleton, University of Alabama • This study expands upon previous research examining incivility and negativity of online comments. Guided by deindividuation theory and its connection to anonymity, this study explores whether online comment forums associated with crime stories involving Black suspects yield more racially charged language than comment forums associated with crime stories involving white perpetrators. A quantitative content analysis of the comment sections in Advance Local’s news websites examined racial comments about crime stories involving Black and White criminal perpetrators and suspects. Findings revealed a significant association between crime stories and racial comments based on the race of the suspect. In addition, the study’s prediction that comment sections connected to Black crime stories would feature multiple comments with racial language also was supported.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • Public Perceptions and Attitudes towards the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism: From a China-based Survey • Wencai Hu; Mengru Sun, Zhejiang University; WEI HUANG • “In the face of the pervasive influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on journalism and media, the current research probe deeply into the public perceptions and attitudes towards the application of AI in Chinese journalism. The current study aims to answer several highly concerning questions by academics, the AI industry, and the journalism industry. A large online survey was conducted to examine the public’s existing knowledge, emotions, concerns, preferences, and expectations of AI in the Chinese journalism industry. It was found that the public is in general familiar with the application of AI technology in the field of journalism and media, among which the most acquainted aspect was describing some news products that apply the AI. The public’s emotions towards the news broadcast by AI simulated anchors were mainly positive. Compared with the news content, the public believed that the form of news report benefits most from the application of AI. The public prefers the types differently in terms of different media content and news production processes.

Finally, the majority of the public believed that AI and traditional modes should be complementary to each other in future news production. Practical suggestions were proposed to the AI industry, journalism, government, and the public.”

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • “Timely, Accurately, Avoid Unnecessary Panic”: How Vietnamese Newspapers Framed the COVID-19 Pandemic during the Initial Stage • Huu Dat Tran, Kansas State University; PHAM PHUONG UYEN DIEP, Kansas State University • Via content analysis of COVID-related articles (N = 1127) published in three prominent Vietnamese newspapers between January 23 and March 6, 2020, this study investigates how Vietnamese newspapers framed COVID-19 when it was first recognised in Vietnam, as well as their attempts to shape the public’s perception and behaviours towards the pandemic. Two frames, namely health severity and attribution of responsibility, were found to be predominantly used by VnExpress, Thanh Nien, and Tuoi Tre, thus highlighting the media’s role in Vietnam in disseminating information and calling for collective participation in pandemic precautions. Other elements, including the messages’ tone and sources, were also examined. Findings were then compared to previous studies concerning COVID-19 framing to illustrate the different approaches the media of various countries adopted. It should be noted that during the period, newspapers in Vietnam had to follow governmental orders, which required the media to provide punctual, accurate information while also avoid causing unnecessary panic. The argument that Vietnamese newspapers were a bridge connecting the Vietnamese government and their citizens and that they contributed to Vietnam’s initial victory against COVID-19 was supported.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • Source Diversity in Nonprofit News: A Comparative Analysis of The 19th* and The New York Times • Carolina Velloso • This paper compares source diversity in The 19th*, a woman-focused nonprofit newsroom, and The New York Times. It also asks whether reporter gender influences sourcing patterns. Through a quantitative content analysis of 236 articles and 857 sources, this study interrogates whether The 19th* – which has the centering and elevating of women’s issues as its core objective – carries out that mission through greater inclusion of women as sources, both expert and non-expert, in its articles.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Papers • Local Newspapers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Journalists and Communities in Los Angeles • Courtney Weider, California State University, Northridge • This study examines how local newspapers have adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including how routines of journalists have been impacted and how they are engaging their communities. In-depth interviews were conducted with 25 journalists throughout Los Angeles, focusing on those serving Black and Latino neighborhoods that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Findings will advise newspapers, educators, and funders on how to support the local newspaper ecosystem to ensure communities stay informed and engaged.

Research Paper • Student • Student Papers • “The Chinese Virus” and Conditional Partisan Framing? An analysis of the cross-platform partisan framing in American news coverage of China’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic • Yiyan Zhang; Briana Trifiro, Boston University • The COVID-19 pandemic – a global public health crisis – has given rise to US new coverage about China, where the first cases were identified. However, the framing strategies used among different news outlets remain understudied. By conducting a structural topic modeling (STM) analysis on both website news and tweets published by 27 major US news outlets regarding China’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper examines how framing varied across left and right media and whether the publishing platform moderates the partisan framing. The results show support for both cross-partisan and cross-platform differences. Right media tend to adopt more sensational and attitudinal frames compared to left media. The gap between the two partisans was in general wider on Twitter than on news websites. Implications on media effects studies and activism against hate crimes are discussed.

2022 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

2022 Abstracts

Extended Abstract • Student • Faculty Research Competition • Race/Ethnicity, Online Information & COVID-19 Vaccination: Study of Minority Immigrants’ Internet Use for Health-related Information • Annalise Baines; Hyunjin Seo, University of Kansas; Muhammad Ittefaq, University of Kansas; Ursula Kamanga; Fatemeh Shayesteh, University of Kansas; Yuchen Liu • The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated existing challenges for racial/ethnic minority immigrants in the United States in obtaining health information and seeking health care. Based on in-depth interviews with 52 racial/ethnic minority immigrants in the U.S. Midwest, this study analyzes how they navigated online information related to COVID-19, how their race/ethnicity played a role in online health information seeking during the pandemic, and their perspectives on getting vaccinated against the virus.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Extended Abstract: Chronicling History: A Comparative Analysis of Newspaper Coverage Chronicling Hillary Clinton’s and Kamala Harris’s History-Making Moments • Shaniece Bickham, Nicholls State University; Rockia Harris, LSU; Jinx Broussard, Manship School, LSU • This study conducts a qualitative textual analysis of the discourse surrounding former U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris as they achieved major political milestones. Articles from two respected Black and two premiere mainstream newspapers are analyzed, and intersectionality is employed to ascertain the extent to which racial and gender stereotypes were prevalent. Preliminary findings show Clinton received more coverage than Harris, but Harris’s coverage included more race and gender mentions.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • The language of diversity in ACEJMC site-visit reports: Some inclusion but with a lack of equity and belonging • Robin Blom, Ball State University; Gabriel B, Tait, Ball State University; Curtis Matthews, Ball State University; Elena Lazoff • Diversity is an intricate subject in educational settings and an important aspect of ACEJMC accreditation. That body has recently announced changes in the wording of the Diversity and Inclusiveness standard after ongoing complaints that the old standard did not facilitate the changes needed. This study focused on the vocabulary of ACEJMC site-visit reports to explore what concepts are (not) discussed in affirming diversity. For instance, terms as belonging and antiracism are absent from the reports.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • When Beauty Meets Racism: A Comparative Content Analysis of #Foxeye Beauty and Asian Activism Videos on TikTok • Grace Choi, Columbia College Chicago • #Foxeye is a beauty trend that has been under scrutiny on social media, especially on TikTok. Initially created to elongate the look of a person’s eyes, it has been criticized as a racist representation of Asians, mainly because of the signature pose where beauty creators pull back the corners of their eyes to showcase the look. In order to understand how #foxeye has been interpreted by various TikTok video creators, a comparative content analysis of 507 TikTok videos was conducted. Applying framing theory, this exploratory study identified video information, video creators’ identities, video production components and messages. Results indicated that although there were more beauty videos than Asian activism videos, Asian activism videos had more social media engagements that created conversations about racism. Moreover, beauty video creators were mostly White while Asian activism video creators were East Asian. The results highlight the dominant discourse in the beauty industry and complex understanding of self-identity through deconstructing this beauty trend.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Fifty Years Researching and Raising Awareness About Minorities and Communication: The Story of MAC’s Scholarship • George Daniels, The University of Alabama; Lillie Fears, Arkansas State University • Using archival materials available to capture research efforts in the early years of the Minorities and Communication Division, this study takes a historical approach in cataloging the scholarship on journalism and mass communication issues for those in racial minority groups presented between 1972 and 2020. Of 661 papers analyzed for this study, 358 or 54% were authored by a female or had research teams with a woman as first author.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • “It’s Just As Whitewashed as Ever”: Social Media Sourcing as a Diversification Tool for Journalists • Danielle Deavours, University of Montevallo; Will Heath; Ryan Broussard • Modern American journalism practices rely heavily on the use of expert sources. Traditionally, white, male officials are the primary sources journalists use in traditional media (Humprecht & Esser, 2017). This silences underrepresented voices, leading to symbolic annihilation of minority communities in media coverage. Journalists often cite their inability to reach communities outside of their own perspective as a primary reason for this symbolic annihilation, but what happens when reporters’ networks of power are widened through digital connections? Previous research has explored the role of social media as a tool for newsgathering (Agbo & Okechukwu, 2016), and some studies suggest social media can provide the opportunity for journalists to reach previously inaccessible communities (Van Leuven et al., 2015). Yet, the network theory of power (Castells, 2011) suggests some nodes of these digital networks can create elite sources like officials or influencers that may uphold traditional sourcing practices and hegemonic power structures (Van Leuven & Deprez, 2017). Utilizing qualitative interviews with professional journalists in traditional media outlets, this study seeks to understand whether tapping into broader networks of power through social media helps journalists combat symbolic annihilation of sources or whether hegemonic structures continue despite widened access to multiperspectival resources.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Journalism and mass communications resources and open access perceptions at Historically Black Colleges and Universities • Jerry Crawford; Joseph Erba, University of Kansas; Amalia Monroe-Gulick, University of Kansas; Pamela Peters, University of Kansas • The financial pressures experienced by many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have worsen during the pandemic. The use of open access resources as a substitute to subscription models may assist HBCUs navigate dire budget forecasts. This study investigates access to research resources at HBCUs with a journalism and mass communications program, as well as perceptions of open access among librarians and instructors. Results reveal access disparities among HBCUs and favorable perceptions towards open access.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • #BlackoutTuesday: News Media’s Change Agents and the Degrees of Separation between Journalism and Activism • Summer Harlow, University of Houston • Based on interviews with 28 journalists following George Floyd’s murder, this study uses #BlackoutTuesday and posts of black squares on social media in support of Black Lives Matter to explore to what extent journalists are redrawing the boundary between journalism and activism when it comes to taking stances for racial justice. Findings reveal journalists of color and young journalists are change agents, pushing traditional journalistic doxa like objectivity from an orthodox to a heterodox status.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • ‘I can’t be neutral or centrist in a debate over my own humanity’: Are traditional news norms universal? • Magda Konieczna; Ellen Santa Maria, Temple University • Journalistic objectivity has long been in flux. This paper examines what we term “journalistic edge cases”: situations in which journalists aim to subvert norms, and managers push back, reprimanding the journalists and removing them from coverage or firing them. We find journalists arguing that objectivity works differently when reporting on minority groups; managers counter that objectivity is universal. This examination offers insight into how journalism is evolving, in particular in this moment of racial reckoning.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Understanding the Motivations of Asian American Publics’ Collective Actions Against Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic • Yeunjae Lee, University of Miami; Weiting Tao; Jo-Yun Li • Grounded in the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) and social identity model of collective action (SIMCA), this study aims to examine the motivations of minority publics—Asian Americans—in the U.S. engaging in activism against racism and xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of an online survey with Asian Americans in the U.S. suggested that the Asian American publics’ identity enhanced their perceived injustice, efficacy, and situational motivation to counter racism and xenophobia, which in turn facilitated their online activism on social media. Online activism, then, drove their offline activism. Theoretical and practical implications on collective actions from the minority public are discussed.

Extended Abstract • Student • Faculty Research Competition • First-generation students’ college experiences: The role of familial and mentorship support • Victoria Orrego Dunleavy, University of Miami; Ekaterina Malova, University of Miiami; Diane Millette, University of Miiami • In this study, we examined supportive memorable messages received by Black and Hispanic first-generation students from family members and mentors and explored how issues of demographic similarity affect protégé’s perceptions of mentor support and mentor satisfaction. First, results indicate that students may benefit from activating both mentoring and family connections to succeed in college. Second, students find the same-gender mentoring relationships more satisfying. Thus, students, mentors, and families should be educated on the benefits of supportive communication.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • 600 & Rising’s Quest to Improve Diversity in the Advertising Profession • Teresa Mastin, Michigan State University; Alina Freeman, Michigan State University; Susan Reilly • “This paper explores advertising trade publications’ coverage of the 600 & Rising social movement, which was launched to dismantle systemic racism in the advertising industry. The visibility of the Black Lives Matters movement and the murder of George Floyd served as catalysts for two Black advertising professionals to lead an effort to address how the advertising industry perpetuates systemic racism through its portrayals of African Americans and Blacks.

Keywords: 600 & Rising social movement; systemic racism in advertising”

Research Paper • Student • Faculty Research Competition • Music of Generations: Expressions of the Black Experience From Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter • Christina Myers; Linwan Wu, University of South Carolina • “This study investigates expressions of the African American experience by examining song lyrics published by Black musicians during two critical time periods in civil rights – 1960-1969 and 2010-2020. To determine the predominate narratives that arise from their songs (N=3,302), LDA-based topic modeling as well as a comparative analysis was employed. Findings indicated the presence of seven topic categories – ‘Love/Relationships,’ ‘God/Religion/Spirituality,’ ‘Social/Activities,’ ‘Wealth/Status,’ ‘Sex/Sexual Desire,’ ‘Social/Political Issues’ and ‘Alcohol/Drugs/Substance Use.’

Keywords: Ideology, music, topic modeling, critical race theory”

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Latinas in journalism: Examining their biggest challenges and opportunities • Jessica Retis, University of Arizona; Amara Aguilar; Laura Castaneda, USC • Preliminary findings of a larger project examine the experiences of Latinas in journalism. Drawing on Latino/a Critical Communication theory, the new Latina Critical Journalism Studies approach places Latina journalists at the center of the analysis and focuses on intersectionality (gender, race, class, age, language, migration status); diversity, equity and inclusion; news media practices; and structural challenges. A recent survey shows Latina journalists face distinct challenges in the workplace ranging from sexism to racism.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Extended Abstract – Selena: A Latinx Cultural Anchor for Pop Culture Pedagogy • Nathian Shae Rodriguez, San Diego State University • This study evidences how the pop culture pedagogical practice of using Selena as a cultural anchor for a media and communication course can be employed as practice that reflects on, and incorporates, methods that critique and respond to hierarchies of power and identity. Students critically analyzed Latinx mediated representations though pop culture media and highlighted connections with politics and cultural identity, particularly in border regions. Students were empowered to combat racism, homophobia, and other oppressions.

Research Paper • Faculty • Faculty Research Competition • Constructing and Negotiating Panethnic Professional Identity: The Case of the Asian American Journalists Association • Yong VOLZ, University of Missouri; Indah Setiawati, University of Missouri • This study explores how Asian American journalists define and negotiate their collective identities both in panethnic and professional terms. Focusing on the case of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), our analysis finds that, instead of problematizing the blanketing panethnic identity, AAJA members tactically and collectively present themselves as a more homogenous racial group in order to maximize their presence and amplify their voices in both newsrooms and the public sphere. They also publicly vocalize their solidarity with other minority groups, especially with their African American colleagues during the “Black Lives Matter” movement, as a way to insert themselves into the broader social justice project. In addition, they capitalize on their ethnic identity to enhance their journalistic authority when covering identity issues. Our findings add to the thin literature on Asian American journalists as they try to position themselves in the social and professional arenas. This study also highlights the impact of the highly racialized moments of 2020, which was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matters, on the Asian American journalists.

Extended Abstract • Student • Faculty Research Competition • A New Conceptual Model for Understanding Interracial Communication Apprehension: How Does Racial Representation in Television-Entertainment Media Impact Interracial Conversation? • Farrah Youn-Heil, University of Georgia; Yan Jin, University of Georgia • This study proposes a new conceptual model for understanding interracial communication apprehension (IRCA), delineating how people of color use various communication practices (Orbe, 1998) and coping strategies (Lazarus, 1991) to cope with communication apprehension (McCroskey, 1970) triggered by or associated with racial representation in television-entertainment media and public discourse on race-related topics. In-depth interviews are conducted to provide initial examination of the new IRCA model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Paper • How coverage of deportation at the U.S./Mexico border constructs common knowledge • Tania Ganguli, University of Minnesota • Stories about deportation, like all pieces of journalism, include background information – that which isn’t explicitly tied to sourcing – which helps identify and reify common knowledge. This study examines that unattributed text to understand how those words construct the reality of deportation of Latinx migrants. By analyzing text from 2014 and 2018 at three newspapers on the U.S./Mexico border, this study illuminates how the construction of Latinx migrants changed as the American political climate shifted.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • Barbaric Arabs: Hollywood Portrayals, A Content Analysis • Farah Harb, Wayne State University • The Arab ethnicity encompasses many countries — from North African nations like Egypt and Tunisia, to Gulf countries like Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, to Mid-East countries like Lebanon and Syria. Although the general language in these countries is Arabic, natives to each country speak different dialects and follow different traditions. For example, although Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (both Gulf countries in the Mid-East) are neighboring countries, their dialects and traditional attire are so different that one can tell them apart just by the way they speak or dress. The same goes for other Arabic-speaking countries. Due to historic influences, some of these Arab countries speak French as their second language (e.g., Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), whereas the rest speak English. There are significant differences in the Arabic spoken by a Moroccan person, compared to Arabic spoken by a Lebanese person. While there are similarities between Arabs who come from these different countries, major differences include variations in cultural dialects, religions, traditions, dress codes, liberalism, and so on. Although Arabs come from different backgrounds, Hollywood has long portrayed them as different shades of barbaric (Shaheen, 2003). The term “barbaric” here refers to attributes that have been falsely associated with the Arab image and constantly perpetuated through TV shows, movies, books, paintings, and other forms of art and media.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Paper • Mass Media Coverage of the Unprecedented Events of 2020 Took a Toll on Black People’s Mental Health Conditions • Jaquela Chalise Macklin, The University of Alabama • Many scholars have done research on mental health care, but there are few studies on mental health care in the Black community, particularly how the mass media impacts the stability of Black people’s mental health. This paper focuses on using cultivation theory and conducting qualitative research by way of interviews with the intent to gain first-hand accounts from Black people about the state of their mental health and how mass media possibly impacts it.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Paper • Black death virality: Exploring motivations of sharing Black death online • Ajia Meux, University of Oklahoma; Britney Gilmore, Texas Christian University • This study seeks to explore the relationship between locus of control, online and offline activism and sharing and forwarding behavior of videos of unarmed Black people being murdered by the police. This research is important because it attempts to define the particular sharing and forwarding behavior at the granular level of online activism based on the idea of control for a population who is often marginalized and underrepresented in more formal areas of political power.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • Combating the Angry Black Woman Stereotype at Work Through Demeanor and Praise • Erin Perry, Wayne State University • This visual rhetorical analysis of a viral image from a 2019 interview between CBS journalist Gayle King and singer R. Kelly uses co-cultural theory to make three arguments. First, presumptions are widely held about Black women’s demeanor in the workplace. Second, Black women are members of a co-cultural group that uses various communicative strategies to constantly resist the Angry Black Woman stereotype. Third, Black women and their allies appropriate stereotypes into opportunities for their praise.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • “We Just Can’t Afford Not To Be Informed”: How Women of Color are Pushing Against The Theory Of Information Poverty In The Digital Age • Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin, Northwestern University • In line with the theory of information poverty, one could argue that women of color may face high barriers to news information seeking. However, social and political trends point to the ways women of color are highly informed. Motivated by this tension, this study engaged focus group interviews to examine women of color’s news information seeking habits. Findings suggest holding a woman of color identity does not deter, but motivates news information seeking processes.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Paper • Shared Identity Endorsement Narratives in Political Campaigns: A framework for studying celebrity endorsements of minority politicians • Madhavi Reddi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper introduces the concept of shared identity endorsement narratives in political campaigns of minority candidates to provide a framework for researchers to examine celebrity endorsements along the lines of shared racial/ethnic/cultural identity. Using examples of endorsements of Kamala Harris by North American celebrities of Indian descent, I outline four elements of shared identity endorsement narratives in political campaigns – 1) entertainment value, 2) engagement with identity politics, 3) timelessness, 4) solidarity and validation.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • The Hair Dilemma of Black Female Newscasters: Personal Preferences Versus Professional Pressures in Picking Styles • Robert Richardson, University of Texas at Austin • A growing number of Black female newscasters are embracing natural hair on television, breaking a long-established requirement for anchors and reporters of all races to have straight hair. This study asks questions about industry pressures to conform to White normative standards and individual issues of identity and expression. Interviews with 25 Black women who work as on-air talent reveal newsrooms are becoming more accepting of natural styles but there is still progress to be made.

Research Paper • Faculty • Student Paper • Perceptions of COVID-19 and BLM Protesting on Twitter • Tanya Gardner; Wei Sun, Howard University; Carolyn Stroman • “On May 25, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic crisis, an innocent Black man, George Floyd, died as a result of police brutality. This event sparked nationwide protests against racial inequality, led by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. While the number of COVID-19 cases continued to increase in many states, and as businesses began to re-open, there were fears that the BLM movement protests contributed to the resurgence of COVID-19 spread (Meyer, June 1, 2020). In a time of political and racial division, people expressed their support for, or opposition to, the claim that there was a connection between the protests and the rising number of cases.

This study aims to investigate how social media users make sense of the relationship between COVID-19 and BLM, and how health disparities of COVID-19 and race have been discussed in Twitter posts. The findings of the research will increase our understanding of how social media impacts knowledge regarding public health crises.”

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Paper • Reviving the Yellow Peril Digitally: Anti-Asian Hate during The COVID-19 Pandemic on Twitter • Xue Gong, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Shanshan Jiang; Fangjing Tu, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese and the broader Asian communities have become the target of resurgent racism both online and offline. Combining Twitter data, governmental data and COVID case data, this study uses both interrupted time series analysis and traditional time series analysis to investigate how anti-Asian sentiments in social media are systematically enhanced by a series of socioeconomic factors and discursive opportunities provided by demagogue attacks on the Asian communities. The results shed implications on building racial justice during a pandemic like COVID-19.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • Prescription for Change: The Erasure of Filipino Nurses from American Medical Shows • Kris Vera-Phillips, Arizona State University • This research paper explores the erasure of Filipino nurses from American medical television shows in order to highlight biases in media that lead to a scripted reality that ignores an essential community of workers who are responsible for the daily care of patients. This paper examines the relationship between Filipinos and American power structures. It will also investigate the issue of erasure in television shows through the lens of postcolonial and critical race theories.

Research Paper • Student • Student Paper • How Ethnic News Helps Shape Presidential Evaluations among Chinese Americans During the Covid-19 Pandemic • Jiehua Zhang • Ethnic media play important roles in constructing or reconstructing ethnic identity, facilitating the acculturation process, and encouraging political participation among ethnic groups. The current study looked at the moderation effects of ethnic news use in the relationships between political ideology and presidential evaluations among Chinese Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic when the virus was called “Chinese virus” by some news media and the former president. Relying on a survey of Chinese Americans conducted between October and December 2020, the study showed that while conservative Chinese Americans were more likely than liberals to approve of the former president Trump, the effects of political ideology on the presidential evaluations were diminishing for people who used ethnic media more frequently to get news.

2022 Abstracts

Media Management, Economics, and Entrepreneurship Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Faculty • Configuring the usage of audience analytics on journalism practices inside Egyptian Newsrooms • Rasha Allam, The American University in Cairo • The usage of audience analytics tools has redefined the whole process of news production. This study, which focuses on six major Egyptian news organizations, examines the use and role of audience analytics on the news production practices within the different types of news organizations understudy. Based on semi-structured interviews with senior and managing editors and using the sociology of news production theory, the study found that the type of ownership is quite decisive in defining the scope of usage for the analytics tools and their roles, in addition to the political context that plays a substantial role in this matter. Results show that although the private news organizations seem more open towards audience metrics, maintaining an authoritative tone of journalism is a priority to protect the organization’s brand. Finally, reaching transnational audiences and creating a pan-Arab news hub are seen by the private news organizations as potential benefits of the analytic tools.

Research Paper • Student • What is Fair? How journalists’ dual identity, resource conservation, and power dynamics shape pay secrecy culture • Fitria Andayani, University of Missouri • A textual analysis of 49 articles from the U.S. journalism trade publications finds that pay secrecy culture is responsible for journalists’ suffering from low wages and income inequity. Moreover, the research shows how the journalists’ dual identity creates their tendency to engage with loss aversion to protect their valuable resources of job security, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. The power dynamics within the news organization also lower journalists’ bargaining power leaving the company’s pay secrecy policy undisputed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Do Four (or Five, or Six) Firms Control the American Media? Revisiting The Media Monopoly • Jon Bekken, Albright College • Exaggerated versions of Bagdikian’s Media Monopoly are ubiquitous. This paper reviews the current state of media ownership concentration. After reviewing economic concentration in the book publishing, broadband and multichannel, motion picture, newspaper, radio and television industries, I demonstrate that the dominant U.S. media firms control more than 60 percent of mass media revenue. These firms’ relentless expansion and profit-seeking, I conclude, poses an existential crisis for journalism, and for the media more generally.

Research Paper • Student • Does social capital matter to the Millennials? Social capital and user engagements in online video platforms • Jaewon Royce Choi; Sooyeon Hong, University of Texas at Austin; Junghwan Kim, Pukyong National University • User engagements in video platforms are considered critical for businesses in measuring attention. This study investigates various factors influencing online video platform user engagements in the forms of showing empathy (e.g., “like”), commenting, and sharing. A theoretical model positing mediating role of social capital and moderating role of generational difference is suggested and tested against three types of engagement. Results indicate intriguing generational effect on social capital’s role in online video platform engagement.

Research Paper • Faculty • Video Measurement and Analytics: Best Practices and Industry Challenges • Amy Jo Coffey, University of Florida; Ann Hollifield, University of Georgia • This paper explores current approaches to video measurement in the rapidly evolving media environment. In-depth interviews of media analytics executives were employed (N=13), along with secondary analysis of data. Findings indicate that best practices include responsible integration of linear and census measurement, viewer assignment modeling, new metering technologies, and the retirement of older, less accurate data-gathering practices. Remaining challenges include a proven single-source method for cross-platform measurement and the resolution of definition issues.

Research Paper • Student • Digital news business models in the age of Industry 4.0 • Mathias Felipe de-Lima-Santos, University of Navarra; Lucia Mesquita, Dublin City University • The news media industry is a sector that is greatly affected by technology and the rapid speed with which changes are taking place. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us and promising to bring with it novel technologies, such as data, automation, and artificial intelligence. However, fostering innovation inside the newsroom takes place with as many hindrances and bureaucratic obstacles as possible. To address how news outlets are adopting new approaches to sustain their business, we conducted thirteen (n = 13) in-depth interviews with leading actors of news organizations in Brazil, a leading country within the Global South with a complex national reality. Our study systematically analyzes qualitative data to present technology-driven, innovative business models and technologies that will be major players in the news industry’s future. Results indicated that organizations do not rely on a unique income source but combine different sustainable models of funding. By deploying technological assets in the news business, these outlets are capable of meeting the needs of audiences and better identifying customer segments, which brings a competitive advantage to these organizations. In summary, this research resulted in responsive knowledge sharing about digital journalism’s business model that is being implemented for the next revolution.

Research Paper • Student • The Financialization of ABC: Wall Street Legitimation & the Financialized Commodity Audience, 1943–1970 • Peter Johnson, Boston University • Leveraging literature from media history and political economy, I consider how the discursive transactions between U.S. television executives and Wall Street stakeholders in the post-war period represented an overlooked “commodity audience” construction. I chart the rise of publicly-traded broadcasting stocks in the 1950s and how the encroachment of institutional investors led to broadcasting’s financialization and concentration. Specifically, I examine ABC between 1953 and 1970, when it became vulnerable to financial extraction and financialized strategies.

Research Paper • Student • Nothing routine: Television news management’s response to COVID-19, organizational uncertainty, and changes in news work. • Asma Khanom; Peter J. Gade • COVID-19 impacted broadcast news work (routine and organization level) which influenced on content. This study, guided by media sociology, explores the impact of COVID-19 on broadcast news routines and management’s organizational responses. The study includes in-depth interviews with broadcast news directors in the southern Midwest of U.S. (n = 10). The pandemic is a macro-level influence, yet the data in this study suggest its influence on news is fluid, flowing up and down among organizational, routine, and individual levels.

Research Paper • Faculty • Predicting Twitter Engagement with the Oscar-Winning Parasite: Through the Theoretical Lens of Country-of-Origin • Dam Hee Kim; Kyung Jung Han; Sungchul Lee • This study examines how 96,131 tweets in Korean and English discussed the Oscar-winning Korean film, Parasite, through the theoretical lens of Country-of-Origin (COO) and electronic Word-of-Mouth. Korean tweets used more affective COO frames (e.g., history-making) whereas English tweets used more cognitive (e.g., film quality) and normative COO frames (e.g., social norms). The number of Twitter engagement was positively predicted by cognitive and affective frames overall, but was negatively predicted by normative frames in English tweets.

Research Paper • Faculty • Teaching Media Management in International Perspective: A Comparative Content Analysis of Curricula in the US and Germany • Castulus Kolo, Macromedia University; Bozena Mierzejewska, Fordham University; Florain Haumer, Macromedia University; Axel Roepnack; Christopher Schmidt, Macromedia University; Anran Luo, Fordham University • “This study was designed to learn more about how media management education varies within national contexts of the US and Germany as well as between both countries via a content analysis of undergraduate and graduate curricula. Information about the specific course content of 34 US programs and nine programs from German universities was captured on the basis of a codebook developed for this purpose. Data shows that media management education focuses on conventional content.

Keywords: media management, education, curricula, media industry”

Research Paper • Faculty • Transboundary Cultural Economy: Spatial and Market Configurations of Cascadia’s News • Derek Moscato, Western Washington University • This study examines the news media environment of the U.S./Canada cross-border region known as Cascadia, which includes parts of British Columbia, Washington state, and Oregon. It analyzes the journalistic production processes that drive media coverage in this cross-border region. To better understand the unique dynamics of reporting about this area, the author developed case studies drawn from in-depth interviews with media practitioners from multiple news publications and outlets. Such interviews-driven cases not only inform how Cascadia is understood thematically and contextually, but also how the concept of Cascadia drives media business models and audience interest. This research explores how news media–as an outgrowth of regional communication and culture–navigate the spatial, logistical, and market dimensions of Cascadia reporting, especially as the Cascadia concept grapples with concurrent themes of politics, economy, social responsibility, and climate change. The results show that while regional media enterprises and practitioners on the whole embrace the concept and promise of Cascadia, they are increasingly constrained by logistical or economic challenges. However, emergent models of cross-border media production and dissemination provide insight into the future for Cascadia’s news enterprises.

Research Paper • Faculty • Educating effective practice of communication for sustainable development in Thailand • Ray Wang, Thammasat University • Scholarship has indicated that communication about sustainable development can have many different definitions and objectives. However, little research has discussed how higher education has prepared young professionals who aspire to work in this media management sector. Results from this study indicate that higher education may not be sufficiently preparing young professionals of these roles, and more research on the key competencies and development of young professionals should be conducted in Thailand and around the world.

Research Paper • Student • Analysis on financing efficiency of listed media companies in China from 2014 to 2018 • Changcheng Zhou • “This paper selected 118 media listed companies in mainland China as samples and analyzed their financing efficiency from 2014 to 2018, applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. On the basis of calculating the financing efficiency of all sample companies, the authors compared the financing efficiency of five sub-areas of news publishing, animation games, film and television media, marketing media and radio and television, and analyzed the changing trend of these indicators in the past three years.

Findings from the study suggest that, the overall financing efficiency of media listed companies in mainland China is low. Among the current sample, companies with pure technical efficiency account for the largest proportion. More than half media listed companies are in the increasing stage of scale returns. Based on the findings, the study also provides suggestions on how to improve the financing efficiency of media listed companies.”

2022 Abstracts

Media Ethics Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • Exploring moral ecology in the coverage of the 2020 racial protests: Analyzing sentiment and intent classification of Newspapers and Broadcast news content in the US • Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado • This study contributes to the literature of media moral ecology and the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) model. It does so by significantly expanding the methodological approaches, and theoretically, by incorporating media genres as a form of moral ecology that informs journalistic practices. The study uses the 2020 news content about racial protests to examine whether the media genre/category (Newspaper or Broadcast) affects how journalists choose to uphold their moral features of implicit norms, the harm principle, and the question of justice. Findings suggest that compared to broadcast media, newspaper genres are more likely to uphold ethical values when reporting racial protest. However, this only happened when political affiliations were controlled for. But when regressed with political affiliations, the effects were significantly skewed, indicating a higher presence of adulterated moral features in the news stories.

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • A Need for Change: The Perceived Power of Media and Journalists in Greece • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • Through 42 interviews with prominent political actors in Greek society, such as members of political parties (including Members of the Greek Parliament and their employees), alongside with well-known anti-fascists during 2019 and 2020, this paper analyses their opinions, ideas, and thoughts regarding the role of media and journalists in the events connected with the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) in 2018 and 2019. MND was one of the most influential securitized topics on the agenda due to the promoted “Prespes Agreement” from the then-government that was supposed to solve the dispute. The use of MND in Greece’s political competition provoked several important events, such as the government’s fall and change. This study reveals that the MND’s coverage for the interviewees was a part of the problematic Greek media landscape, in which the journalists and the media are perceived as the most powerful societal actors in the country. In addition, the interviewees tend to believe that Greek journalism is not real journalism, as the professionals of the field are pulling strings to realize other goals than serving the public.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Ethical Organizational Listening in Issues Management for Stakeholder Engagement and Moral Responsibility • Shannon Bowen, University of South Carolina; Marlene Neill, Baylor University • Ethical listening is an essential component of strategic issues management as an executive-level problem solving function. This qualitative study of elite Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) seeks to help fill a gap in making listening an explicit and purposeful part of ethics. We seek to enhance the vital role of listening in engaging stakeholders and demonstrating moral responsibility in issues management.

Research Paper • Central Office Staff • Open Call • Confucian Virtue System: Bring Media Ethics (Back) to a Humanistic Path • Yayu Feng, University of St. Thomas • This article engages with Confucianism, the Chinese moral philosophy, and aims to introduce how Confucian ethics could benefit media ethics theorizing by explaining the central component in this ethical system: the notion of good and excellent it pursues and its highest principles. It facilitates a better understanding of the cultural and philosophical context that shapes media’s role in countries influenced by Confucianism, and contributing to the field a new perspective as it searches for global framework.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Tear down this wall: Native advertising as boundary object in scholarship. • Andrew Duffy, Nanyang Technological University • Journalism’s iconic wall separates editorial from advertising with entrenched ideological differences. A hybrid form straddles this wall: native advertising. As a boundary object where competing fields meet, this has been a subject of growing scholarship, making it a suitable subject to investigate the doxa and habitus of academic thought in different fields. This paper analyses titles and abstracts of papers in journalism and advertising scholarship to assess how each frames the subject of native advertising, with a view to identifying ontologies and axiologies of each. It observes the value of such analysis of boundary objects as a means to identify limitations and potentialities in cross-disciplinary work; and to challenge epistemic authority in differing fields. Mapping fields creates space for re-articulation of normal practice in scholarship. This paper also expands earlier theorising on boundary-work to include pragmatics as an element of any field and associated boundary.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • I Dare Someone to Try: SNL’s “Can I Play That” and the Ethics of Whitewashing and Stereotypes • Rick Moore, Department of Communication and Media, Boise State University • The topic of whitewashing has been discussed in the popular press for many years. Scholars of media ethics, however, have been very slow to investigate the phenomenon. In this paper I wish to suggest a rather unusual place for academics to catch up on the most recent complications that whitewashing proposes. Given its growth in complexity, though, the problem—if looked at in all its dimensions—may have reached the point where it is insurmountable.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Journalists with Different Mindsets Agree on Truth as the Profession’s First Obligation • Greg Munno, Syracuse University; Megan Craig, Syracuse University; Katherine Farrish, Central Connecticut State University; Alex Richards, Syracuse University • This mixed-method study examines the mindset journalists bring to their work. Study 1 (n = 167) asked professional journalists, journalism professors, and student journalists to rank statements on journalism ethics and norms from most to least like their mindset toward journalism. Using the factor analysis procedure common to Q methodology, we identified two distinct mindsets among the participants. One factor expresses a neutral journalistic mindset that favors dispassionate reporting. The other shows more concern with the impact of journalism on its sources and a desire for more engagement in political discourse. A participant pool larger than that of a typical Q study allowed for additional quantitative analysis that identified significant differences in journalistic mindset by age, gender, professional experience, and journalistic platform. Using an explanatory-sequential design, study 2 (n = 16) further explored the journalistic mindset—the underlying web of beliefs and attitudes about the profession’s core values—with a textual analysis of follow-up interviews. The results, we believe, have applications to research on journalistic ethics and norms, and may provide some insight into the divisions generating conflict in many newsrooms today.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide: Analyzing Moral Conviction, Perceived Motives, and Organization-Public Relationships in Corporate Social Advocacy Efforts • Holly Overton, Penn State University; Anli Xiao, University of South Carolina • “This study conducts an online survey (N = 267) to examine the role of moral conviction as a

predictor of organization-public relationships (OPR) in the context of corporate social advocacy

(CSA). Four types of attributions are examined as a mediating variable. Results indicate that

moral congruency between an individual and an organization directly leads to stronger trust and

power balance and that moral conviction positively predicts all four OPR dimensions through

values-driven attributions. Implications are discussed.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Moral Foundations in Life Narratives of Emerging Adults in Media-Related Fields • David Craig, University of Oklahoma; Katie Place, Quinnipiac University; Erin Schauster; Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Chris Roberts, University of Alabama; Ryan Thomas; Casey Yetter, University of Oklahoma; Jin Chen, Penn State University • The purpose of this study was to explore the moral foundations evident in the life narratives of emerging adults in media-related fields, based on analysis of life story interviews with 182 recent graduates from six media-related programs across the United States. Participants offered rich accounts of how their sense of morality was shaped over the course of their lives, and thus influenced their sense of the virtues of care/harm, fairness/injustice, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority, and purity/integrity. Findings identified how individuals draw upon concrete examples of the moral foundations from their childhood, but also identified ways in which individuals moral awareness had refined during emerging adulthood. Thus, media educators must develop pedagogy that best enables our students to a) reflect on moral values and the roles they play in students’ holistic lives, b) engage in dialogue about virtues and moral foundation concepts, and c) have opportunities to explore and refine their moral awareness with regard to the media fields they will enter.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Moral Orientations and Traits of Public Relations Exemplars • Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Marlene Neill, Baylor University; Jin Chen, Penn State University • This study seeks to contribute to moral psychology research on media professionals with a survey of the highly selective College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America. The study explores personality and character traits as well as ethical ideologies, and it also introduces the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) assessment to media ethics scholarship. Results (N = 59) affirm the exemplar status of Fellows, indicated by their top-ranked Global Character Strengths, including Honesty and Fairness, their above-average scores on Conscientiousness and Openness to experience traits, as well as the fact that a large majority reject relativistic thinking and demonstrate a strong concern for harm. Results also document positive correlations among several factors linked to empathy, justice and concern for harm. Those, coupled with an embrace of the MFT’s Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations, suggest a progressive moral orientation, and affirm the usefulness of a neo-Aristotelian framework for media ethics scholarship.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Call • Moral reasoning and the life stories that depict personal interest, maintaining norms and universal principles • Erin Schauster • 75-word Summary: Moral exemplars in advertising are ideal candidates for understanding moral reasoning because of the challenges they face in the collaborative practices of strategic communication. Life story interviews and DIT results suggest that, while they exhibit high levels of moral reasoning, reasoning based on personal interest and, more so, maintaining norms are used to justify ethical decision making. More research is needed to understand the integrated, collaborative work of strategic communication and practices that influences norms.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Skepticism, Egoism, & COVID-19 Advertisements: An Exploratory Study of Consumer Attitudes and Moral Foundations • Christopher Vardeman, University of Colorado Boulder • The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for advertisers, and for small businesses in particular. Many retailers have had to adopt new messaging strategies to address responses to the virus in order to allay fear. This study measures consumer attitudes toward advertisements that make reference to COVID-19 safety responses alongside individual factors of advertising skepticism, egoism, and moral foundations thought to influence and predict such attitudes. Results are interpreted and implications for advertisers are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Morality rules: Understanding the role of prior reputation in consequences of scansis • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Pratiti Diddi, Lamar University • Drawing from literature on crisis communication and moral licensing/consistency, we explored the role of prior organizational reputation on people’s responses to organizations’ morality-oriented negative publicity (i.e., scansis) through an online experiment (N = 293). We found organizations with better prior reputation tended to get more severe backlash in scansis than those with poorer reputation, which implicated the need to take the unique role of morality in scansis into account in both pertinent research and practice.

Research Paper • Faculty • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • A New Objective: Recasting Journalism Ethics Through the Racial Reckoning • Brad Clark, Mount Royal University • During the “racial reckoning” in 2020, racialized and Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada called out their employers and industry for the systemic racism endemic to news operations and content. They explained their frustrations, criticisms and insights in columns, social media posts, essays, interviews, and other published media, frequently challenging notions of objectivity. This paper uses a qualitative content analysis of those media accounts to explore how journalism’s dominant ethic subverts inclusive newsrooms and news coverage.

Research Paper • Student • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • Converging Theory with Practice in the Media Skills Classroom • Alexis Romero Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This article provides that there is a need to incorporate contemporary media and film theory in the media skills classroom to adequately work to decolonize education and bring equity to higher education media programs. Using an autoethnographic approach, the article showcases how to incorporate concepts related to equity in lighting in the skills classroom. The article additionally provides an adjusted approach to critical media literacy to effectively bring equity and inclusion to the media skills classroom, and proposes questions that instructors should ask themselves as they create their curriculum for their courses.

2022 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Moeller Student Paper Competition • Purpose vs. Mission vs. Vision: Persuasive Appeals and Components in Corporate Statements • Alexis Fitzsimmons, University of Florida; Yufan “Sunny” Qin, University of Florida; Eve Heffron, University of Florida • Purpose statements persuade stakeholders of companies’ reasons for being. However, there is a lack of distinction among purpose, mission, and vision statements. This quantitative content analysis explored the differences among Fortune Global companies’ purpose, mission, and vision statements, adding to a much-needed body of literature on corporate purpose. Results provide implications for communicators who write these statements as well as theoretical implications related to rhetorical and social identification theories and organizational identification.

Research Paper • Student • Moeller Student Paper Competition • The New Media Normal: Survey-based study of COVID-19 Effects on Motivations to Consume Non-News Media • Kate Stewart, University of South Carolina • This large-scale, self-administered Qualtrics survey, based on a representative sample from 2020 United States Census Data, study specifically investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in a mediating role, on motivations to consume non-news media by having an impact on social escapism, social presence, and coping mechanisms. The scope of this analysis has relevance as a current on-going global pandemic and could be replicated to study how disasters or other pandemics affect non-news media consumption.

Research Paper • • Open Competition • News in the Time of Corona: Institutional trust, collective narcissism, and the role of individual experiences in perceptions of COVID-19 coverage • Ivy Ashe; Ryan Wallace, The University of Texas at Austin; Ivan Lacasa-Mas, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya; Q. Elyse Huang, The University of Texas at Austin • All public health crises have an element of uncertainty to them; however, even in this context, COVID-19 stands out. Trust heuristics such as institutional trust, and trust in media in particular, become more important for people seeking information. In this study, we use a cross-sectional nationally representative study of the American online population to better understand factors impacting overall perceptions of and trust in COVID-19 news. We focus on a subset of people exhibiting traits of collective narcissism, the emotional investment in an in-group such as the nation-state. We show that for core values like institutional trust and perceptions of news media in general, indices for collective narcissism may prove valuable in understanding relationships between audience perceptions and core ideological beliefs. However, in the case of individual news events where uncertainty may be high, individual components of collective narcissism (i.e. anti-elitism, general conspiracy belief, and xenophobia) remain better perception indicators.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • News literacy, conspiratorial thinking, and political orientation in the 2020 U.S. election • Seth Ashley, Boise State University; Stephanie Craft, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; Adam Maksl, Indiana University Southeast; Melissa Tully, University of Iowa; Emily Vraga, University of Minnesota • The rapid spread of misinformation in the digital age has increased calls for news literacy to help mitigate endorsement of conspiracy theories and other falsehoods. This study conducted in the week before the 2020 U.S. presidential election shows that individuals with higher levels of news literacy were more likely to reject conspiratorial thinking, but also that news literacy is unevenly distributed across the population and matters more for individuals with liberal views than conservative views.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Change is the only constant: Young adults as platform architects and the consequences for news • Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University; Ava Francesca Battocchio, Michigan State University • We examine digital platform repertoires for news among young adults. Through the lens of “digital labor,” we explore the work that young adults’ undertake to design and maintain their personal media systems, and the consequences of those practices for news use. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews with 18-34-year-olds, including a shared reading of participants’ newsfeeds in their top three social media platforms, we develop the theoretical concept of personal platform architecture. Our findings suggest that young adults architect and maintain platform repertoires for sociality, personal interests, and emotional well-being rather than for information—but with substantial consequences for news.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The interplay of narrative versus statistics messages and misperceptions on COVID-19 vaccine intention • Porismita Borah; Xizhu Xiao; Yan Su • Drawing on exemplification theory, we used a moderated moderated mediation model to test the relationships among message manipulation, perceived expectancies, perceived susceptibility, COVID-19 misperceptions and intention to vaccinate. Findings show that perceived expectancies mediate the relationship between message manipulation and vaccine intention. Findings indicate that among individuals with high misperceptions about COVID-19, statistical messages are more persuasive for individuals with high perceived susceptibility, while narrative messages are more influential for individuals with low perceived susceptibility.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • New Cuban-American narratives about the homeland: Moving away from traditional storylines shared by “hardliners” via Twitter • Maria DeMoya, DePaul University; Vanessa Bravo, Elon University • This study analyzed Twitter conversations about Cuba, posted between June 1, 2017, and July 31, 2020, to discover the main themes that “hardliners” and the “new Cuban diaspora” communicated about in relation to Cuba and its future. This is a relevant and timely topic because, without a Castro as the head of the Cuban government for the first time in over six decades, the international community is getting to know a different image of Cuba. In this context, the Cuban diaspora in Florida has also changed and divided into two contrasting groups: the “hardliners,” who completely oppose the Cuban government and do not want any softening in the U.S.-Cuba relationship; and a newer generation whose members do not support the government on the island but prioritize their support for the Cuban people and are in favor of building new relationships on the island. The younger community approves the travel to the island, supporting their relatives at home through remittances, and potentially ending the U.S. embargo imposed on Cuba since 1960. As the analysis of their Tweets showed, this second group is a “new Cuban diaspora” that is changing the way in which the Cuban diaspora performs its public diplomacy roles in the United States.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Misinformation and News Verification: Why Users Fact Check Suspect Content • Erik Bucy, Texas Tech University; Duncan Prettyman, Colorado Technical University • The rise of misinformation has led to a corresponding call for more investigation into the antecedents of news verification, and for improved understanding about who verifies and why. In this study we conduct a thematic analysis of participants’ open-ended responses (N = 2,938 individual thoughts, volunteered by N = 715 participants) to an online questionnaire to explore the factors that may influence individuals’ decisions to verify or not verify information they have reason to believe might be false when they are given the opportunity to do so. We investigate what themes are associated with information verification broadly, then examine the prevalence of themes when associated with several individual difference variables that previous research suggests may be impactful. Specifically, we examine the association of themes with news knowledge (high vs low), news skepticism (high vs low), and individuals’ motivations for media use (surveillance vs entertainment). Descriptive results show significant differences in the characteristics of searchers compared to non-searchers. In addition, news knowledge is a particularly potent individual difference: individuals with high news knowledge had more thoughts about the need to verify information, concerns about manipulative intent, and were far less entertained by the idea of fake news than those with low news knowledge.

Research Paper • Postdoc • Open Competition • Media Mistrust and the Meta-Frame: Collective Framing of Police Brutality Evidence Reporting on YouTube • Richard Canevez, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Moshe Karabelnik, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Jenifer Sunrise Winter, University of Hawaii at Manoa • Social media impacts the news media’s role in police accountability. This convergence produces collective framings of police violence-related evidence that requires further attention. Using a frame analysis of news outlets and content analysis of comments on YouTube, we identify frames, responses, and the collective framing that results from this converging environment. Our findings suggest a triumvirate of competing frames around police brutality, with mistrust of media complicating the role news media plays in accountability.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Who Conducts Fact Checking and Does It Matter?: Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of Fact-checking Behavior in Hong Kong. • Stella Chia, City University of Hong Kong; Fangcao Lu; Al Gunther • This study utilizes a representative survey to examine multiple ways in which people engage in fact checking in a highly divided Hong Kong. The findings showed that stronger partisans who had greater news consumption were more likely to engage in fact-checking behavior. However, frequent fact-checking behavior enhanced, rather than reduced, their beliefs in pro-attitudinal misinformation. A warning of the backfire effects of fact-checking on exacerbating opinion polarization and social division is issued.

Extended Abstract • Research Fellow • Open Competition • Extended Abstract: Exploring the Information Authentication Acts of Experts, Environmentalists, and the Public in Southeast Asia • Agnes Chuah; Shirley Ho; Edson Tandoc Jr; Peihan Yu • Drawing on the Audiences’ Acts of Authentication framework, this study explores how the public, energy experts, and environmentalists in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore authenticate energy related information in a period of energy-related misinformation. The findings showed that the authentication behaviors across the three countries were consistent with the two-step process proposed by the framework. Individuals would turn to external forms of authentication when they were internally unconvinced of the authentication of the information.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • What Remains? The Relationship between Counterfactual Thinking, Story Outcome, Enjoyment, and Emotion in Narratives • Di Cui • Counterfactual thinking is a psychological concept. It explains the phenomenon that occurs when individuals reflectively imagine different outcomes for events that have already happened. This paper examines the application of counterfactual thinking in the field of media psychology. It examines if readers can generate counterfactual thinking in a fictional context. It also looks at the relationship between counterfactual thinking, enjoyment, and negative emotions. By conducting two experiments, the author finds readers can generate counterfactual thinking toward narrative pieces. Different story outcomes play an essential role in influencing the generation of counterfactuals. These findings indicate that counterfactual thinking can be a critical factor that impacts audiences’ understanding and reimaging stories in the long-term.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Fit Bodies that Inspire? A Qualitative study exploring perceptions of and motivations for interacting with Fitspiration content on social media • Roxanne Vos, Radboud University Nijmegen; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University, Behavioural Science Institute • The purpose of this qualitative study (N = 34 interviews) was to gain insight into the motives that underlie the interaction with Fitspiration content on social media and the personal meaning making processes surrounding this interactions. Based on the data four motives to post ‘fitspirational’ content and eight to follow the trend on social media were constructed. These give insight into the positive and negative ways participants believe Fitspiration affects them and others.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Political news personalization and the third-person effect: Examining support for restrictions on audience data collection • Lisa Farman, Ithaca College • An online survey (N=561) tested perceptions of the personalization of online political news. A third-person effect emerged: respondents believed others would be more affected by personalized political news than themselves. Those who thought others would be more affected by news personalization were also more likely to support restrictions on websites’ use of audience data to personalize news. Narcissism was a significant moderator of the relationship between perceived effect on self and support for regulation.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The Labeling Experiment: Examining the Differential Effects of Equivalent Labels on Individuals’ Associations toward Immigrants • Juliana Fernandes, University of Florida; Moritz Cleve, University of Florida • Using a mix-methods approach, this study examines the differential effects of equivalent labels (i.e., authorized, documented, legal vs. unauthorized, undocumented, illegal) and the impact of these labels on individuals’ associations toward immigrants. Results of three studies show that those exposed to positive valenced labels produce more favorably associations of immigrants than those exposed to negative valenced labels (Study 1a), that associations tend to be quicker for labels such as illegal and slower for labels such as authorized (Study 1b), and that the interaction of association type (warmth/morality vs. competence) with association valence accounts for more variance in evaluations than labels, especially for negatively valenced associations (Study 2). Overall, the series of studies suggests a stronger influence of associations about warmth and morality compared to associations about an immigrant’s competence.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Pornography Addiction and Social Media: An exploratory study on the impact of social media on the road to porn abstinence. • Débora Martini, University of Colorado Boulder; Harsha Gangadharbatla, University of Colorado Boulder • Pornography addiction is on the rise in our society and excessive use often leads to negative life consequences. Just as other addictions, porn addiction can also be triggered by a number of factors. Of these factors, the role of social media has not been fully studied or understood. The current exploratory study uses a survey method to investigate the role of social media in porn addiction among Brazilian porn addicts. Results suggest that social media content is seen as a trigger by self-identified porn addicts and the factors that influence such perception include age of the addict, gender, and the number of times they have relapsed. And changes in behavior on social media are influenced by individuals’ perceptions of social media as a trigger.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The Growing Influence of Political Ideology in Shaping Health Behavior in the United States • Mugur Geana, University of Kansas; Nathaniel Rabb, The Policy Lab, Brown University; Steven Sloman, The Policy Lab, Brown University • Political polarization is a growing concern in many parts of the world and is particularly acute in the US. This study reinforces previous research on long-term health consequences driven by partisanship by showing that these ideologically-driven differences manifest even more acutely in situations where the possibility of severe illness or death is immediate, and the potential societal impact is significant. The substantial implications for public health research and practice are both methodological and conceptual.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Public buying behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic: Presumed media influence and the spillover effects of SARS • Tong Jee Goh, Nanyang Technological University; Shirley Ho • Testing for a historical spillover effect, this study examined how the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) processes differed between people with low and high perceived severity of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), when it comes to predicting Singaporeans’ purchasing intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results showed that people’s presumptions of media influence on others predicted their intention to buy more. The study also found a historical spillover effect of pre-existing attitude towards SARS.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Unprecedented Times: How Journalists Coped with the Emotional Impact of Covering the COVID-19 Pandemic • Gretchen Hoak • This study explored the stress of covering the COVID-19 pandemic on journalists in the United States. A survey of 222 journalists revealed covering the story was both stressful and emotionally difficult. Females and those who were younger and less experienced perceived higher levels of stress and felt the story was more emotionally difficult than their counterparts. The repetitive nature of the coverage, interacting with victims, and public backlash for their reporting were among the top stressors. Supervisor support was associated with higher levels of work commitment and lower levels of stress. Nearly 60% of participants indicated they received no stress management or coping resources from their news organizations. Of those that did receive support options, most did not take advantage noting the resources were either not feasible or not helpful. Implications for organizational support and its impact on journalist stress are discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Social Media Use Intensity and Privacy Concerns: The Implications for Social Capital • Iveta Imre, U Mississippi; Jason Cain • This study examines how SNS use intensity, specifically social routine integration and social integration and emotional routine, correlate with social capital, as well as how privacy concerns impact the relationship between SNS use intensity and social capital. Findings support that social capital correlates with both factors on the use intensity scale. Only the accuracy factor was a significant predictor of bridging capital while both accuracy and control, and collection proved significant for bonding capital.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Determination of the Factors Influencing the Third-Person Effects in Health and Environmental Concerns • Jessica Shaw, Louisiana State University; Soojin Kim, Louisiana State University; Yongick Jeong, Louisiana State University • This study examines how three personal factors (issue involvement, behavior change intention, and consumption amount) influences the third-person effect in different public issues of health and environment. By employing two measures of the third-person effect (perceived threat of public issues and perceived likelihood of participating in risky behavior), this study found that the influence of the three personal factors vary across issues and measures. Practical implications and suggestions are also discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Science Podcasters and Centering Fairness in Content Creation • Shaheen Kanthawala, University of Alabama; Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University; Tanya Ott-Fulmore • “The podcast industry has steadily grown over the last decade and keeps showing promise for further growth. Science and science-related podcasts are a popular genre of podcasts that seem to play a role in science communication. Fundamentally, information provided through science communication is a resource, and there is often disparity in the allocation of most resources. As creators of content that could not only help, but also possibly add to this disparity, science podcasters need to be aware of their audience when developing podcasts.

Therefore, we use the fairness and justice literature to explore how science podcasters think about their audiences when creating content. We further explore how science podcasters view themselves and the role of their podcasts within the science communication space. To do this, we conducted a survey with 147 of the top science podcasters (identified from Apple Podcasts’ top rankings). Our results indicated podcasters view themselves in a connecting role between scientific information lay audiences. They hold ethical values and are mindful of principles of fairness. These findings indicate that they view themselves in the role of science communicators – a role of vital importance today. Their resources should, therefore, be harness in the future to spread science and scientific information to the general public.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Media Consumption, Attitudes, and #BlackLivesMatter on the Ground, Court and Field • Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota; Rachel Mourao, Michigan State University; Tania Ganguli, University of Minnesota • This work utilizes a nationally representative survey to explore how news media consumption of mainstream, partisan and sports news organizations and the attitudes held by audiences affect recall, negative attitudes towards protest utility, and support for Black Lives Matter. We include considerations for celebrity advocacy efforts in the NBA and NFL. We found ideological and political barriers to support for BLM, indicating conservatism has a stronger impact on protest attitudes, regardless of the tactics employed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • When does the Past Colonial Memory Plug into Nationalism? Information and Media’s Priming of Anti-Japan Nationalism in South Korea and China • Jisoo Kim, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Gaofei Li, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Xining Liao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Hernando Rojas • Underlining the importance of the respective context of nationalism, this study focuses on anti-Japan nationalism in South Korea and China, which share a similar history of being colonized by Japan. Anti-Japan nationalism has always been alive but explicitly appears in people’s attitudes and behaviors only at certain times. Our study is centered on how information regarding a painful memory of the colonial past may prime individuals to express stronger anti-Japan attitudes and behaviors. Our results suggest that our prime contextually interacts with different types of media in unique ways: in South Korea, those that use social media more often are primed to express increased anti-Japanese nationalism, while in China it is those that consume more mainstream media. Implications of our findings are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Politically Contested Beliefs: Why Do Conservatives Tend to Have More Inaccurate Beliefs About COVID-19? • Tom Johnson; Taeyoung Lee; Chenyan Jia, The University of Texas at Austin • A fair amount of research showed that politically conservative people are susceptible to false claims about COVID-19. Based on the belief gap hypothesis, this study examines why conservatives have more false beliefs about COVID-19. A representative survey showed that institutional trust was associated with people’s beliefs around COVID-19. Meanwhile, conservative identity indirectly influenced having false beliefs through institutional trust. Also, support for Trump, education, and the use of conservative media predicted having false beliefs.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • The new yellow peril: Priming news context on attitudes towards Asian models, and brands • Lincoln Lu, University of Florida; T. Franklin Waddell, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida • Recent increase in incidents of violence towards Asian Americans are indicative of underlying animosity often overlooked in discussions of race. Within a news story advertising context, an online experiment (N = 372) found some evidence that consumer ethnocentrism may moderate perceptions of attractiveness for male Asian models, consumer attitudes towards the ad, brand, and purchase intention. These results provide insight into race-based stereotyping at a time of flux surrounding race in America.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Informational, Infrastructural and Emotional Labor: The Extra Work in a News and Broadband Desert • Nick Mathews, University of Minnesota; Christopher Ali • This study offers a systematic qualitative investigation inside a combined news and broadband desert. Despite popular attention to both news and broadband deserts, most recently and acutely during the coronavirus pandemic, there has been no scholarly research into communities where these two deserts intersect. This article confronts this knowledge gap. Built on 19 in-depth interviews with residents of Surry County, Va., we argue that life in a news and broadband desert requires a substantial amount of labor to obtain the information and connectivity so many Americans take for granted. Our findings demonstrate three areas of increased labor for residents: (1) informational, (2) infrastructural and (3) emotional. We conclude with a discussion of life and labor in this desert, specifically, and how it may apply to similar communities across the United States.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Jessica Jones: Exploring Marvel’s Dark Anti-Hero and the Portrayal of Complex Women Characters • Newly Paul, University of North Texas; Gwendelyn Nisbett, University of North Texas • This project uses social construction of gender theory to explore transmedia narratives of Jessica Jones in the graphic novel Alias, and the Netflix television shows Jessica Jones and The Defenders. Transmedia narratives often ascribe new dimensions to characters and narratives, and we aim to compare and contrast the narratives that emerge in these spaces. Using thematic analysis, we find that Jones breaks the sexist tropes often associated with female superheroes, and exemplifies the qualities of a strong, independent woman.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Why and How People Avoid News during the Coronavirus Pandemic: An Analysis of News Repertoire • Chang Sup Park; Barbara Kaye • This study explored how the coronavirus pandemic as a large-scale news event functioned as a catalyst for news avoidance. In-depth interviews with 50 adults in South Korea in May and June 2020 revealed three reasons reconfiguring their media repertoire to ‘coronablock’ news about the pandemic: to tune out, to control information flow, and to seek positive news. The findings contribute to the understanding of news avoidance during a time of global crisis.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • The media affect them, but not me: Veteran and civilian perceptions of news coverage about U.S. military veterans • Scott Parrott; David L. Albright; Nicholas Eckhart; Kirsten Laha-Walsh • Informed by theory of the third-person effect, the present study examined civilian and veteran perceptions of news content concerning veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the perceived quality and effects of news content. A national survey of adults in the United States, including veterans and civilians, documented the presence of a third-person effect in which individuals estimate that media exposure affects others more so than themselves. The effect occurred among both civilians and veterans. In addition, when asked to recall news stories about veterans, respondents often recalled stereotypical stories related to victimization/harm, heroism, charity/social support, mental illness, and violence. The results are important for veterans because the third-person effect may lead veterans to assume media content affects public perceptions of veterans, which could in turn affect veterans’ perceptions of interactions with civilians in social, employment, educational, and other settings. Put simply, veterans could act differently when they assume others are thinking they are traumatized heroes, the predominant image conveyed by U.S. news outlets.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Swapping Insults, Neglecting Policy: How U.S. Presidential Candidates Communicate About Mental Health • Scott Parrott; Hailey Grace Allen • Background. Candidates for high office in the United States of America play an important role in determining the political agenda and shaping public and mass media understanding of which issues should receive attention. Critics contend politicians rarely address mental health, despite the importance of the federal government in ensuring Americans access to quality care. Aims. Two studies sought to understand how candidates for the highest office in the U.S. — the presidency — communicated about mental health using formal (mental, depress, anxiety) and informal (crazy, insane) terminology in social media posts and debates. Methods. Two coders examined 1,807 tweets from 41 politicians who competed in the 2016 and 2020 races, plus transcripts from 47 debates during the primaries and General Elections. Results. Politicians often stigmatized mental illness, using mental health-related slang terms to insult opponents. They afforded less attention to policy and calls for action related to mental health. Conclusions. The authors offer recommendations for mental health professionals and advocates to encourage politicians to address mental health policy while avoiding stigmatizing language.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • My Pandemic News is Better Than Yours: Audience Perceptions of Early News Coverage About Covid-19 • Mallory Perryman, Virginia Commonwealth • This study focuses on how American audiences perceived news coverage during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Through a survey-experiment of American news consumers (N=767) over a three-day period in mid-March 2020, we show that news consumers had positive attitudes toward their own Covid-19 news sources, but were critical about the news sources others were using to get information about the virus. Our data reveal evidence of presumed media influence, where audiences’ evaluations of pandemic news were linked to their perceptions of how news content was impacting others’ health behaviors.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • When In Doubt, Blame China: A Qualitative Analysis of Conservative Coronavirus Content on Reddit • Jeffrey Riley, Georgia Southern University • This is a qualitative content analysis examining the top content posted to the conservative, /r/The_Donald-affiliated subreddit /r/Wuhan_Flu from February 2020 until August 2020. The expectations of health misinformation and widespread downplaying of the virus were not met. Instead, /r/Wuhan_Flu deviated from Donald Trump’s public statements about the pandemic and tended to be far more alarmist than calming. Instead of health misinformation, the subreddit tended to encourage masks and social distancing. However, the results also indicate that geopolitical issues with China were the primary topic, with 217 posts containing negative language or visual images directed at China. Based on literature about radicalized digital spaces, /r/Wuhan_Flu represents the potential for dangerous real-world consequences, especially considering the increase in hate crimes against Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Identity for Sale: Authenticity, Commodification, and Agency in YouTube Influencers • Aysha Vear, University of Maine; Judith Rosenbaum, University of Maine • Focusing on YouTube influencers, this study extends structuration theory into the realm of social media. Interviews, observations, and content analysis were used to explore the relationship between agency, commodification, and authenticity in influencers’ performances. Results show a need to reconceptualize structures as emergent and embodied; that authenticity and agency are inexorably linked and constrained by the commodification inherent in influencers’ performances; and that influencers face a hierarchy of choices that enable and constrain their agency.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Influencing the agenda: The role of conservative figures in melding media agendas for social media communities • Burton Speakman, Kennesaw State University; Marcus Funk • Historically, mainstream news media held significant agenda setting authority. As news and social media evolve, individual actors and digital communities have to meld and filter diverse media agendas into one curated, personal space for their followers. This article examines attempts at far right agendamelding by fringe and conspiracy-affiliated Reps. Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Greene during and after their respective runs for Congress. Results suggest far right politicians can meld agendas from friendly media and their own campaigns, while rejecting mainstream agendas, to influence their Twitter community.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • “Infodemic” amid the pandemic: Social media news use, homogeneous discussions, self-perceived media literacy, and misperceptions • Yan Su; Porismita Borah; Xizhu Xiao • Heeding the call to address the “infodemic” in the COVID-19 crisis, this research investigates the associations among social media news use, homogeneous online discussion, self-perceived media literacy, and misinformation perceptions about the COVID-19. We use an online survey and a moderated mediation model. Results show that social media news use is positively associated with misinformation perceptions. Moreover, homogeneous online discussion was a significant mediator, such that social media news use is positively associated with homogeneous discussion, and the latter, in turn, is associated with increased misinformation perceptions. Further, self-perceived media literacy is a significant moderator for both the main and the indirect effects, such that the associations became weaker among those with higher self-perceived media literacy. Findings provide insights into the significance of information sources, discussion network heterogeneity, and media literacy education.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Attention Convergence and Narrative Coalescence: The Impact of the US Presidential Election on the Generational Gap in Online News Use • Chris Chao Su, Boston University • This study revisits the contentious role of the 2016 US presidential election in shaping news and disinformation use by contrasting usage networks of millennials and boomers, two groups with disparate preferences. Theoretically, through bringing the literature on selective exposure thesis into media events, this study advances an analytical framework to approach increased divergence and intensified polarization in the election through a sociological perspective. Empirically, this study compares the generational gap in online news usage in a typical month (Apirl-2015) and the month just before Elections (October-2016), by conducting relational analyses of shared usage for each cohort comprising all major news outlets. The analyses reveal that during the election boomers moved toward a collection of digital-native outlets that produce and disseminate political disinformation – the fake fringe – as well as more toward conservative partisan side of the news landscape. Investigating audience convergence during Donald Trump’s election, this study demonstrates that although the public tends to converge their attention in the event, the systematic divergence in consuming various narratives of the event forcefully steers to audience divergence compared to uneventful periods.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Getting Inspired by Fitspiration Posts: Effects of Picture Type, Numbers of Likes and Inspiration Emotions on Workout Intentions • Yuan Sun; Nicholas Eng, Penn State University; Jessica Myrick, Penn State University • The study investigated the potential positive effects of fitspiration posts for inspiring physical exercises through a 2 (Numbers of likes: High vs. Low) x 2 (Picture type: Body transformation vs. After-only) between-subject experiment. Numbers of likes cued subjective norm, while body transformation posts elicited inspirational emotion, which mediated the effects of picture type on workout intention. Picture type and numbers of likes jointly affected descriptive norm and inspiration emotion, which led to workout intention.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Avoiding real news, believing in fake news? Investigating pathways from fake news exposure to misbelief • Edson Tandoc Jr; Hye Kyung Kim, Nanyang Technological U • This study sought to examine the potential role of news avoidance in the link between exposure to and belief in misinformation. Using two-wave panel survey data in Singapore, we found that exposure to misinformation contributes to information overload, which is subsequently associated with news fatigue as well as with difficulty in analyzing information. News fatigue and analysis paralysis also subsequently led to news avoidance, which made individuals more likely to believe in misinformation.

Extended Abstract • Student • Open Competition • Effective Health Risk Communications: Lessons Learned about COVID-19 Pandemic through the Lens of Practitioners • Taylor Voges, UGA; LaShonda Eaddy, Southern Methodist University; Shelley Spector, Museum of Public Relations; Yan Jin, University of Georgia • The study utilizes semi-structured interviews of health risk communication practitioners in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contingency theory of strategic conflict management is the guide to understanding the challenges and nuances. Insights gained from interviewing practitioners (projected, n=40) from different sectors with diverse professional backgrounds will help advance the contingency theory’s application in understanding the dynamics observed in times of health risks and crises threatening societal wellbeing.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Fake News in the Family: How Family Communication Patterns and Conflict History Affect the Intent to Correct Misinformation among Family Members • T. Franklin Waddell, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida; Chelsea Moss • Do family communication patterns or family conflict history affect the intention to correct fake news shared by family members? A pre-registered online survey (N = 595) was conducted to answer this question. Results revealed that conversation orientation and conformity orientation positively predicted the intention to correct family members, while family history was negatively related with corrective action intention. Presumed influence, by comparison, was not significantly related to corrective action. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • How do NPOs effectively engage with publics on social media? Examining the effects of interactivity and emotion on Twitter • Chuqing Dong, Michigan State University; Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities • “Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are increasingly using social media to engage with publics. However, communication factors associated with effective social media use remain unclear in the nonprofit literature. Drawing from literature on public engagement, interactivity, and emotions, this study employs a computational approach to examine the effects of communication strategies on NPOs’ public engagement on Twitter (i.e., likes and retweets). By analyzing functional interactivity, contingency interactivity, and emotion elements of tweets from the 100 largest U.S. NPOs (n= 301,559), this study finds negative effects of functional interactivity on likes, negative effects of contingency interactivity on likes and retweets, but a positive effect of functional interactivity on retweets. The findings also show negative effects of emotion valence on likes and retweets but positive effects of emotion strength on likes and retweets. Using NPO type as a moderator suggests that there are varying effects of interactivity and emotion on public engagement for service-oriented and other types of NPOs. Practical implications regarding strategic social media use in the nonprofit sector are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Competition • Do All Types of Warning Labels Work on Flagging Misinformation? The Effects of Warning Labels on Share Intention of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation • Alexander Moe, SUNY Brockport • Using a survey experiment (N = 403), this study tested the effectiveness of Twitter warning labels flagging misinformation pertaining to COVID-19 vaccines. Results showed that all types of warning labels decreased perceived credibility and share intention compared to no label condition. Moderated mediation analysis showed that vaccine hesitancy moderated the relationship between exposure to warning labels and perceived credibility while perceived credibility served as a mediator on the effects of warning labels on share intention.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Competition • Linguistic Attribution Framing: A Linguistic Category Approach to Framing Crisis • Xiaochen Zhang, University of Oklahoma; Jonathan Borden • Based on Attribution Theory, this study proposes a linguistic category approach to framing. A 2 (language: concrete/abstract) x 3 (social identity: out-group/in-group/control) experiment in a political crisis context was used to understand linguistic framing’s effects on attribution. Main effects a) of abstract (vs. concrete) language and b) of out-group (vs. in-group) on higher attribution, future crisis occurrence and unethical perceptions of the politician were found. Implications for framing research are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • The Effects of Nudges on Social Media Users in the Context of COVID-19 Fake News • Wen Xuan Hor, Nanyang Technological University; Rui Yan Leo, Nanyang Technological University; Xin Jie Tan, Nanyang Technological University; Agnes Yeong Shuan Chai, Nanyang Technological University • This study examines the applicability of nudging on reducing sharing of fake news. Using a 2 (Nudge Frame – Gain vs. Loss) x 2 (Nudge Frequency – Single vs. Repeated) between-subject experiment (n = 238), results showed gain-frame nudge will lower the likelihood of sharing and confidence of news. We also examined individual-level traits, need for cognition and reactance, but found no evidence to support moderation. Theoretical and practical implications for nudging theory were discussed.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Competition • Media Parenting Styles: A Typology of Parental Guidance of Electronic Media Use • Sarah Fisher, University of Florida • Parental guidance for children’s electronic media use varies greatly. From parents who carefully limit the content set before their children’s eyes, to parents who allow freedom for their children to explore on electronic devices. This typology provides a useful definition of a range of parental oversight styles of their children’s use of electronic media. The typology categories emerged from in-depth interviews (N=20) with parents regarding their oversight of their children’s use of electronic media.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • Porn and Consent: The relationship between college students’ pornography consumption, perception of realism, and sexual consent intentions • Niki Fritz • Despite sexual assault prevention education (SAPE) on college campuses, sexual assault remains a persistent issue on campuses. Student may be learning non-consensual sexual activity scripts from other sources, such as pornography. Additionally, perceived pornography realism may mediate the relationship between pornography consumption and non-consensual behavioral intentions. This national survey of 500 undergraduate students suggests pornography consumption has a strong positive relationship with non-consensual behavioral intentions and perceived pornography realism was found to mediate the relationship.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • From “OK Boomer” to “Boomer Remover”: A Critical Examination of Ageist Memes by Meme Factories • Si Yu Lee, Nanyang Technological University Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI); Jasmon Wan Ting Hoh, National University of Singapore • Memes and meme factories are increasingly the new fronts for ageism online. Guided by the tripartite model of ageism and third and fourth age concepts, this study employed multimodal discourse analysis to analyze 98 memes from five meme factories in Singapore. An ageist portrayal of older adults in memes was found and tropes like fetishization and denigration of the old were identified. The intersectionality of ageism with gender, race, and class was also emphasized.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • Predictors of IS Professionals’ Information Security Protective Behaviors in Chinese IT Organizations: The Application of the Organizational Antecedents, Theory of Planned Behavior and Protection Motivation Theory Abstract • Xiaofen Ma, National University of Singapore • “Securing organizational information systems (IS) as pivotal information assets is central to achieving a strategic advantage; this is an organization-wide concern. Recognition by practitioners and researchers of the positive impact of inside work-driven protective behaviors on IS security at the organizational level has led to the establishment of a research stream focused on IS experts’ performance of protective behaviors. To contribute to the research stream, this study employs two theories: protection motivation theory (PMT) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and a set of work-related organizational antecedents: organizational commitment and job satisfaction, often cited in information security literature. Therefore, given the varied facets central to work-motivated information security resources, determining the relationships of each distinct PMT, TPB, and organizational aspect with IS experts’ protective behaviors is a significant contribution. Using a survey of 804 representative IS professionals in the Chinese information technology (IT) industry, we find support for several associations: (a) information security attitude and subjective norms as constituents of TPB significantly influenced the information security protective behaviors performed by IS experts; (b) the coping appraisals (self-efficacy and response cost) and threat appraisals (threat susceptibility and threat severity) of PMT were significantly predictive of IS experts’ protective behaviors toward information security; and (c) organizational factors involving organizational commitment positively impacted the protective behaviors. However, job satisfaction, and perceived behavioral control as a construct of the TPB were not associated with information security behaviors. Contributions to theory and implications for practice are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • The Mediated Classroom: A Grounded Theory Analysis of Live Streaming Media Affordance and Teaching Context Remodeling from The Perspective of Actor-Network-Theory • Yefu Qian, School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Chen Li; Ruimin He • The massive and popular application of emerging media technology (such as live streaming, virtual meeting-Zoom & Google Meet) in releasing the tensions of suspended classes during the global pandemic (COVID-19) provides an entry point to visualize the role of mediatization in shaping the traditional human social practice. As the online form of teaching penetrates in college education, it is of practical significance to comprehend the mediated teaching contexts and visualize the optimization of online teaching by exploring the affordance of live streaming media which serving as an “actor” in social networks. In this paper, we apply a qualitative analysis according to the grounded theory, based on detailed interviews with 45 college students in Shanghai, to elaborate on the affordance of live streaming in shaping the online teaching in Actor-Network-Theory. Besides, we target to explore the transformation of the teaching context between media technology and social practice so that we can offer insights for the ongoing or future researches of mediatization.

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Competition • Learning by doing: The potential effect of interactivity on health literacy • Natasha Strydhorst; Sava Kolev; Philippe Chauveau, Texas Tech University; Eric Milman, Texas Tech University • This experimental study investigates the relationship between message interactivity and message comprehension, absorption, and self-reported elaboration of health information as contributors to increased health literacy about COVID-19 and the opioid epidemic. A representative population will be exposed to a stimulus of factsheets, followed by tests measuring perceived comprehension, absorption, elaboration, message processing bias, and political ideology and interest. The authors anticipate a positive correlation between interactivity level and comprehension, absorption, and elaboration scores of participants.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • Cancel Culture and Its Underlying Motivations in Singapore • Beverly Tan, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University; Gabrielle Lee, Nanyang Technological University; Rachel Angeline Chua, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University; Charlyn Ng, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University • This mixed-methods study explores Singaporeans’ understanding of cancel culture and motivators of participation. Interviews defined cancel culture as public shaming on a social media platform, carried out or supported by a group of people, which aims to hold people accountable for socially unacceptable behaviour. Our survey found attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, outcome expectancy, and general Belief in a Just World as significant predictors behaviour through intention, contextualising cancel culture in Singapore’s context.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • A content analysis of alcohol posts from adolescents, brands, influencers, and celebrities in Facebook and Instagram’s persistent and ephemeral messages • Sofie Vranken, School for Mass Communication Research, KU Leuven; Sebastian Kurten, Leuven School for Mass Communication Research • “This content analysis examines how peers, celebrities, influencers and brands refer to  alcohol in Facebook and Instagram’s persistent and ephemeral messages. The results show  that: (1) all agents frequently portray alcohol posts, (2) adolescents are the sole agent to  refer to moderate and extreme forms of alcohol use as opposed to celebrities, influencers  and brands whom solely display moderate alcohol posts and (3) some agents  (celebrities/influencers) may have a commercial motive to share alcohol posts.”

Extended Abstract • Student • Student Competition • Extended Abstract: In AI we trust: The interplay of media attention, trust, and partisanship in shaping emerging attitudes toward artificial intelligence • Shiyu Yang; Nicole Krause; Luye Bao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Mikhaila Calice, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Todd Newman; Michael Xenos; Dietram A. Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Dominique Brossard • Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the way scientists make genetic edits; it has infiltrated our daily lives through the internet of things; and it is being used by law enforcement agencies to fight crime. Many of the societal questions raised in its wake cannot be answered by science. Who or what will govern this technology? How do we prevent inevitable biases in how the technology is developed and applied? In this extended abstract, we report analysis of nationally representative public opinion data and examine what factors, including attention to mass and social media, shape U.S. publics’ trust in various institutions regulating AI development, as well as how trust and political ideology interact to shape public support for AI technology.

Research Paper • Student • Student Competition • Women on-screen: Exploring the relationship between consumption of female talent shows and sexism, internalization of beauty ideals, and self-objectification in China • Yi Yang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Yunyi Hu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • Will consumption of female talent shows influence Chinese women’s self-body relationship? With the framework of objectification theory, this study provides empirical evidence to this question. Using data collected from a sample of 584 females in China, this study found that female talent shows consumption indirectly promoted body-surveillance through the mediation effects of benevolent sexism, internalization of beauty ideals, and self-objectification. Implications of the findings for the reflection on female talent shows in China are discussed.

2022 Abstracts

Magazine Media Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • The practice and presentation of slow journalism: A case study of Kinfolk magazine • Lydia Cheng • This paper contributes to the literature on slow journalism by analysing how elements of slow journalism is presented in the popular literary lifestyle magazine, Kinfolk. Based on a textual analysis of the editor’s letters from 30 issues of Kinfolk, this study found that the practice of slow journalism is manifested in the magazine through four ways: an emphasis on community, advocating for slowness in both production and consumption of content, and a niche editorial presentation.

Research Paper • Faculty • Gender, the New Journalism, and the Early Careers of Gloria Steinem and Gail Sheehy • Lisa Phillips, SUNY New Paltz • New Journalism has a woman problem. The core works critics, scholars, and the readers associate with the phenomenon are largely written by men, with subject matter—cars, wars, politics, motorcycle gangs—that often privileges male sources and perspectives. Yet a number of women writers consciously embraced the reporting methods, style, subjectivity, narrative structure, and subject matter of New Journalism, with several achieving levels of commercial success comparable to their male colleagues. Despite these accomplishments, women writers’ legacy in New Journalism remains tenuous. Joan Didion is the only woman who is consistently seen as part of the core canon of New Journalism writers. Several others occupy a far less certain position. What accounts for the tenuous foothold of women writers in the New Journalism? This article will address this question by looking at the process by which the accomplishments, writing style, and reportorial methods of two women journalists, Gloria Steinem and Gail Sheehy, connected them to New Journalism and the social and cultural forces that shaped their professional reputation and legacy.

Research Paper • Faculty • Fifty Years of Black Enterprise Magazine Covers: A Visual Analysis of Black Business • Gabriel B, Tait, Ball State University; George Daniels, The University of Alabama; Dorothy Bland, University of North Texas • The same year Black Enterprise Publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr died, his magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary. A content analysis of 509 Black Enterprise covers shows how it represented Black business professionals and issues. While they appeared more often in the last two decades, women were significantly less likely than men to be on the front of the magazine. Gracing the magazine cover most often were Barack Obama and Former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault.

Research Paper • Faculty • Cancel or be canceled?: How U.S. arts and culture journalists perceive the influence of politics and cancel culture in their work • Kelsey Whipple, University of Massachusetts Amherst • Modern cultural journalists have a unique relationship to cultural knowledge, capital and authority that attracts them to audiences and establishes them as arbiters of culture. Through a series of in-depth interviews with 73 American arts and culture journalists conducted in 2020, this study seeks to understand how these journalists perceive the influence of politics on their work, as well as their own roles in “cancel culture.” Findings suggest they see the intersection between national politics and popular culture as an increasingly valuable realm for explication in their work. However, their views on cancel culture are mixed, based in fear and anger. Many journalists believe it is their responsibility to support the cancelation of cultural figures who have committed perceived wrongs, while others are afraid of being canceled themselves for unwittingly committing a cultural faux pas in their journalistic work.

2022 Abstracts