Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
Capturing Students’ Attention
By Leslie-Jean Thornton
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Associate Professor
Barrett Honors Faculty
Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Arizona State University
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, November 2015 issue)
Here’s what I remember: After 15 minutes of a lecture, students start to glaze over, attention-wise. After 30 minutes, they’re genuinely antsy with brains in rebellion. And at the dreaded 45-minute mark, they’re actually losing knowledge, and will leave the lecture less smart than they were when the lecture began. This was the highly memorable advice I recall from a teaching bootcamp I attended a decade ago. It may not be exactly accurate, but… it’s a cautionary tale. I often think of it when I’m at a conference and the speaker’s gone on too long. As I fight to focus, I’m pretty sure I feel smarts escaping out my ears.
A variety of studies have weighed in on the attention span issue, including a recent one widely sourced as being from the National Center for Biotechnology Information. It famously reported that humans now have an average attention span of 8.25 seconds, three-quarters of a second less than that of goldfish and 3.75 seconds shorter than what humans averaged in 2012. When I tried to track this down, however, I found a range of attributions, squishy research dates and nothing in the way of solid data. So consider it another one of many comments on how external stimuli are encroaching on our abilities to — wait, what?
The general consensus, in terms of workable information, is that the most attentive a student will be is at the beginning of a class, after a brief settling-in period. Then attention will come and go in ever-decreasing amounts of time — unless interrupted by something that is interesting, refreshing, or otherwise engaging. A question will often do it, or a demonstration. But much depends on a host of variables, many of which are out of a professor’s control. A class’s stay-on-task potential, as any teacher can tell you, is inversely related to the proximity of holidays and semester breaks.
The lecture mode of teaching has come in for hard knocks in recent times, partly as a result of genuine research into how people learn, and how long they can pay productive attention. Still, in the right hands and for the right class, and by employing some keep-them-attuned tips, it can be one of many powerful methods. A key factor in teaching effectiveness is how appropriate the delivery method is to what is being taught. If you’re teaching a complex skill — how to create an interactive digital infographic, say — you’re going to want to go step by step, pausing often to let material sink in, and reinforcing it with “doing” (that would be the students) and showing (that would be you).
Take advantage of the “settling in” period. In those first few minutes of class, connect with the students in some way. This might be asking the class at large how their weekends went, telling them a lighthearted piece of news about yourself, or relaying some breaking news you heard on the way in and asking them if they know anything more. Direct their focus toward you, the teacher, in a way that makes them want to absorb what you say. During the settling-in time, expect them to wrap up their own conversations and do whatever’s needed to prepare for a productive time in class. Bonus: It tends to relax the professor, too. Caution: Don’t announce important information during this time if you can avoid it. If you do, expect to repeat it so that they hear it during a clearly designated pay-attention time.
The idea of “chunking” information, or delivering it in neat packages of easily absorbed units of time and complexity, can apply to all presentation genres. The increasing use of videos for online instruction has spurred inquiry into best practices. Good results are reported for videos that clock in under 10 minutes, and I’ve seen substantive points made in half that time. Of course, the advantage there is that students can replay segments when they want to clarify or review. In real life, it’s there and it’s gone. Traditionally, notes are the review materials, but they’re only good if the student taking the notes knows what’s going on when the notes are taken. Offering material incrementally, pausing to let students absorb each stage, and helping them stay clearly focused is just part of basic good teaching.
So what are some tips for that “clearly focused” part?
It might sound counter-intuitive in light of many, many complaints about technology and social media encroaching on class time and attention, but why not harness some of that to your own ends? Keeping in mind that a change in pace every 10 or 15 minutes is beneficial, and that engaging your students wakes them up and gives them “buy in” to what you’re doing, think about information races. Ask a question and see how long it takes for them to come up with answers — good, credible answers — using their smart phones or computers.
If your class lends itself to sending students outside of the classroom, work in movement breaks. Teaching reporting? Give them 15 minutes to go out and find a story seed after taking about 15 minutes to explain what you mean. Have them take notes with their cellphone cameras, or record a mini-interview with the same device. Then, once back in class, explain how that can be used in what you intended to teach them all along. Have them work at it for awhile, then, informally, have several students share their experiences. Then perhaps it’s time for another 15-minute session where you explain the next step…
Working in modules works. The key is another one of those teaching-skill tricks: matching the complexity of what you’re teaching to the complexity your students can handle at the time. But that’s another column.
Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
The Device Du Jour Is Changing and Challenging
By Amy Falkner
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, September 2015 issue)
This is my last Teaching Tips column and I couldn’t be more jazzed. Not because I’m almost done — writing 800 words every once in awhile isn’t too taxing — but because of what I learned at the AEJMC San Francisco Conference. I am cycling off the Standing Committee on Teaching after two wonderful terms where I had an opportunity to think, discuss and judge great teaching. But, mostly, learn a lot.
To wit, I will share with you some great teaching resources and insights from the San Francisco Conference. If you are like me, your head was spinning when you got back with all the things you heard that you wanted to immediately incorporate into your fall courses. I’m writing this in mid-August but you are reading this in September and hopefully well on your way. If not, there is always time to adjust.
This dizzying effect may have taken hold while trying to follow #aejmc15 on Twitter during the conference. Yes, we were trending at one point. The good news is all those thousands of tweets are still available and — after you sort out the snapshots of the Golden Gate Bridge — very valuable. They are chock full of links to terrific graphics, articles and complete presentations as well as pithy food for thought on what we should be talking about in the classroom.
One of your pit stops should also be the AEJMC website and the Teaching Resources link (under the “Resources” heading). There you will find the last nine Best Practices in Teaching booklets, including the latest on Best Practices in Teaching Online and Blended Learning.
The conference presentations by this year’s winners blew me away. Perhaps it is also because my school has just launched a new online master’s program and I have been wrestling this summer while planning my course with the what-do-I-teach-live versus recorded question. I am fortunate that the platform we are using is super interactive, but if you are at a school where that is not the case, the innovations of the winning professors (listed in box, right) will provide inspiration. There are tools you would expect — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Hangouts, WordPress, Blogger — with inventive means to an end.
I also heard about new ways of student learning from Ron Yaros, Maryland, one of the contest winners, who teaches using an app called Nearpod that his students access during live class on tablets or smartphones. No laptops allowed. On purpose. Ron has been testing how students best learn and some of that is to eliminate multitasking and distractions.
So maybe the device du jour is changing and that is part of our challenge — both in what we teach and how we teach it. Do we need to learn every new app and teach it in class? No, we’d lose our family, offline friends and probably our sanity if we invested every waking hour to that. But getting a handle on what new (and potentially free) tools our students can use related to analytics and, in particular, measuring social media was a theme I heard echoed in several panels and across disciplines.
Full disclosure: I am in the Advertising Division so my POV on POE (point of view on paid, owned, earned may differ from yours) but a fascinating panel on that topic put together by Patricia Mark, South Alabama, gathered quite a crowd at 8:15 a.m. on Friday of the conference. Penn State’s Marcia DiStaso made a great presentation titled “Data Science Changes in the Classroom” that included free analytical tools such as SimplyMeasured, Followerwonk, SumAll, Quintly, Cyfe and Keyhole that may (or may not) be familiar to you. Her slide on this has been tweeted and retweeted for good reason, including by me (@amyfalkner if you need it).
The last panel I will mention was led by (shameless plug alert) Newhouse’s Beth Egan on the topic of native advertising, which is Beth’s area of expertise and fertile ground for debate among the Ad, PR and journalist types in the room. The panel included Steve Rubel, EVP of Global Strategy and Insights at Edelman, who basically told the crowd that native is (and has been) happening for years, and too bad if we don’t like it. He also said publishing companies don’t matter much, mobile is the sun and all other platforms are planets, and that consumers will sort out the ethics of native advertising. That last snippet caused a kerfuffle. Is that the job of consumers? Shouldn’t we be teaching students the ethics of this?
So that trail eventually led to a discussion among the Teaching Committee to consider “teaching ethics in relation to emerging media” as our next teaching contest. It isn’t finessed or finalized yet, but look for the call explaining the next topic in the near future. Then mark your calendars for Aug. 4-7, 2016, in Minneapolis and be sure to add the Best Practices in Teaching session to your mobile app schedule. As for me, I will not need to attend another 7 a.m. meeting for this committee (the only happy part about my term ending), but I will definitely be at that session. #aejmc16 #loveteaching
Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
San Francisco and the Amazing Teaching Race: Get Your #AEJMCPARTAY On!
By Linda Aldoory
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Director, Horowitz Center for Health Literacy
Associate Professor, Behavioral & Community Health
School of Public Health
University of Maryland
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, July 2015 issue)
One of the great things about living close to our nation’s capital is the interesting activities you get to see on a regular basis. For example, last week, I happened upon a national scavenger hunt. There was a long line of backpack-clad individuals from across the country waiting on Constitution Avenue to sign up for the day’s adventure and win tons of money. Blue versus green team, families versus singles.
Why can’t AEJMC have a similarly amazing race? Thus, we are proud to present the first-ever, “Professors’ Amazing Race for Teaching at AEJMC, Yeah!” or PARTAY (another thing you learn living in DC is how to make reverse acronyms!). Here is how to play: Below is a list of the amazing teaching sessions available this year in San Francisco. If you attend one session from each of the five categories below, thus collecting five teaching sessions, you win! What do you win? We cannot divulge the top-secret prize until the first day of the conference (since we don’t actually know what it is yet), but it will be highly valuable, I am sure. In addition, we will have set up the Twitter hashtag #AEJMCPARTAY for you to post to when you attend a session so you can share with others what you have learned. We expect a photo, and a quote or two from each session, establishing the fact that you were in attendance. Extra points for live tweeting the entire session! Good luck to everyone who joins the PARTAY!
1. Several pre-conference workshops on Wednesday relate to the new communication landscape. Google, hacking, Facebook, and the digital age—topics of this year’s workshops cover the range of issues that impact mass communication and journalism today. For example, Small Programs Interest Group is sponsoring a workshop from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on methods for teaching digital storytelling and for putting courses online. There will be eight panelists from across the country from both education and private industry sharing expert advice. There is also a workshop on teaching traditional journalistic skills, such as how to teach fact checking and accountability. This session will be 8 a.m. to noon, is sponsored by the American Press Institute, and includes a panel of four industry experts and faculty who will share best practices and sample exercises for teaching journalistic reporting. Finally, the Standing Committee on Teaching is hosting a workshop from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. for adjuncts and instructors on the “nuts and bolts” of teaching journalism and mass communication. This session will include faculty from the committee who will discuss syllabus development, classroom behavior to look out for and how to deal with technology in the classroom.
2. Thursday’s Best Practices in Teaching. At 10 a.m., the Standing Committee on Teaching will host a presentation of the winning entries in the Teaching Best Practices competition. The best cases in online and blended learning include an example of global communication between students from different countries; the use of Twitter to connect students with professionals; the application of social media for collaborative learning; and a look at a journalism history class that used online activities to engage students.
3. Friday’s Big Session on Big Data. Everyone is talking about big data and the Standing Committee on Teaching is having a plenary panel on the implications of big data on teaching journalism and mass communication. The panelists include Edward Carl Malthouse from Northwestern, Deen Freelon from American, Jolie Marting from Pinterest, Thomas Lento from Facebook, and Laurie Thomas Lee from Nebraska Lincoln. Seth Lewis from Minnesota will moderate. The session will dive into the different types and sources of data that relate to our field and the ramifications of using data in teaching and research.
4. Saturday’s Panels on Unique Teaching Topics. Particularly unique are Saturday’s sessions on teaching. For example, the Community College Journalism Association is hosting a panel on how to turn your program into “an experimental lab.” The Magazine and Visual Communication divisions are holding a “Teaching Marathon” with TEN panelists discussing such topics as visual presentation, news literacy, partnering with service-learning organizations to advance visual literacy, and teaching multimedia narrative. Plus there is a session by Law and Policy Division cosponsored with the Entertainment Studies Interest Group on teaching taboo topics.
5. Sunday’s Whopping Ten (10!) Sessions Devoted to Teaching Issues. Starting at 9:15 a.m. and running through 2:15 p.m., several simultaneous teaching panel sessions are being coordinated by several divisions. Media Management and Economics has partnered with Communication Technology on a panel about open educational resources and massive open online courses. The Public Relations Division will be having its top teaching papers presented. Scholastic Journalism and the Internship and Careers Interest Group put together panelists from high schools to discuss teaching digital skills. The Political Communication Interest Group partnered with Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division to present on innovative methods for student engagement. Late morning, there are three simultaneous teaching panels. The Community College Journalism Association and the Communication Technology Division covers analytics and why it is one of the most important things to teach students. The Commission on the Status of Women and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group have a six-person panel on teaching gender in journalism and mass communication courses. The Entertainment Studies Interest Group and the Electronic News Division will present their panel on “Accessing Hollywood: Using Entertainment News to Foster Learning and Understanding.” Finally, Religion and Media and Small Programs Interest Groups will host a panel on teaching religion writing and working on religion in newsrooms.
With so many options, it will be easy to join the race to PARTAY and tweet the amazing sessions. We look forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco!
AEJMC Calls Upon Politicians and Journalists to Ensure Civility in Election Campaigning
CONTACT: ELIZABETH L. TOTH, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014-15 President of AEJMC • September 9, 2015
Active campaigning for the 2016 presidential election has now begun, and the candidates are presenting their platforms for reporting and scrutiny by the press. This essential democratic process must be performed in an environment of respect both for the journalists who report as well as for the candidates who seek election. Some recent exchanges between candidates and journalists have failed to live up to this standard.
During political campaigns, we often look to a candidate’s treatment of the press to infer what that relationship will be like if the candidate is elected. Thus, it is concerning if candidates treat the press, and the process of journalistic inquiry, dismissively. At the same time, journalists have the responsibility to perform their critical function in a way that is fair, impartial and according to professional standards.
Americans must be vigilant about preserving the free and democratic society that exists through the First Amendment rights of citizens and the strong role of the nation’s watchdog press. Democracy and human rights are possible only when journalists are allowed to perform their role freely and without constraint, and with full adherence to their professional responsibilities of fairness and accuracy.
Particularly in this era of social media, channels of communication that facilitate vigorous discussion and debate are accessible to all citizens, which can enhance democracy. With this benefit comes personal responsibility of all citizens and a heightened professional responsibility of those who perform the role of journalists.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the largest association of journalism and communication educators in the world, calls upon both the political candidates who are campaigning for office and the journalists who cover them to maintain the highest levels of civility and respect to ensure an environment where the electorate can make informed decisions about those who seek to represent them in government.
For more information regarding this AEJMC Presidential Statement, please contact Elizabeth Toth, 2015 President of AEJMC, at or Lori Bergen, 2016 President of AEJMC, at .
Commission on the Status of Women 2015 Abstracts
“It’s on us.” The role of social media in individual willingness to mobilize against sexual assault • Cory Armstrong; Jessica Mahone, University of Florida • “Stopping sexual violence has become a key issue in the public and media agenda. This study examines the role of social media and bystander intervention in predicting an individual’s willingness to engage in collective action against sexual violence. Two surveys were conducted in fall 2014 and early 2015 examining young adults’ views of SNS, rape culture and collective action. Results indicated that gender and bystander intervention were key predictors, along with the privacy concerns of SNS and views supporting rape culture, which had a negative association. Implications were discussed.
Covering Clinton (2010-2015): Meaning-making strategies in news and entertainment magazines • Ingrid Bachmann, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Dustin Harp, University of Texas-Arlington; Jaime Loke, University of Oklahoma • With a trailblazing political career, Hillary Clinton has been the focus of media attention for decades. This study examines 27 magazine covers of the former First Lady and presumptive presidential hopeful from 2010 to 2015, and addresses what these mediated representations of Clinton say aboWith a trailblazing political career, Hillary Clinton has been the focus of media attention for decades. This study examines 27 magazine covers of the former First Lady and presumptive presidential hopeful from 2010 to 2015, and addresses what these mediated representations of Clinton say about the relationship between gender, power and politics. Based on a semiotic analysis, we found that Clinton is presented as a power-hungry, emasculating and surreptitious politician, with the media often warning citizens about her authenticity and ambition. ut the relationship between gender, power and politics. Based on a semiotic analysis, we found that Clinton is presented as a power-hungry, emasculating and surreptitious politician, with the media often warning citizens about her authenticity and ambition.
Media Representations of Hillary Clinton’s Emotional Moment: A Semiotic Analysis • Deborah Bauer, New Mexico State University • This study analyzes media discourse surrounding Hillary Clinton’s ‘emotional moment’ during her Presidential campaign. Interpreting media representations through semiotic and phenomenological analysis, a gendered language emerges as a sign of residual cultural stereotypes that continue to dichotomize gendered abilities. This study demonstrates media representations as a site for perpetuating a woman’s use of emotion to manipulate, connive, or calculate career goals.
Love the Way You Authenticate Domestic Violence Narratives • Laurena Bernabo, University of Iowa • Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), in all its forms, is a social epidemic which affects millions of Americans. The CDC’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, the first of its kind, found that 35.6% of women and 28.5% of men in the U.S. have experienced IPV in their lifetimes, and even more (48% of women and men) have experienced psychological aggression; the impact of such experiences includes fear, PTSD, injury, and the need for medical, housing, and legal services. While public attention to these issues has increased incrementally over time, media texts have engaged rather minimally in terms of accurate, complex representations. This research interrogates the pop culture phenomenon of Love the Way You Lie, a two-part song with an accompanying music video made famous by Eminem and Rihanna, two musicians known for their own first-hand experiences with IPV. By applying work done in the areas of gender violence, domestic violence and IPV to the lyrics and video, this paper demonstrates how public reactions to the media texts conflate the two with each other, and inextricably tie both to the performers through discourses of authenticity. Ultimately, this research argues that the song and video contribute to public conceptions of the cycle of violence by extending the popular understanding of domestic violence beyond the application of physical force.
Gold is the new pink: A qualitative analysis of GoldieBlox retail ratings and feedback • Sara Blankenship, University of North Texas; Sheri Broyles, University of North Texas • The pink and blue color washing of the toy aisle suggests it has remained untouched by the advancements of our social progress. GoldieBlox, a toy company focused on stimulating girls’ interest in engineering, set out to change this. This qualitative analysis of GoldieBlox user ratings has determined this generation of parents unequivocally and enthusiastically supports the concept of encouraging girls to pursue a science-based education, rending Barbie irrelevant.
Activism? Or Group Self-Objectification? • Shugofa Dastgeer, University of Oklahoma • This paper is a comparative analysis of visual images of two feminist groups, FEMEN sextremists and extreme Islamists. The main purpose of this paper is to explore how women in these two groups use their bodies to express their ideologies, and how these tactics give are seen in visual images? The findings show that women in both feminist groups express themselves as objects, which misrepresents their political causes. So, both extremism and sextremism reproduce similar traditional values for women’s bodies by using different approaches.
Building Community? The Use of Social Media by Scholars for Peer-Communication • Stine Eckert, 3135770716; Candi Carter Olson, Utah State University; Victoria LaPoe, Western Kentucky University • This study surveyed 62 members and affiliates of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a subdivision in the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), about their social media use for professional, non-classroom purposes. It is theoretically grounded in media ecology and cyberfeminism. Respondents preferred Facebook for sharing information, followed by Twitter; few participants used LinkedIn. Several respondents noted that due to time constraints they do not use social media. This begs the question of whether or not promoting and utilizing social media as a time-saver, especially for women scholars, may result in a more connected online community, and in turn may help with membership and retention. Given the dearth of studies on scholars’ use of social media for peer communication, this study gives valuable insights into and suggestions for the ways scholars and academic organizations can enhance professional relationships through a communication strategy that integrates social media.
Journalistic Coverage in Rape Culture: Reporters’ Socialization in a Gender-Biased Indian Patriarchal Society • Deepa Fadnis • This study examined the journalistic coverage of the Delhi gang rape case of 2012 in the Times of India to understand the influences of the Indian society firmly rooted in gender inequalities and patriarchy on individual reporters. This content analysis suggested that female reporters were more vocal about rape law reforms and setting up immediate relief measures for women in need. And contrary to the popular belief, male reporters did not entertain ideas about male supremacy through their reporting. Further implications for gender inequality in India are discussed.
Mum’s the word: An analysis of frames used on parents who left children in cars • Andrea Hall, University of Florida; Lauren Furey, University of Florida • This study explored how media communicate biological and parental gender roles when parents commit a crime in addition to how frame is affected by story type. A content analysis of 348 news articles over a 15-year period was conducted. This study found that a gender divide in some cases, such as women being referenced as mothers, but not in others. Child’s gender was also a factor in analyzing when analyzing stories.
RAW Appearances: Examining Contrast Effects in Adaptation to Women Wrestlers’ Sexualization in World Wide Entertainment • Nisha Garud; Carson Wagner • Several studies in psychology confirm the operation of contextual contrast effects on judgments. This experiment extends adaptation-level contrast effects to the field of media through examination of attitudes towards sexualization of WWE women wrestlers. Participants (N=75) were randomly primed with high-sexualized and de-sexualized content and their explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexualization were measured. Contrast effects were found as high-sexualized group rated WWE Women’s program low on sexualization whereas the de-sexualized group rated the program high on sexualization. Both the groups were compared to a control group. Implicit measures supported explicit attitudes. Regression analysis suggest women wrestlers’ clothing, touch, movement and pose strongly predict sexualization. However, no gender differences were found in attitudes towards sexualization.
Easy, Breezy, and Patriarchal: Femvertising in CoverGirl and Beyond • Kate Hoad-Reddick, Western University • This paper takes a 2014 CoverGirl advertisement as its object of study to explore the pervasive advertising trend of femvertising—advertising that positively represents women—and question the impacts of commodified feminism on the feminist movement. By deconstructing the hypocrisy inherent in this commercial, the author problematizes femvertising and questions the mainstream media’s ability to offer feminist sentiments that resist commodification. Using the theoretical lens of ventriloquism, this analysis argues femvertising stems from hegemonic patriarchy.
Women as Eye Candy: Predictors of Individuals’ Acceptance of the Sexual Objectification of Women • Stacey Hust, Washington State University; Kathleen Rodgers, Department of Human Development, Washington State University; Nicole Cameron, Washington State University • Exposure to music videos that objectify and sexualize women was associated with traditional gender beliefs. A survey of undergraduate students indicates exposure to music and a preference for rap music were positively associated with the acceptance of women’s sexual objectification, even after controlling for gender, religiosity and beliefs in sexual stereotypes. This suggests consistent exposure to music videos reinforces traditional gender attitudes, but contextual factors still play a role in the formation of gender attitudes.
Gender Trouble in the Workplace: Applying Judith Butler’s Theory of Performativity to News Organizations • Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri; Teri Finneman, University of Missouri • Butler’s theory of performativity challenges understandings of gender, suggesting gender is constituted through ritualized performances of norms. Although Butler primarily considered discursive constructions of gender, we argue this theory can be considered within organizations. This paper offers a critical perspective by examining patriarchal organizations’ definitions of gender performances and the emancipatory potential of performativity. We explore how performativity could be understood and studied within TV newsrooms, where women reinforce gender roles mandated by organizational norms.
Gathering Online, Loitering Offline: Hashtag Activism and the Claim for Public Space by Women in India • Sonora Jha, Seattle University • This paper provides a theoretical critical analysis of the online discursive (textual and visual) representations of women claiming public spaces across India through the #WhyLoiter hashtag campaign in December 2014, protesting “rape culture” following the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of a student. Using feminist media theory and the theory of digital social movements – cyberfeminist protest in particular – I examine the strides and limitations of online and offline repertoires of the #WhyLoiter campaign.
Searching for Thinspiration: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Tumblr Blog Posts about Weight Loss and Disordered Eating • Nicki Karimipour, University of Florida • Young women’s use of microblogging sites to communicate and disseminate messages about body image ideals is an emerging topic of research. As thinspiration content continues to proliferate online, body image researchers and psychologists seek to understand how people, mostly young women, discuss and engage with this phenomenon on social media. This study takes a feminist perspective on body image, and includes theoretical foundations such as the sociocultural model of female body image and identity demarginalization theory to help explain prevalence of online communication about stigmatized conditions such as eating disorders. This study utilized a qualitative, inductive approach to examine tone of the blog posts, commonly appearing codes, motivations for engaging in weight loss, use of hashtags, and mentions of recovery and/or recovery resources. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and avenues for future research are outlined within.
Is Breast Best? Feminist Ethics for Breastfeeding Promotion as Public Relations • Amanda Kennedy, University of Maryland • This paper took a critical feminist approach to interrogate dominant discourses of breastfeeding and motherhood in America and how they have manifested in public relations campaigns. Using the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign as an illustration, we identified ethical dilemmas in their popular constructions of breastfeeding and motherhood. We proposed materialist and care-based feminist ethics as more ethical and practical alternatives for breastfeeding promotion and public relations.
Collective Memory of the Feminist Revolution: “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” in a Post-Feminist Twenty-First Century • Katherine LaPrad, University of South Carolina • This study examines the collective memory of the feminist revolution through the filter of the feminist art movement by analyzing a variety of media engaged with WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, a retrospective exhibition of feminist art and visual culture. Through a qualitative analysis this inquiry interrogates media coverage and public dialogue surrounding this commemorative exhibition, revealing the collective memory of the feminist revolution and its impression on feminism in the current social and political landscape.
Butts and other body parts: Celebrity culture, ethnic identification and self-objectification • Carol Liebler; Li Chen, S.I. Newhouse of Public Communications • This study investigates women’s experiences with a sexually objectifying environment by examining the degree to which engagement with celebrity culture affects self-objectification among women. We further explore the role of ethnic identification in this relationship. An online survey was conducted in the U.S. of 249 women of East Asian or Southeast Asian ethnic descent. Results indicate that strength of ethnic identification and perceived knowledge of and interaction with celebrity culture are predictors of self-objectification, but that results vary by ethnic group. Findings highlight the need to consider the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity in relation to self-objectification.
Problematizing postfeminist/neoliberal female sexual subjectivity: A textual analysis of sex-related articles in Cosmopolitan in post-socialist China • Qi Ling, The University of Iowa • This study adopted postfeminism as a critical tool to analyze sex-related articles in Cosmopolitan (Chinese version) to see how female sexual subjectivity is constructed, and how the internal conflict of neoliberal rhetoric in it may render the touted message of empowerment problematic. Three interpretive repertoires were exacted from the text: “empowering sexiness”, “self-surveillance on sexual body”, and “sexual liberty”, all of which contributed to an enabling female sexual subject, while re-entrenching the normative by making it the only one and the most rewarded choice within the existing system. This paper further suggests that the fact that postfeminist discursive strategies originated in West is gaining currency in post-socialist China has bearing on its integration into the symbolic and economic order of global neoliberalism.
Boy story: An analysis of gendered interaction frames in the Toy Story trilogy • Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas • Past research shows that what children see can greatly influence behaviors and the development of gender identity. Female characters have been depicted in film with less frequency and detail than their male counterparts. The following study examined female-voiced characters within the Toy Story trilogy and used grounded theory to find frames between female-voiced characters and male characters based on their interactions. The findings build upon past literature in gaze theory and symbolic annihilation.
Gender, politics, and social networks: Tracking the 2014 elections on Twitter • Shannon McGregor, University of Texas – Austin; Rachel Mourao, The University of Texas at Austin • The 2014 elections offer a last chance to evaluate discourse about female politicians before the 2016 presidential campaign. Building on gender bias literature, we assess the differences in network attributes of male and female candidates. Results show that when a woman runs against a man, the conversation revolves around her. Female candidates are both more central and more replied to. Findings suggest that there is still something unique about a campaign with a woman.
“Why just my children? This is for all our children.” – The rise of the woman citizen journalist in India • Paromita Pain, The University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism • Recent citizen journalism developments, especially in developing countries like India, is encouraging a new generation of women in very resource poor areas to participate in the news production process that could potentially level the playing field by allowing them to sidestep traditional gatekeepers and barriers. Using the most significant change technique and qualitative data from three citizen media organizations in India, this paper employs feminist readings of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere to argue that citizen media can significantly contribute towards a feminist public sphere and be used as an important tool for women’s empowerment in the developing world.
“A Woman Walks Alone in the Dark:” Hostile Sexism & Script Writing for Crime TV • Scott Parrott • Crime-based television programs in the U.S. often contain gender-based stereotypes, including the inaccurate association of females and victimhood. The present study explored the relationship between hostile sexism and the appearance of gender role stereotypes in plot synopses that communication students wrote for a crime-based dramatic program. Respondents (n=197) to a survey studying “the creative process behind scriptwriting” were asked to outline the plot for an episode of a crime-based drama and to provide descriptive information, including gender, for three characters (victim, police detective, criminal). Respondents most often assigned the role of victim to a female and the roles of police detective and criminal to males. Plot synopses often included violence against females. Separate analyses showed that the higher the respondents’ hostile sexism, the more likely they were to assign the victim role to a female and the less likely they were to assign the detective role to a female.
Constructing Girls in a Post-Feminist Society: Female Adolescent Gender Representations in Glee • Roseann Pluretti, The University of Kansas; Kristen Grimmer, University of Kansas; Jessica Casebier, University of Kansas • This exploratory study examines adolescent gender identity formation and the female adolescent gender representations in the teen drama Glee. Through feminist theory, this study investigates how these representations compare to past representations and if they contain post-feminist ideals. A qualitative textual analysis of six episodes and over 130 scenes was implemented. Thematic analysis of these representations found empowering, post-feminist and stereotypical representations in Glee. These representations could shape female adolescent audiences’ gender identity formation.
Using Feminist Memories for Postfeminist Needs: The Celebratory Feminism of MAKERS: Women Who Make America • Urszula Pruchniewska, Temple University • Through the lens of collective memory, this paper uses textual analysis to explore the documentary MAKERS, which traces the second wave women’s movement by presenting a collective memory of “celebratory feminism.” Despite aiming to show the movement as continuing, by evoking postfeminist sensibilities in its presentation of the feminist past, MAKERS categorizes feminism as over. Thus the construction of collective memory of feminism in MAKERS works to fit the needs of the present climate, postfeminism.
If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Be It: Do Children’s Movies Pass The Bechdel Test? • Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • Organizations such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media consistently report gender imbalance is still very much alive. This is particularly true of media crafted specifically for children, and this has real consequences for the ways in which children are taught to perform their gender. Cultivation theory tells us that continuous consumption of media can change people’s attitudes and beliefs about the world, beginning in childhood. If children see the same depictions ad nauseum they can only assume the gender performance they see is the “right” one. And as social learning theory demonstrates, beginning in toddlerhood children begin to mimic behaviors they see in media. Thus, it is crucial to study children’s media with an eye on gender roles. One method to do so is the so-called “Bechdel Test” which puts films to a three-question test: are there two or more women in the film who have names? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk to each other about anything other than men? This content analysis put the top 21 children’s movies to the Test and results revealed seven failures: Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Princess Bride, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, and Up. Release date did not appear to affect whether a movie passed, implying that women’s roles in children’s movies have not evolved over time. However, a tally of character actions revealed female characters in both passing and failing movies to be performing fewer stereotypical roles than non-stereotypical
Crusaders, Not Subordinates: How Women’s Page Editors Worked to Change the Gender Climate Within APME and ASNE • Kimberly Voss; Lance Speere • This scholarship reveals what women were doing in the 1960s and early 1970s within the newspaper industry, which had largely excluded them from decision-making or leadership positions, to produce change. Yet, they worked within their limitations to improve working conditions and to improve content for women within the pages of their newspapers. This study documents their efforts to initiate change through the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Understanding images of sexual objectification: A study of gender differences in Taiwanese magazine ads from 1985 to 2011 • Ping Shaw, National Sun Yat-sen University; Yue Tan, National Sun Yat-sen University • Content analysis is used to explore media portrayals of 1856 female and 816 male models in 2336 Taiwan magazine advertisements over a 27 year period, from 1985 to 2011. We mainly examined how female models and male models are sexually objectified differently over time in terms of four coding categories: “decorative roles”, “portion of body shown”, “sexual explicitness”, and “objecting gaze and touch”. We argue that these categories measure different dimensions of the sexual objectification concept. The results from the content analysis revealed that the four measures correlated moderately, indicated different degree of gender gaps, changed differently over time, and influenced differently by the women’s movement and consumerism in Taiwan. Finally, the implications of the results for the sexual objectification theory are discussed.”
Frat Daddies and Sorostitutes: How TotalFratMove.com and Greek Identity Influence Greek Students’ Rape Myth Acceptance • Bailey Thompson, Texas Tech University; Rebecca Ortiz, Texas Tech University • College students in social Greek organizations are at greater risk of sexual assault than other college students. The present study examined how readership of the online news site TotalFratMove.com (TFM), which often includes coverage of stereotypical fraternity culture, may impact rape myth acceptance. Results revealed that the more frequently Greeks read TFM, the more likely they were to be accepting of rape myths when also taking into account the strength of their Greek social identity.
One “pin” closer to the image of health: The medicalization of makeup discourses on Pinterest • Andrea Weare • This study explored discourses that medicalize beauty on Pinterest. With a boom in social media use among the beauty industry, these platforms are serving as affordances to extend a user’s ability to perform desired industry actions: product consumption. Results illuminate an understanding of the uses of Pinterest and how female users are hailed to be more beautiful and healthy, as well as how scholars and health practitioners might mediate this discourse to improve women’s health.
Sports Communication 2015 Abstracts
Sport, Media Representations, and Domestic Violence: Ray Rice and the Truth Behind Closed Doors • Lauren Anderson, Florida State University • In February 2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested for assaulting his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Seven months later, TMZ released a video of the assault, which showed Rice punching Palmer in the face while inside an elevator at the casino. The public was immediately outraged, and thousands of fans took to social media to express their anger towards the running back. However, these attacks were just part of the conversation. The public outcry over the video generated a national conversation around intimate partner violence unlike anything seen before (Blow, 2014). With the purpose of discovering how domestic violence is talked about in sport, this paper examines the media coverage of the highly publicized Ray Rice incident over a one-year time span by examining articles from both mainstream and alternative media. The researcher argues that the main narratives surrounding the conversation seem to question previous media frames that have consistently blamed victims, excused perpetrators, and ignored the social problem of domestic abuse. Such narratives are crucial to changing the national conversation surrounding domestic violence. However, these narratives are relatively nonexistent in mainstream media, which is entirely problematic. Although the release of the TMZ video made the Ray Rice case one of the most publicized incidents of domestic violence in history, it still did not result in a national conversation about domestic violence among mainstream media.
The Return of the King: How Cleveland Reunited with LeBron After a Parasocial Breakup • Eryn Bostwick, The University of Oklahoma; Kathryn Lookadoo, The University of Oklahoma • This study examined the experiences northeast Ohio residents had when LeBron James left Cleveland in 2010 and returned in 2014. Results showed individuals who experienced a parasocial relationship (PSR) with LeBron were more likely to experience a parasocial breakup (PSB), which, in turn, was positively related to having feelings of grief after LeBron left. The results help explain why some fans might react negatively when finding out their favorite player has left their favorite team.
Second Screen & Sports: A Structural Investigation into Team Identification and Efficacy • Nicole Cunningham, University of Texas at Austin; Matthew Eastin, University of Texas at Austin • A second screen is defined as a second electronic device used by audience members while watching a television program. While second screen use during sport programming is on the rise, current theoretical understanding of second screen use and engagement is lacking. Thus, in an attempt to extend Niche Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, the current study employs a structural equation model to increase current understanding of second screen use. Further, to better understand the outcome of second screen use, the current study examines the relationship between team identification, engagement, and self-efficacy with second screen use.
Altering the Attribute Agenda: How the Suspension of a Rugby Star Impacted Coverage of Doping • Bryan Denham • This study examined how the 2010 suspension of rugby player Terry Newton, who tested positive for human growth hormone, impacted drug-testing reports in United States news media. Drawing on the agenda-setting concept of a “trigger event,” as well as research in attribute agenda-building, the study observed an increase in references to human growth hormone following the suspension announcement. Substantively, the study refutes criticism that American journalists advance the interests of U.S. athletes and athletic organizations while largely ignoring athletes and sport entities elsewhere.
The Use Of Twitter As A News Source In Sports Reporting • Brian Dunleavy, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Tim Vos, University of Missouri • It has been well documented that professional athletes have been using Twitter to communicate directly with each other and their fans; to date, few studies have explored the effect this direct communication channel has had on the role of journalists who cover these athletes. Traditionally, sports reporters have served in a gatekeeping role, deciding what news and information is worthy of coverage on the beat. The present study sought to assess how, if at all, sports reporters covering the four major U.S. sports—baseball, basketball, football, and hockey—are using athletes’ Twitter feeds in their coverage and what, if any, impact athletes’ presence on Twitter has had on their role as gatekeepers. A search of eight daily newspapers during a one-month period yielded a total of 74 articles in which an athletes’ Twitter feed was used as a news source. A textual analysis of these articles revealed that athletes’ tweets are used in place of direct quotes, as a source of breaking news, as the genesis of a story, and to gauge public sentiment toward an athlete. Interviews with 20 of the sports reporters covering the four major sports at the eight newspapers and five of the editors at these outlets confirmed these uses. Respondents also acknowledged that Twitter has enabled athletes to communicate directly with their fans without involving the traditional sports media. However, most the respondents also noted that the limitations of the medium kept their roles as reporters relevant to the fan/reader.
Thrice-trending Twitter: A Longitudinal Study of Sports Journalist Tweeting • Betsy Emmons, Samford University • Sports journalists have accepted Twitter as an important tool in live reporting. Sports journalists are particularly in tune with Twitter’s role as a second screen during a live televised event. The news ecology model framework offers a longitudinal frame for this research, a three-year content analysis of journalist live-tweeting. Results indicated that there were significantly different tweet tendencies between bloggers and institutional journalists, with movement toward homogeneity and sporadic use of other Twitter aspects.
To tweet and retweet: How NFL journalists gatekept the Ray Rice scandal on Twitter • Patrick Ferrucci, University of Colorado-Boulder • This study utilizes textual analysis to examine how journalists covered the Ray Rice scandal on Twitter. The study looked at all tweets concerning the scandal from 20 “elite” sports journalists. It was found that journalists used Twitter when covering the scandal in four primary ways: to disseminate factual information, to state opinions, to make followers laugh and to self-promote themselves. These findings are then analyzed through the lens of gatekeeping theory. It is suggested that news organizations need to develop and implement strong social media policies because Twitter coverage could conceivably result in negative effects on the organization.
The big assist: Exploring nonprofit beliefs about the benefits and challenges of sport CSR • Melanie Formentin, Towson University • Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in professional sport is studied almost exclusively in business and marketing where sport is presented as having unique characteristics for creating social impacts. Additionally, CSR scholarship generally fails to address beneficiary perspectives of giving impacts. Using 29 depth interviews with nonprofit practitioners, this study highlights perceived benefits and challenges of working with sport organizations. Findings suggest sport CSR has unique qualities, but not to the degree expressed in current research.
Mobile Communication and Pro Sports: Linking Motivational Use of the Mobile Phone to Fan Loyalty • Seok Kang • The main focus of the current study is fan loyalty development for favorite pro teams through mobile phone use. Guided by uses and gratifications theory, varying motive types are assumed to be potential predictors for attitudinal, behavioral loyalty, and sport fandom. Reflecting traits of mobile communication, mobile competence and network size are also taken into account in the examination. From a national panel survey of 405 respondents, the results found that mobile phone use was classified into either instrumental or ritualistic motives. Goal-directed interaction motives predicted behavioral loyalty and sport fandom. Habitual motives were associated with attitudinal loyalty. Mobile competence was a positive indicator for attitudinal loyalty and sport fandom. Second-level digital divide was discovered in mobile phone use for attitudinal loyalty and sport fandom. No significant relationship between network size and fan loyalty was observed. Related implications and suggestions were discussed.
The effects of camera angle, arousing content and fanship on the cognitive processing of sports messages. • Collin Berke, Texas Tech University; Justin Keene, Texas Tech University; Brandon Nutting, University of South Dakota • This study had two core motivations. First, the replicate the previous research related to the relationship between camera angle, arousing content, general sports fanship and resource allocation, and second, to reconceptualize these message-level elements from the human-centered perspective. Generally, the results replicate previous findings that arousing content, but not fanship, school identification or camera angle effects the availability of cognitive resources over time. Implications are discussed.
The Team versus Its Fans: Crisis Frames Using Social Media in the case of Ray Rice • Eunyoung Kim, University of Alabama • This study examines how sports organizations and their fans use the interactivity of Twitter to disseminate crisis frames. Conducting a content analysis in the Ray Rice case, the study compares crisis frames employed by the Baltimore Ravens and by self-identified fans and examined the tones, topics, and frames of fans’ responses. The results illustrate that the team and fans utilized human interest, conflict, and athletic frames in common and different ways.
Nationalism in the United States and Canadian Primetime Broadcast Coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics • James Angelini; Paul MacArthur, Utica College; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Lauren Smith, Auburn University • The CBC’s and NBC’s primetime broadcasts of the 2014 Winter Olympics were analyzed to determine differences between the media treatment of home nation athletes and foreign athletes. Results showed that Canadian athletes represented 48.5% of the total athlete mentions and 100 percent of the top 20 most mentioned athletes on the CBC broadcast, while American athletes represented 43.9% of the total mentions and 65 percent of the top 20 most mentioned athletes on the NBC broadcast. The Canadian broadcast also featured home athletes significantly more than the American broadcast. The CBC was more likely attribute Canadian athletic successes to commitment and intelligence, and non-Canadian successes to strength; Canadians were more likely to have failure ascribed to a lack of consonance, while non-Canadians were more likely to have failure ascribed to a lack of commitment. The CBC was also more likely to discuss neutral/other comments for Canadians, and the extroversion and background of non-Canadians. NBC was more likely to attribute non-American failures to experience and non-American failures to a lack of concentration. NBC was also more likely to describe non-American athletes as modest/introverted. Comparisons between the CBC and NBC revealed 35 significant differences in the manner in which they depicted home athletes compared to athletes from other nations.
Inequivalency of Trangressions: On-Field Perceptions of Off-Field Athlete Deviance • Coral Marshall; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Kenon Brown, The University of Alabama • Deviance and crime have long been considered newsworthy, yet recently the off-field deviant actions of professional athletes have received increased prominence. Utilizing 360 subjects from a national online experiment, this paper examines the degree to which these off-field deviant actions effect fan perceptions. Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in the way types of violence are perceived.
‘I did what I do’ vs ‘I cover football’: Team media and athlete protest • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin • As athletes added their voices to the 2014 protests of police violence, team media were part of the press pack. Using interview data and content analysis, this case study examines the way writers at team sites approached this collision of marketing and political activism. It finds a range of approaches, from full stories to ignoring it, often justified with similar claims of reportorial independence. These findings complicate existing views of team media.
Divorce in Sports: Enduring Grief and the Fluidity of Fandom • Nathan Rodriguez, University of Kansas • Many scholars conceptualize fans as static, with concretized likes or dislikes. Less discussed is what happens when the majority of fans experience an act of perceived disloyalty. This project examines online comments from college basketball fans regarding a former head coach over an eight-year period. Comments are coded using the Kubler-Ross model to document how fans process grief over time. This approach lends explanatory power to better understand fluidity of fandom over time.
‘How Could Anyone Have Predicted that #AskJameis would Go Horribly Wrong?’ Public Relations, Social Media, and Hashtag Hijacking • Jimmy Sanderson, Clemson University; Katie Barnes, Clemson University; Christine Williamson, Clemson University; Edward Kian, Oklahoma State Univeristy • Social media offers benefits to organizations when enacting public relations. However, it also is accompanied with risk as the participatory culture of social media enables audience members to actively contribute to public relations narratives. This research explores how a sport public relations campaign on Twitter can be hijacked by audiences through an investigation of the #AskJameis campaign employed by Florida State University. Winston had been the subject of several legal incidents before Florida State made him available to answer questions via the #AskJameis hashtag on August 10, 2014. A thematic analysis of 1,247 tweets revealed that the hashtag was hijacked primarily through: (a) criticizing Florida State University; (b) referencing Winston’s legal incidents; (c) general sarcasm; (d) insinuating Winston received preferential treatment; and (e) mocking Winston’s intellect. The results suggest that public relations campaigns enacted on social media extend well beyond target audiences and that public relations personnel must account for the anticipated “pulse” of the audience before launching public relations initiatives on social media. Underestimating the capabilities of the social media audience can further exacerbate crisis situations, suggesting that there are occasions when not using social media is a more effective public relations practice.
Soccer as un-American Activity: Sportswriters Inscribing American Exceptionalism on the World’s Game • David Schwartz, University of Iowa • Disapproving of the soccer strategy known as flopping—falling down on purpose—Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander wrote that flopping is “a European or South American or Asian or African affectation. And it’s pitiful.” Through textual analysis of American sports writing, this description and others illustrate how sportswriters advance American exceptionalism and disparage foreign athletes by locating flopping outside the moral and ethical boundaries of sportsmanship.
#deflategate: Sports Journalism, Twitter and the Use of Image Repair Strategy • Mary Lou Sheffer, University of Southern Mississippi; Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi; Willie Tubbs, University of Southern Mississippi • “This study investigated how different groups of sports journalists covered the NFL “deflategate” scandal through social media, specifically in terms of employing image repair strategies. A content analysis revealed that while many journalists employed objective reporting, many others engaged in a variety of repair strategies, notably minimization and stonewalling. Discussion and implications focused on two main issues—conflict of interest between journalists and sports organizations, and the evolving role of social media in crisis coverage.”
ABC’s Wide World of Sports: The Cultural and Industrial Politics of Cold War Sports Television in the United States • Travis Vogan, University of Iowa • The Cold War provides the backdrop for many of the United States’ most durable sporting tales. The medium of television played a key role in articulating sport’s relationship to the Cold War. Scholars of sport, however, have mostly ignored the medium’s significance to Cold War sport. Focusing on a series of televised track meets between the USA and USSR from 1961-1965, this historical essay uses the ABC network’s anthology program Wide World of Sports to consider how sports TV mediated U.S. sport’s relationship to Cold War politics. It does so through examining a combination of Wide World of Sports’ programs, popular and trade press commentary on them, and discourses from ABC personnel. Moreover, it argues that Wide World of Sports’ many representations of Cold War sport helped ABC to establish a branded identification with sports programming and to compete for market share of the increasingly popular genre with CBS and NBC.
#ClipperNation: A Case Study of the Functional Uses of Social Media for Sport Public Relations • Brandi Watkins, Virginia Tech • The rapid growth of sports as a PR specialization, there are considerably fewer academic studies that examine the field within the discipline. An attempt to contribute to the need for research in this area, this study applies the functional uses of social media for PR to a sports context. A case study of the Twitter activity of the Los Angeles Clippers revealed the team used Twitter to serve the organizational identification and relationship building functions.
The Effects of Second-Screen Use on the Enjoyment of the Super Bowl • Jordan Dolbin, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Brendan R. Watson • To optimize the second screen experience, it is important to understand how media multitasking affects the primary experience, in this instance, watching the Super Bowl. This study surveyed a randomly-sampled young adults who watched the Super Bowl on TV. The study examines the effects of the frequency of general second-screen use; related versus unrelated second-screen use; and the effect of difference between gratifications sought by watching the Super Bowl and reasons for using a second-screen on enjoyment of watching the game. While frequency of second-screen use is negatively associated with enjoyment, related second-screen use is a positive predictor. However, the greater the differences, related or unrelated to the game, between the reasons why someone watched the game and used a second screen, the lower levels of enjoyment. Implications for theory and the television and sports industries are discussed.
Televised CrossFit Competitions Have the Potential to (Tire)Flip Masculine Hegemony on Its Head • Molly Yanity, Quinnipiac University; Mary Haines, Ohio University • While feminist theory has expressed a wide range of opinions and findings on the mediation of the muscular female body, we draw principally from Connell’s theory of gender power relations to analyze televised CrossFit competitions on ESPN. The purpose of this article is to compare and analyze dominant themes from similar findings to those of the CrossFit competition broadcasts to determine if these competitions have the potential to disrupt or sustain masculine hegemony on the existing sport-media landscape.
Small Programs 2015 Abstracts
You Can, 2, Fix Stupid: Improving on a Novel Experiment to Teach a Need For News • Kelly Kaufhold, Texas State University • An experimental news game was executed under two different conditions to test both the efficacy of the idea and the impact of different circumstances – a short, weekly intervention or a longer, daily one. While the short, weekly intervention was shown to have some effect, the longer daily intervention was significantly more effective. The news game shows real promise as an easily replicable way to get students more engaged with a need for news and as a way to inspire some peer pressure for news, which may, in turn, increase the incidence of news opinion leaders in a two-step flow of news. Given the long-established, generational decline in news consumption and knowledge, this news game shows promise as an ameliorative strategy to increase news engagement among young adults.
Getting it “Write”: Strengthening Basic Grammar Skills Through Collaborative Efforts • Michael Drager, Shippensburg University; Holly Ott, The Pennsylvania State University; Carrie Sipes; Karen Johnson, Shippensburg University • This study explores pedagogical approaches and student learning strategies in a media writing course. Specifically, the effectiveness of grammar tutoring and how it impacts students’ basic writing skills is examined. Results support existing literature that tutoring impacts student performance and enhances students’ confidence and interest in learning. Theoretical and practical implications for teaching and research are discussed.
Collaborating Across Boundaries to Engage Journalism Students in Computational Thinking • Kim Pearson, The College of New Jersey; Diane Bates, The College of New Jersey; S. Monisha Pulimood, The College of New Jersey • Journalism educators seek ways to create a positive environment for learning computational journalism. This paper describes a multi-semester collaboration between undergraduate journalism and computer science students. Data indicate that such collaborations can strengthen journalism students’ confidence in their ability to employ computing tools and methods. However, journalism students did not show as much positive change as did students in computer science and other majors. Future research will focus on student preparation for such collaborations. v
Instructional videos snubbed by online students — Reliance on videos re-evaluated • Catherine Strong, Massey University • The challenges of teaching online students are magnified when teaching digital journalism skills without face-to-face contact. Although many guidelines recommend relying heavily on instructional videos for online courses, such as MOOCs, this research indicates many students tend to shun videos in favor of traditional text instructions. The key is to provide both platforms for the students. This research also found that students are more accepting of instructional videos that include five elements.
External Resources Use for Undergraduates Learning Coding in Communication Classes • Amanda Sturgill; Ben Hannam, Elon University; Brian Walsh • Researchers collected and analyzed data from 85 undergraduate students from a variety of communication majors enrolled in a 1-credit technology and coding course in which a variety of out-of-class supports were offered, to determine what out-of-class resources students used and valued. Student behaviors clustered, such that one group that preferred interpersonal support and another who preferred content support. Most types of support were not related to student success as measured in course grades. One type, video, was negatively related, suggesting that a self-destructive behavior of procrastinating on projects and expecting last-minute help extra resources is ineffective.
Best Practices for Student Learning Assessment In Smaller-Sized Undergraduate Mass Communication Programs • Douglas Swanson, California State University, Fullerton • Assessment of student learning in higher education is no longer optional, because the public increasingly expects universities to spend less and produce more. Generating detailed, meaningful assessment is challenging, particularly for smaller-sized mass communication programs with limited resources. Mass communication-focused assessment literature is scarce. This best practices essay reviews other research to illustrate proven examples of ways to assess simply and effectively in undergraduate mass communication programs to achieve maximum faculty support and curriculum improvement.
Religion and Media 2015 Abstracts
The Role of Social Media in Setting the Muslims and Islam Agenda: A three-country study • SAIFUDDIN AHMED, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna; Jaeho Cho, University of California, Davis • This study examines the role of social and traditional media in an agenda setting process involving issues related to Muslims and Islam. A time-series analysis of 4317 news articles and 3.19 million Facebook posts across France, Germany and the Netherlands reveal that the agenda-setting mechanism is not “one-way” but reciprocal in nature. The results of a reverse-pattern involving social media influencing traditional media agenda can direct future research. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Framing moral evaluations: newspaper coverage of Islamic spaces in the U.S. • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University • In recent years, attempts by Muslims in the U.S. to build worship spaces have been met with opposition during the local regulatory approval process. This article examines the discourse in the debate through a framing cluster analysis of news articles and editorials (n=349) from five U.S. newspapers between 2010-13. This research makes a theoretical contribution by being the first to use Moral Foundations Theory operationalize the moral evaluation dimension of framing. A cluster analysis of all the framing components revealed five frames: Local Regulation, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, Islamic Threat, and Legal Authority. A binary logistic regression found that moral evaluations were associated with mosque support, but not mosque opposition.
God and sport: Orientalism in Sports Illustrated coverage of religion • Patrick Ferrucci, University of Colorado-Boulder; Greg Perreault, University of Missouri • This study utilizes textual analysis to analyze how the popular and influential sports magazine Sports Illustrated covered religion over the period from Jan. 1, 1994, to Sept. 1, 2014. The data showed that the magazine wrote about religion in three primary ways: as an exotic characteristic that makes an athlete somehow odd, as incongruous since sports themselves display similar characteristics to religion, and as a front to hide some insidious real motive. These results are analyzed through the lens of Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, which argues that the press tends to cover dominant groups as “normal” and “others” the remaining groups, which has been shown, historically, to have damaging impact. This study concludes with a discussion concerning how SI’s coverage of religion could impact society.
Religious ‘hate spin’ and the limitations of the law in India • Cherian George, Hong Kong Baptist University • Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won India’s 2014 election on a Hindu-majoritarian agenda, challenging the secular republic’s accommodation of Muslim and other minorities. One key strategy was the use of “hate spin” – conceptualised here as the politically motivated giving and taking of religious offence. Modi’s campaign used inflammatory speech with impunity, despite India’s laws against religious incitement. It also rallied the Hindu ground against manufactured offence, effectively censoring books despite free speech laws.
“It’s Not a Real Thing When We Do It”: Mainstream Newspaper Use of the Term “Islamophobia” • Rick Moore, Boise State University • Is “Islamophobia” a real thing? A viral video segment from a recent television program raised this question. This study looks to answer it by analyzing how the media might play a role in determining our perception of the reality of phenomena that have only recently been named. Through a LexisNexis search of mainstream newspapers’ use of Islamophobia, the study shows that for journalists, at least, there are clear indications Islamophobia is real and worth discussing.
Sexual battlegrounds: How abstinent Christian men select and navigate media content • Monique Robinson, The University of Kansas; Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas • Men look toward media as illustrative in constructing sexual relationships. As 97% of men in the United States engage in sexual relationships prior to marriage, those who choose to wait represent a heuristic segment of the population. This study analyzes abstinent Christian males and how their identity interplays with their media selection and navigation processes through sexual narratives and scripts that counter their views on premarital sex.
The boundaries of political tolerance: Evaluations of Mormon political candidates • Remy Maisel; Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • During the 2012 American presidential election, there was rampant media speculation about the potential impact of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism upon his chances of being elected. This experiment presented respondents with news articles about a fictional candidate with conditions for candidate affiliation of either Mormon or unspecified, and stories that either contained values language or excluded it. Results showed weak negative effects due to the presence of a Mormon label, and minimal influence of value framing.
Is It Really a Religious Conflict?: News Framing of the Ahmadiyah Conflict in Indonesian Mediascape • Yearry Setianto, Ohio University • Building on the assumption that the media construct their own frames in reporting religious conflict, this study investigates how online newspapers framed the Ahmadiyah conflict in Cikeusik, Banten Province, Indonesia in February 2011. Based on framing analysis of 359 news articles taken from two major online newspapers in Indonesia, Kompas.com and Republika Online, this research used an interpretive qualitative approach in identifying the frames. The research findings suggest that Kompas.com indirectly named the incident as an attack and violations of human rights but avoided to mention the case as a religious conflict. In contrast, Republika Online, which is influenced by Islamic values tended to name the event as a clash based on religious issues and accused the Ahmadis as the provocateurs. Both media named the actors as anonymous but blamed the government’s failure in protecting religious rights. The use of interpretive qualitative approach also has been sufficient to identify hidden frames within the language structures in news texts. This study helps to understand how the religious conflict tended to be framed differently by online media, mainly due to their religious affiliation, especially in the context of reporting religious conflicts in a Muslim majority country like in Indonesia.
Evangelical Christian Crisis Responses to Same-Sex Sex Scandals • Cylor Spaulding, Towson University • This research examines the crisis responses of six evangelical leaders (Paul Crouch, Ted Haggard, Lonnie Latham, and Eddie Long) involved in same-sex sex scandals by comparing their responses against those recommended by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007). Through an examination of the leaders strategies, reaction statements, and news articles written about the crisis, this qualitative research found that the evangelical pastors generally adhered to the recommended strategies of the SCCT, thus reinforcing the applicability of the SCCT even in a religious context. This paper also recommends the inclusion of an additional SCCT category for situations where a crisis inflicts spiritual or emotional harm.
A Cross-National Media Framing Comparison of U.S. and Arabic News: The Case of Charlie Hebdo • Ethan Stokes, University of Alabama • On January 7, 2015, two Islamic terrorists raided the Charlie Hebdo central office in Paris and killed 12 employees of the French satirical magazine. The events that ensued resembled a modern action/thriller motion picture, and global news media coverage provided an avenue for audiences to follow the proceedings. Navigated by framing theory, this study employed a quantitative content analysis of 985 news stories collected precisely over one month following the January 7th attack to determine if cross-national differences in news coverage were present. The news stories came from the two most popular Arabic news media outlets and the three most popular U.S. newspapers. The Arabic stories were collected using the Media Monitoring System at Texas A&M University, and the U.S. stories were collected using the Pro-Quest Newspapers database. The findings reveal that the U.S. frames focused more heavily on the victims, defending free speech, and supporting the continuance of the satire, while the Arabic frames more often focused on specific terrorist groups, portraying the satire as offensive to Muslims, and calling for a discontinuance of the satire. These differences and similarities in news framing of the Hebdo attack are discussed at length.
Political Communication 2015 Abstracts
Incivility or Sarcasm? Expanding the Concept of Attacks in Online Social Media • Ashley A. Anderson, Colorado State University; Heidi E. Huntington, Colorado State University; Kim Kandra, Colorado State University • This study expands the definition of incivility, an oft-cited concern of computer-mediated communication. We propose sarcasm – a subtler form of provocation – as a concept related to incivility – which involves more explicit attacks. Using a content analysis of Twitter posts about climate change, we find the two concepts are not used simultaneously in the same posts but are employed in similar patterns. This indicates sarcasm is an important and distinct concept in online discussions.
Antecedents of Internal Political Efficacy. Incidental News Exposure Online and the Role of Political Discussion • Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna; Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna • Internal political efficacy has become a key concept in political science, since it has long been considered a predictor of a variety of pro-democratic behaviors. However, the effect of incidental news exposure online is underdeveloped in the literature. This study argues that both general news media use and incidental news exposure online lead to political efficacy through discussion. The paper also tests whether discussion with weak versus strong ties yield different results predicting efficacy.
Attitudes toward Illegal Immigration and Exposure to Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting in France, Norway, and the United States • Audun Beyer, Department of media and communication, University of Oslo; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna • This paper investigates the relationship between news exposure and attitudes toward illegal immigration. Based on comparative survey data from three countries (U.S.; France; Norway), findings suggest that political orientation is the strongest predictor of attitudes toward illegal immigration and that exposure to commercial news is positively related to negative attitudes toward illegal immigration in all countries. Public service broadcasting, in contrast, leads to more positive attitudes toward illegal immigration only in the U.S.
Television vs. YouTube: Political Advertising in the 2012 Presidential Elections • porismita borah, Washington State University; Erika Fowler; travis ridout • We employ a unique data set to compare both online political ads and televised political ads from the 2012 presidential campaign, relying upon data from the Wesleyan Media Project and YouTube. Primary findings show negative ads are mostly sponsored by political groups and not candidates in both TV and online. Online ads are less negative and less policy driven, consistent with the theory that they are designed for a different audience than television.
Online media and the Social Identity Model of Collective Action: Examining the roles of online alternative news and social media news • Michael Chan • This study integrates the literature on the mobilizing potential of online news media to engender protest participation with recent theoretical syntheses from socio-psychological perspectives of collective action. More specifically, it examines the potential for alternative media and social media to stimulate the core antecedents of collective action (identity, efficacy and anger) in the context of a pro-democracy movement. Findings from a representative sample using structural equation modeling supported the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) framework, such that all three antecedents predicted protest participation and that higher levels of identity were positively relate to anger and efficacy. Moreover, the same antecedents mediated the relationship between online media use and protest participation. The findings demonstrate the benefits of theoretical integration from related disciplines so as to better understand the dynamics of collective action at the individual level.
The Effect of Self-Expression on Political Opinion • Saifuddin Ahmed, California, Davis; Heejo Keum, Sungkyunkwan University; Yeo Jeong Kim, Sungkyunkwan University; Jaeho Cho, California, Davis • The political impact of social media has drawn considerable attention, however, the scientific understanding of how engaging in expressive behavior via social media influences the way the expresser makes political decisions remains limited, if not unknown. An analysis of 1,209 survey responses revealed consistent results across six issues where the effects of party identification on opinions about political issues became stronger as political expression on social media increased. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Herbert Gans Revisited: Proposing a Network Analytic Approach to Source Use • Bethany Conway, University of Arizona • This study investigates the information resources journalists attained from sources in midterm election coverage. Moving beyond past research, it investigates resource fulfillment while incorporating concepts of source interdependence through the application of social network analysis. Results of a nationwide survey of journalists suggest that source centrality within the network is heavily based on the information resource being provided. At the same time, certain sources are also seen as structurally equivalent, and may even be complementary.
The 2014 Midterm Elections on Local Television: Frames, Sources and Valence • Daniela Dimitrova; Sisi Hu • Local television remains the main information source for the average American, yet studies of local television content are rare. This study investigates the coverage of the 2014 midterm election on two local televisions stations in Iowa, KCCI-TV and WOI-TV. Using a content analysis approach the study shows that local election news reporting is more likely to focus on the horse race rather than political issues, and tends to be more episodic rather than thematic in nature. The coverage relies primarily on elite sources such as politicians and government officials rather than experts and ordinary citizens. Local election news reporting remains mostly neutral in tone. Human-interest coverage is not uncommon while pieces about the role of media in elections are quite rare.
Income Inequality and the Media: Perceptions, Evaluations, and the Role of the Government • Itay Gabay, Bowling Green State University • The study takes the first step in examining the effect of media use and political talk on perceptions of income inequality and the role of the government to reduce it. Using ANES 2012 Time Series Study we show that while radio listeners tend to support income inequality, individuals who receive their information from the Internet, were more likely to think that income inequality has risen in the last twenty years, and TV viewers support government action to reduce it. Political talk tens to echo political predisposing.
Motivations for Political Discussion: Antecedents and Consequences on Civic Participation • Homero Gil de Zúñiga, University of Vienna; Sebastian Valenzuela; Brian Weeks, University of Vienna, Department of Communication • To date, most scholarship on informal discussion of politics and current events has mainly focused on its cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects. In comparison, few studies have addressed the antecedents of political talk. We seek to fill in this gap by using two-wave U.S. panel survey data (W¹=1,816; W2=1,024) to study two sets of motivations people may have for engaging in political conversation: civic-oriented and social-oriented goals. Furthermore, we examine if these motivations matter by analyzing their relationship with civic participation. Using structural equation modeling, our results suggest that both civic and social motivations are strong predictors of frequency of political discussion and, consequently, are indirectly associated with levels of civic engagement. From a theoretical perspective, these findings cast political talk as a more complex phenomenon than what deliberative theory suggests, and point to social motivations as an additional path to civic life.
From Consumer to Producer: Relating Orientations, Internet Use, and Lifestyle and Contentious Political Consumerism • Melissa R. Gotlieb, Texas Tech University; Sadia Cheema, Texas Tech University • This study uses national survey data collected from U.S. adults to explore the relationships among individual and collective orientations to political consumerism, Internet use, and participation in lifestyle and contentious political consumerism among Generation Y. Results demonstrate although both orientations motivate online content consumption, only holding a collective orientation motivates content production. Moreover, although both uses of Internet facilitate socially-conscious consumption practices, only content production mobilizes more active participation in organized boycotts and “buycotts.”
Image, Issues and Advocacy in White House E-mail Newsletters • Joseph Graf, American University • The Obama administration is the first to send an e-mail newsletter, allowing it to control the president’s image and advocate for his agenda. We analyze four years of newsletters (N = 701). The administration portrays the president formally, impersonally, and rarely with the military or business. It projects the administration as the government, with few mentions of the other branches or political opposition; and the administration is increasingly using the newsletter and social media for political advocacy.
Newspaper Coverage of 2012 U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Digital Campaign Communication • Charles Watkins, University of Alabama; Jennifer Greer, University of Alabama • To examine how journalists cover campaign websites, social media, and mobile applications, U.S. newspaper coverage of Obama’s and Romney’s 2012 digital communication was analyzed. Only 1.4% of all campaign articles mentioned digital campaigning, and prominence of these 292 articles was low. Mentions focused on message content and political strategy. Fact-checking was rare, and half of the mentions had no tone or analysis. Obama’s digital communication was covered more frequently and more positively than was Romney’s.
Partisan Conflict Framing Effects on Political Polarization • Jiyoung Han, University of Minnesota; Marco Yzer, The University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication • Consistent with self-categorization theory, we test whether exposure to partisan conflict- framed news produces group polarization between Democrats and Republicans. A set of analyses of variance showed persistent patterns of increased partisan identity salience, extremitization, conformity, and political polarization as a result of news exposure. Using structural equation modeling, we integrated all the hypothesized cognitive paths toward political polarization into a single model and found supporting evidence of the indirect effect of partisan conflict framing.
Partisan Provocation: The Role of Partisan News Use and Emotional Responses in Motivating Information Sharing • Ariel Hasell, University of California Santa Barbara; Brian Weeks, University of Vienna, Department of Communication • Citizens increasingly rely on social media to consume and disseminate news and information about politics. This study focuses on how partisan news use influences information sharing in part because of the negative emotions it arouses in its audience. Using panel survey data, we find that use of partisan news is associated with increased anger and anxiety directed at the opposing party’s presidential candidate and indirectly facilitates information sharing about the election on social media.
State legislative candidate evaluation of campaign news quality • James Hertog, University of Kentucky; Matthew Pavelek, University of Kentucky • Political candidates’ evaluation of the news coverage their campaigns received was studied using an online survey of candidates who sought state legislative offices during 2012. A sample of 515 former candidates was gathered and asked a series of questions concerning interactions with journalists during their campaigns and their evaluations of the coverage their contests received. Candidates indicated amicable relations with journalists, extensive attempts to gain news coverage and a significant level of outreach efforts and responsiveness to candidate efforts on the part of newspersons. Candidates did express a significant level of critique of overall press performance, though, and we found some indication that those who had a cooler relationship with journalists were also more critical of news coverage of their election campaigns.
Communication and Democracy: Effects of Agreement and Disagreement on Democratic Ideals Through Information Processing Strategies • Myiah Hutchens, Washington State University; Chan Chen, Washington State University; Jay Hmielowski, Washington State University; Michael Beam, Kent State University • Grounded in the ideals of deliberative democracy, this study examines the relationship between exposure to counter-attitudinal and attitude consistent political communication and the belief that discussion leads to better decision-making. Using data collected in the week prior to the US midterm election, we examine both the direct effects, and indirect effects mediated by systematic and heuristic processing. We determined that exposure to disagreement is associated with beliefs that discussion leads to good decisions both directly and indirectly through increased systematic processing and reduced heuristic processing. Exposure to agreement has positive indirect effects via increased systematic processing, and negative effects via increased heuristic processing.
Are Voting Rights Newsworthy? How Sources Depicted Electoral Participation in 1965 and 2013 • Sharon Jarvis, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines how sources in coverage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court Decision discussed electoral participation in The New York Times and Birmingham News. In 1965, sources in both outlets treated voting as a cherished and contested right. In 2013, voices in the Birmingham News continued to do so whereas those in the New York Times had shifted attention to gay rights and depicted elections as controlled by partisan elites.
Overcoming Hard Times: Televised U.S. and Russian Presidential Rhetoric in Times of Crisis • Tatsiana Karaliova, Missouri School of Journalism • The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of how televised presidential rhetoric is used by the leaders of the United States and Russia in times of domestic and foreign affairs crises. The analysis revealed both similarities and differences in presidential crisis rhetoric in the United States and Russia. The presidents showed differences in how they construct their identities, what frames they use to define crises, interpret them, and provide moral evaluation and treatment recommendation. The rhetorical quality of the addresses in terms of tone, structure, and strategies also differed. This study showed that presidential crisis rhetoric combined characteristics of national eulogies and deliberative rhetoric and has different purposes at different stages of a crisis. Timing appeared to be more important for crisis rhetoric than for any other genre of presidential rhetoric, especially in the case of immediate threats and human losses. Presenting a strong argument, applying a strong and decisive frame that is rooted in history and cultural perceptions of the audience, as well as identifying the guilty in a polarized foreign affairs crisis could be particularly effective in the “cold war of frames” as it helps build rhetorical capital for presidents as world leaders.
Gender, stereotypes, and attitudes toward female political leaders: The moderating roles of news media use • Heejo Keum; Jaeho Cho, University of California, Davis; Yeo Jeong Kim; choi eunyoung, SungKyunKwan university • This study examines the complex relationships between gender, stereotypes, media, and attitudes toward female political leaders. Our analyses of 2012 ANES data reveal that women voters and individuals who have lower levels of traditional gender role stereotypes and modern sexism show positive attitudes toward the prospect of a woman becoming president and positive feelings toward Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, the effects of gender stereotypes and sexism on attitudes toward female political leaders become stronger when individuals’ news media use increases.
The Interaction Effect of Political Identity Salience and Culture on the Third-Person Perception of Polling News • Hyunjung Kim, Sungkyunkwan University • This study examines the interaction effect of political identity salience and culture on the third-person perception of election polling news in the U.S. and South Korea. A web-based experiment was conducted prior to the 2012 presidential election in the two countries. Results demonstrate that the differential between in- and out- groups is greater in the identity salience group than in the control group only for South Korean participants.
Media and Party Communication Effects on Intra-Campaign Vote Switching • David Johann; Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw, University of Zurich; Sylvia Kritzinger; Kathrin Thomas • This paper examines why voters change their vote intention during an electoral campaign. In particular, we explore the impact of media and party communication on voters’ likelihood to switch their party preference. During an election campaign, voters are exposed to news media reporting that provides the information necessary for their voting decisions and that raises awareness of salient issues. Voters are also exposed to campaign communication by political parties: politicians and party members approach them in rallies, on the street and at home to persuade them to vote for them at the polls. Following an integrative approach, this paper links data from a media content analysis of six main news outlets (N = 4,265) to public opinion data based on a rolling cross-sectional panel design (n = 2,607) to jointly investigate the relative impact of exposure to media and party communication on vote switching. Using logistic regressions based on a stacked dataset, our study reveals that both individual exposure to positive media reporting about a party as well as interpersonal contact to this party increased the likelihood of vote switching in favour of that party. Impersonal campaign contacts, by contrast, were unable to convince voters to switch.
Persuasive Political Docu-Dramas: Examining Motivation, Elaboration, and Counter-Argumentation in Strategic Political Narrative Processing • Heather LaMarre, Temple University • Recent work within political and policy communication has begun examining the concept of narrative strategy wherein persuasive messages are thought to be intentionally embedded within entertaining narratives as a means of influencing political or policy outcomes (e.g., Jones & McBeth, 2010). As opposed to the unintentional effects often observed in entertainment media, strategic narratives are purposive, aiming to achieve specific attitudinal, opinion, or policy outcomes (Shanahan, et al., 2011; Jones & McBeth, 2010). The present study builds on this growing research area, focusing on the role of cognitive elaboration within strategic political entertainment and policy narratives. Using healthcare policy as a context of study, a random assignment 2 (motivation: high, low) x 2 (media stimuli: healthcare policy docu-drama, satirical healthcare policy docu-drama) post-test only experiment was conducted to examine individual-level cognitive elaboration and subsequent attitudes concerning U.S. healthcare policy. Results suggest that motivation plays a significant role in policy-relevant cognitive elaboration. Additionally, satirical narrative viewers were less able to counter-argue the policy issue than dramatic narrative viewers, which is discussed in terms of the political satire elaboration paradox. Both types of policy narratives led to more narrative-consistent healthcare attitudes.
Social Movement as Political Education: Communication Activities and Understanding of Civil Disobedience in the Umbrella Movement • Francis L. F. Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong • Occupy Central, which would later evolve into the Umbrella Movement, was conceived as a civil disobedience campaign when it was first proposed in early 2013. Although civil disobedience arguably has a history of decades in Hong Kong, the concept was seldom discussed in the public arena, and the practice was not well established in the society’s repertoire of contentious actions. Year 2013 and 2014 thus constituted a critical discourse moment in which the concept of civil disobedience was intensively discussed and debated. This study examines if the Occupy campaign and the Umbrella Movement had an educational function leading to higher levels of public understanding of civil disobedience. Analysis of two surveys conducted in September 2013 and October 2014 respectively shows that public understanding of civil disobedience did increase substantially over the year. After the Umbrella Movement started, attitudinal support for and actual participation in the movement, political use of social media, and discussion with disagreeing others significantly predict understanding of civil disobedience. Theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed.
Except if He’s Black: How Race Conditions The Effect of Religious Cues on Candidate Evaluation • Bryan McLaughlin, Texas Tech University; Bailey Thompson, Texas Tech University • The relationship between religion and politics is contingent upon race, but work examining the effect of religious cues on political outcomes has focused exclusively on White politicians. We employ an experimental design where White and Black participants were introduced to a congressional candidate. We manipulated whether the politician was White or Black and whether or not they used religious cues. Results demonstrate that religious and racial cues interact, but in more nuanced ways than expected.
Catalyzing Events: Exploring the Intersection of Electoral Campaigns and Social Movements • Laura Meadows, Indiana University Bloomington • Through an ethnographic study of North Carolina’s LGBT movement, this study proposes the conceptualization of a catalyzing event, defined as a political happening that fundamentally alters the trajectory of a social movement to provide a distinct perspective through which to examine the trajectory of a social movement and the experiences, interactions, and events that alter its course.
Michael Brown as a News Icon: Event-driven news and its impact on protest paradigm • Rachel Mourao, The University of Texas at Austin; Danielle Kilgo; George Sylvie, University of Texas at Austin • The shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer cued an intense reaction from citizens, officials, and activists. Through a content analysis of newspaper stories and guided by the theory of indexing during event-driven news, this study converges sourcing with adherence to the protest paradigm, a pattern that emphasizes violence and deviant behavior. Findings reveal that while nonofficial sources dominate coverage about Ferguson, they do not provide critical viewpoints that challenge the protest paradigm.
#That’sFunny: Second-Screen Use during Comedy TV News Viewing as a Predictor of Online Political Activism • Rebecca Nee, San Diego State University • Using national survey data (n = 645), this study explores political activism as an outcome of complementary simultaneous media use. Framed by the theoretical concepts of participatory culture and active audiences, this study provides tangible evidence of newer forms of political participation among TV viewers who use digital platforms to interact socially and seek information. Findings show a relationship between online political activism and second-screen use during TV news watching, particularly among comedy news audiences.
Dispelling the Myth of Ideological Polarization in News Consumption: A Network Analysis of Political News Websites • Jacob Nelson; James Webster • Political polarization is increasing in this country, and its effects are many and far-reaching. Many assume that a primary cause of political polarization is the increasing availability of ideologically tinged political news. Other scholars who have examined political polarization in news consumption have found that news audiences predominantly consume centrist or moderate news and for the most part ignore ideological news sources altogether. Yet the myth of ideologically driven news consumption doggedly persists. This paper finally dispels that myth. Using social network analysis of comScore web analytic data, we argue that audience duplication among the fifty most popular political news sites in the month leading up to the November 2014 election occurs at a rate greater than chance. We find that political news sites share more audiences than many realize, and that this holds true regardless of the political ideologies of either the audience or the outlet. We conclude that a site’s popularity, rather than its ideology, is what drives political news consumption.
How Political Talk and Political Efficacy Jointly Mediate the Impact of News Consumption on Political Participation? • Chang Sup Park, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania • This study suggests a two-step mediation model, which highlights the role of political talk and political efficacy in political communication. Based on two cross-sectional analyses and one auto-regressive analysis from the dataset of a two-wave panel survey during the 2012 presidential campaign in South Korea, this study finds that political discussion and political efficacy jointly mediate the impact of news consumption on political participation. Through involvement in the discussion with others, individual news consumers make more sense of the information obtained from the media and such sense-making are more likely to result in political participation through political efficacy. The result suggests that political talk and political efficacy jointly play a pivotal role in connecting citizens’ information-seeking behaviors to political participation. Additionally, this study finds that news consumption via online media and social media is significantly influential in triggering citizen engagement in political processes.
Offline Talk, Online Talk, and News Reflection in Political Learning • Chang Sup Park, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania • This study assesses how different types of political reasoning – offline political talk, online political talk, and news reflection – play a role in political learning. Drawing on online survey data collected during the 2012 presidential election in South Korea, this study finds that online political talk is more closely related to political knowledge than offline political talk and new reflection. News reflection was positively associated with political knowledge, yet the strength of the relationship was weaker than that of political talk. This outcome indicates that interpersonal reasoning (political talk) is more closely related to the essence of deliberation than intrapersonal reasoning (news reflection).
Antecedents of Strategic Game Framing in Political News Coverage • Desiree Schmuck, University of Vienna; Raffael Heiss, University of Vienna; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna • “The use of strategic game framing is predominant in mainstream news reporting of politics. Nevertheless, systematic research on the specific antecedents of strategic game framing is scarce. In this study, we employ a quantitative content analysis to investigate different media- and content-related antecedents of strategic game framing. Findings reveal that both media- and content-related variables predict higher strategic game framing. However, content-related variables, such as story type or issue exert the strongest impact.”
Using Media to Prepare for Understanding or Persuading: Partisan Selective Exposure and Future Discussion Expectations • Mingxiao Sui; Raymond J. Pingree • Despite widespread concern about partisans selecting attitude consistent media, only a few experiments have used media selection as an outcome. Such experiments are important to isolate the causal factors that lead to partisan selective exposure and may help suggest conditions under which this phenomenon could be reduced. This experiment tested the effects of two factors that seem highly relevant in new media contexts: expectations of future discussion and the presence or absence of entertainment options. Participants were led to expect a discussion oriented toward either persuasion or understanding, and were given a choice of media clips from different sources that either included or did not include an entertainment option. Entertainment options reduced time spent watching both own-party media and other-party media. Among Democrats but not Republicans, entertainment options appeared to be used as a substitute for time spent watching other party media. Republicans responded to expectations of understanding-oriented discussion by watching more own-party media, whereas Democrats responded by watching less own-party media. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
The fictitious ‘Newsroom’: The influence of entertainment media on attitudes of news trust • Jason Turcotte, Cal Poly Pomona • Polls show that people increasingly harbor unfavorable views of the press, as the public grows more attentive to fictional programs over news. Using HBO’s The Newsroom as stimuli, this study tests whether entertainment media can restore public trust in the news. I find that exposure has no effect on general news trust; however, a negative relationship with gatekeeping trust is observed. In short, exposure to the program reduces confidence in news professionals as effective gatekeepers.
Investigating Social Capital in the New Media Environment: SNS, Internal Efficacy, and Civic Engagement • Zachary Vaughn, Indiana University • This paper explores the role that social networking sites have on social capital. Using secondary data from Pew Research Internet Project: Civic Engagement in the Digital Age this paper finds that use of social networking sites and the internet for news and information gathering is positively correlated to civic engagement. This paper also introduces the variable of internal efficacy, and it finds that internal efficacy is positively related to civic engagement.
Social Identities and the Illinois Pension Problem: Constructing a “Just-in-Time” Model of Belief Development • Aaron S. Veenstra, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Benjamin Lyons, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Cheeyoun Stephanie Kang, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Zachary Sapienza, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • For years, Illinois and Chicago have underfunded their employee pension systems, leading to significant recent controversy over the extent of the problem. This study proposes a “just-in-time” social identity influence model to identify salient social identities (union membership, political affiliations, region of residence) and test their influence on pension beliefs. Findings show that despite being strongly related, influences on beliefs about Illinois and Chicago differ based on demographics and media use.
Skip to the Comments: News Engagement, Discussion and Political Participation in Austria • Ramona Vonbun, University of Vienna; Trevor Diehl, University of Vienna • This study explores how engaging with political information online might lead to offline discussion and political participation in Austria. This study extends recent work on the mediating influence of discussion in connecting news engagement and political action, to include reading political comments attached to news and social media websites. Do political postings fuel further discussion offline, and in turn, political action? The analysis draws on data from the Austrian National Election Study.
How Journalists Experience the Hostile Media Effect • Mike Wagner • The hostile media effect, the systematic tendency for people to believe that news coverage is hostile to their views, is a robust finding. In this article I ask, do journalists perceive a hostile media too? A web-based survey experiment of television and print journalists in the top 150 media markets in the United States (N=631) varied whether the story was about an issue owned by the Republicans (tax relief) or the Democrats (health care) and whether the partisan senator of the party that owned the issue engaged in “cheap talk” or “costly talk.” Ideological journalists were more likely to perceive a hostile media when a member of their preferred political party was reported to have engaged in costly talk—especially when costly talk came from a partisan source whose party owned the issue. Despite these attitudes, journalists across the ideological spectrum found each type of story to be equally newsworthy.
Charismatic rhetoric, integrative complexity and the U.S. Presidency: An analysis of the State of the Union Address (SOTU) from George Washington to Barack Obama. • ben wasike • This study adopted Thoemmes and Conway’s seminal work on integrative complexity (IC) of U.S. presidents to examine the interaction between IC and charisma in the State of the Union address. The study examined a census of all the SOTU addresses given from George Washington to Barack Obama. The study found positive correlation between IC and charisma, inverse correlation between charisma and reelection and overall, congressional opposition elicited more charisma. Unlike IC, charisma forms an inverted U-shaped curve, conservatives displayed more of it and charisma could be immune to crisis effects.
Issue importance, perceived effects of protest news and political participation • Ran Wei, U. of South Carolina; Ven-hwei Lo, Chinese U of Hong Kong; Hung-Yi Lu, National Chongchung University • How do news coverage of a grass-root protest movement and perceived importance of the movement affect people’s participation? And how do people infer the effect of the news on themselves differently than on others? Informed by the third-person effect hypothesis, we examine these questions in the context of the student-led Sunflower movement in Taiwan that rose in opposition to a trade pact with China. In the study, we advanced three propositions. First, that the perceived effects of the protest news on oneself would be a better predictor of political participation than would perceived effects of such news on others. Second, that the perceived effect on oneself, not on others, would enhance the impact of issue importance on participation in the movement. And third, how people processed protest news would be another intermediate mechanism on subsequent participation activities. We found support for these propositions in data collected from a probability sample of 1,137 respondents. The contributions of the findings to the robust third-person effect research are discussed.
Linking Agenda Networks between Media and Voters: An Investigation of Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential Election • Denis Wu; Lei Guo, Boston University • This study investigates the Network Agenda-Setting (NAS) model with original data gathered from 2012 presidential election in Taiwan. Networks of media coverage on the most important issues and candidate attributes and affects are compared with the counterparts generated from public opinion data. The overall correlations between media’s networks and voters’ networks are positive and significant, indicating a confirmation of NAS effect in a non-U.S. country. Partisan media and selective exposure in the media system are also incorporated into the investigation. Results show that partisan selective exposure did not lead to consistent conclusions about accentuated impact of like-minded media consumption.
The dual process of influence: Examining the hydraulic pattern hypothesis of media priming effects • Sung Woo Yoo, SUNY Cortland • This paper examined the hydraulic pattern of media-priming effects, an argument that increase in the importance of an issue is accompanied by decrease in importance of other issues. Granger causality between media coverage and the perceived importance of issues was examined using a content analysis and secondary survey data. In the findings, media coverage caused changes in the issue-weight of other issues. Also, the time-lag of the hydraulic pattern preceded the main priming effects.
The personal is political?: The relationship between passive and active non-political and political social media use • Rebecca Yu, University of Michigan • Previous research indicates that social media use for news or political purposes increases political participation, but little is known about if and how political social media behavior might emerge out of everyday, non-political usage of such sites. Using two separate adult samples of Facebook and Twitter users, this study examines the extent to which and how non-political, passive (NPP, consuming content about entertainment interests and personal life) and non-political, active (NPA, producing content about entertainment interests and personal life) social media use relate to exposure to and expression of political voice on the sites. The overall findings are consistent across the two platforms, such that while both NPP and NPA use are positively associated with political information exposure on the sites, NPA use is positively related to political expression, and this relationship is partially explained by political efficacy. Together, these findings support the possibility that the “political” may be an extended terrain of “the personal,” while drawing attention to the possible differential political outcomes resulting from NPP and NPA social media use.
Participatory Journalism 2015 Abstracts
An examination of the sourcing behaviors of U.S. non-profit news and newspaper journalists • Serena Carpenter, MSU; Jan Hendrik Boehmer, University of Miami; Frederick Fico, Michigan State University • Sourcing practices cue readers to the extent that the organization and journalists are invested in their reporting. This research investigates how journalists represent an issue through source attribution diversity and source number measures. The results show that non-profit journalists were more likely to cite a greater number of sources in comparison to newspaper journalists. And reporters who enact the interpretative role included a greater number of sources and more diverse sources, whereas advocacy/adversarial journalists were not as likely to cite such sources. And an increase in reporter story number had a negative impact on journalists’ sourcing practices.
Predicting citizen journalism complexity: An analysis of U.S.-based editors’ definitions of citizen journalism • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Seungahn Nah; Masahiro Yamamoto, University of Wisconsin-La crosse • Based on a national survey and a qualitative content analysis of responses offered by U.S. editors’ understanding of citizen journalism, we identify key ideas associated with the complexity of the concept and patterns associated with the dimensions in defining the phenomenon. Ten core citizen journalism ideas emerged in the aggregate discussion of citizen journalism. However, majority of the participants, from an individual perspective, defined the concept simplistically focusing on one-dimensional or two-dimensional definitions. Arguments based on traditional notions of journalistic professionalism and occupational values are represented alongside notions for audience collaboration and engagement. This study also uncovered variations in the extent to which citizen journalism is defined and guided by demographic variables, individual journalistic experience, and organizational characteristics.
Using Community Engagement Strategies to Assess Media Collaboration • John Hatcher; Dana Thayer, University of Minnesota Duluth • This case study uses community engagement strategies to explore how to strengthen relationships among news organizations in one media ecosystem. We employ a mixed methodological approach: We “mapped” the ecosystem, we held a community media forum, and we conducted in-depth interviews with journalists and community storytellers. Preliminary findings suggest a willingness to collaborate; however, legacy media may have more reservations about collaboration than journalists at community newspapers, public broadcasting stations and entrepreneurial startups.
“He’s a Lowlife: He Deserved to Die” vs. ##BlackLivesMatter: Citizen Framing on Twitter of African-American Males Killed by White Police Officers • Mia Moody-Ramirez, Baylor University; Hazel Cole • Using a critical race lens, this textual analysis explores user-generated content that emerged following the deaths of two African American males killed by police officers in 2014 and highlights social media’s role in contextualizing the documented “historical injustice” toward Black males in America. We argue that the “he deserved it” frame reinforced the lack of value media places on the lives of Black men, and thus leads to communities having less sympathy for them. Our findings indicate citizens marginalized Black males shot by police officers because of their race, physical size or alleged aggression. This study is significant because in each case, height, weight, the history of their drug use, performance in school and various other factors were used as a rationale for the appropriateness of killing them. Common themes were: 1) he’s a low-life who deserved to die, 2) he used drugs and is therefore guilty and 3) he was a giant, demon or criminal who could only be controlled by killing him. However, not all framing was negative, as other citizens used the platforms to respond accordingly. Findings are in line with scholarly articles on the use of social media in protests. In both cases, social media brought about an acceleration of activist communication, and greatly enhanced its visual presence.
#FergusonOctober: Gatekeeping and Civic Engagement in St. Louis News Media Tweets • Frank Michael Russell, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Anthony Roth, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Margaret Duffy, Missouri School of Journalism; Esther Thorson, Missouri School of Journalism; Heesook Choi • This quantitative content analysis explores how St. Louis news media used Twitter during a 16- day period that included #FergusonOctober protests and St. Louis Cardinals postseason baseball games. About 30% of the tweets were related to the Ferguson crisis. News organizations mostly adhered to traditional gatekeeping roles in Twitter posts (e.g., sharing links to news articles). However, some Ferguson-related posts showed media adopting Twitter practices that could advance stronger, reciprocal relationships with citizens.
Freedom from the Press? How Anonymous Gatekeepers on Reddit Covered the Boston Marathon Bombing • Melissa Suran, The University of Texas at Austin; Danielle Kilgo, The University of Texas at Austin • Social news sites are gaining prominence online. One such site – Reddit – has been recognized for effectively distributing information about current and critical events. Through examining a major incident where Reddit was acknowledged as an important informational entity, this study analyzed content posted on Reddit in order to determine whether the website, as it claims, has “freedom from the press,” or if it follows gatekeeping practices that are similar to those implemented by traditional media outlets.
Pursuing the Ideal: How news website commenting policies structure public discourse • David Wolfgang, University of Missouri • Many news organizations provide online readers an opportunity to comment on public issues in the news through a news-mediated forum for discourse. These discourse spaces are run by news organization as part of a mission to provide a public space for discourse, but are governed by a commenting policy that establishes the rules for discourse and the boundaries for acceptable behavior. These rules can help meet the ideals of public discourse or stand in the way of productive public deliberation. This study examines the commenting policies of 21 news corporations in the United States to see how the policies facilitate or inhibit the creation of a space for ideal public discourse. A constant comparative analysis of the text of the policies guided by the ideals of Habermas’ public sphere as well as the expectations of civility norms in public discourse, shows that news organizations establish rules to protect respectful and egalitarian spaces for the public, but fail to meet other critical needs of public discourse, including rationality, tolerance, reflexivity, and the pursuit of common understanding and solutions. The implications of these findings are further explored and possible objectives for news organizations are provided.
Positioning Journalism Within Networks: Conceptualizing and Operationalizing ‘Connective Journalism’ Through Syrian Citizen Journalists • Mohammad Yousuf, University of Oklahoma; Maureen Taylor • As the news industry changes, new models are emerging. This paper explores network journalism (connective journalism) and shows how citizen journalists in Syria are embodying the network journalism model. The paper identifies three major concepts of connective journalism: engagement with social networks, negotiation, and maintaining a connection with norms and values of journalism. Through a case study of Damascus Bureau.org, we show that connective journalism is a viable model for citizens to tell their community’s story to each other and the world. This paper contributes to both the scholarship and the practice of journalism by helping develop a theory of journalism for the era of new technology.
