Mass Communication and Society 2013 Abstracts

Measuring News Media Literacy • Adam Maksl, Indiana University Southeast; Seth Ashley, Boise State University; Stephanie Craft • News media literacy refers to the knowledge and motivations needed to identify, appreciate, and engage with journalism. This study measured levels of news media literacy among 500 Chicago-area teenagers using a new scale based on Potter’s model of media literacy and adapted to news media specifically. News literate teens were found to be more intrinsically motivated to consume news, more skeptical and more knowledgeable about current events than their less news literate counterparts.

Why Change the Story? Portrayals of the Arab Spring in the Western and Eastern News Media • Mian Asim, University of Florida; Hyojin Kim, University of Florida • This study examines the content and framing of new stories emerged from the Western and the Arab media, right before and
after the peak period of the Arab Spring while suggesting that the level of deviance employed by protest groups in terms of tactics and goals are equally substantial in affecting their news coverage. This study also hints that media may adjust its stance as time proceeds depending upon the potential outcome of protests.

Facebook “Friends”: Effects of Social Networking Site Intensity, Social Capital Affinity, and Flow on Knowledge-Gain • Valerie Barker, Journalism & Media Studies SDSU; David Dozier; Amy Schmitz Weiss; Diane Borden • Using a subset of data from a survey of a representative sample of U.S. Internet users, 236 participants responded regarding social networking site (SNS) intensity, experience of flow (concentrated engagement in/enjoyment of an activity), social capital affinity (value of interaction/identification with online peers) and focused and incidental-knowledge gains. SNS intensity strongly predicted flow and social capital affinity, but the latter appeared to be a stronger predictor of focused and incidental-knowledge gains from social networking sites.

The creepiness factor: Explaining conflicting audience attitudes toward tailored media content • Lisa Barnard • In an online survey (N=2,002), attitudes toward tailoring were more favorable when tailoring was less invasive – i.e. when it involved impersonal media functions rather than personal ones, and when it used public rather than private information. Four individual difference models (narcissism; open-mindedness; audience selectivity; online media dependency) were tested. Those who were more narcissistic and more dependent on online media had more positive attitudes toward tailoring and thought more types of tailoring should be allowed.

Workplace Characteristics and Limitations on U.S. Journalists’ Professional Autonomy • Randal Beam • Autonomy is a hallmark of professional labor, but for individuals working in complex organizations, such as journalists, it is never unfettered. This study examines constraints on journalists’ professional autonomy. It uses analyses of open-ended and fixed-response questions from a national panel survey of U.S. journalists to explore what news workers characterize as the most significant limitations on their freedom as journalists.

Picturing Collective Memory: What Google’s Doodles Want Us to Think About • Bob Britten, West Virginia University; Mark Poepsel, Loyola University New Orleans • A Doodle is a variation of the logo on the starting page of search engine Google, used to commemorate dates, individuals, events and things. Their novelty, and Google’s widespread use, make them potent elements of collective memory. This research identifies the types of Doodles used over time, comparing which subjects are emphasized and which are omitted. Google encourages memory of artists and explorers, and covertly places itself squarely within that group.

The Influence of Participation and Online Norms in the Development of a Sense of Virtual Community • Michael Clay Carey, Ohio University; Hans Meyer, Ohio University • The emergence of Web 2.0 has facilitated the proliferation of virtual groups and communities. Virtual communities are distinct from online groups in part because their members experience a sense of virtual community (Blanchard, 2008). Participants in a nationwide survey (N=1,014) were asked about their experienced sense of virtual community, and solicits their opinions on other facets of online groups. The study suggests generalizable conditions that may facilitate sense of virtual community.

Transparency in Newsrooms: What’s visible, What’s not and Why • Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland College Park; Michael Koliska • Facing a decline in public credibility, news organizations have been encouraged to embrace transparency to combat public distrust. In this paper, we examine how journalists at six leading news outlet grapple with the concept of transparency and its implementation in their newsrooms. Our data indicate that news outlets engage in a limited and strategic form of transparency, that enable them to appear transparent without offering substantive insights into the journalistic process.

Visiting Theories That Predict College Students’ Self-disclosure On Facebook • Chen-wei Chang, The University of Southern Mississippi; Jun Heo, University of Southern Mississippi • The present study explored theories that may explain information disclosure behavior on Facebook and provided understanding of each theoretical framework’s contribution in explaining such behavior. Findings suggested the potential of all the constructs tested in this study (the uses and gratifications theory, the social contract theory, trust/self-disclosure relationships, time spent on Facebook, the number of Facebook friends, and gender difference) as frameworks to explain self-disclosure behavior on Facebook. This social media-specific study observed rather interesting evidences that theories may have different implications from previous literature theoretically as well as practically.

Click “like” and share if you’re not affected: Adolescents, third-person perception, and Facebook. • John Chapin, Pennsylvania State University • A survey of adolescents (N = 1,488) documented third-person perception (TPP) regarding Facebook use and cyber bullying. As Facebook establishes itself as the dominant social network, users expose themselves to a level of bullying not possible in the analog world. The study found that 84% of adolescents (middle school through college undergraduates) use Facebook, and that most users log on daily. While 30% of the sample reported being cyber bullied, only 12.5% quit using the site and only 18% told a parent or school official. Despite heavy use and exposure, adolescents exhibit TPP, believing others are more likely to be negatively affected by Facebook use. The current study contributes to the TPP literature by linking the perceptual bias to self-protective behaviors. A range of self-protective behaviors from precautionary (deleting or blocking abusive users) to reactionary (quitting Facebook) were related to decreased degrees of TPP. TPP was also related to optimistic bias, experience, liking of and use of Facebook, perceived subjective norms and age. Implications for prevention education are discussed.

Hong Kong-er Or Chinese? Impact of Mainland Tourist News on Hong Kong Students’ Social Identity • Hexin CHEN, City University of Hong Kong; Wanqi Gong, City University of Hong Kong; Sixian Lin, City University of Hong Kong; Miriam Hernandez, City University of Hong Kong; Jie Ying Wang, Hong Kong Baptist University • Based on the social identity theory, this study examines the impact of news exposure on the perception of the social identities of university students in Hong Kong. We found that exposure to negative news about mainland tourists has a positive impact on respondents’ Hong Kong identity and their superiority sense over mainland Chinese. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Crisis frames across media and distances: An analysis of local, regional, and national news coverage of the Tucson shooting • Bethany Anne Conway • This study examined the evolution of frames in news coverage of the Tucson shooting to determine how traditional theories of crisis coverage map-on to a smaller-scale, domestic terrorism event. Along with adding to the literature on national coverage of tragedy, it provides insight into how crisis coverage differs among local, regional, and national newspapers. Findings reveal that human-interest frames made marked appearances across news outlets. While political frames were prevalent in later stages of coverage, cable and network news outlets emphasized politics to a different extent. Differences were found among the national, regional, and local newspapers, demonstrating how news coverage is adapted to the needs and interests of different audience segments in crisis.

Testing the Utility of Graphic Program Advisory Labels: An Eye-Tracking Study • Glenn Cummins, Texas Tech University; Cam Stone; Boni Cui, Texas Tech University; Hannah Gibby, Texas Tech University • Despite the use of television program advisories for more than 15 years, viewer understanding of these advisories remains problematic. Thus, this study examined the effectiveness of alternate graphic program advisories as a means of attracting viewer attention and more effectively communicating their intended meaning. Results indicated that viewers better understood the meaning of the advisories. Moreover, eye-tracking data revealed that they also allocated greater attention graphic advisories during initial exposure.

“Oh Man! Am I a Woman!?”: Analysis of ESPN.com user comments on the presence of Danica Patrick in NASCAR • Denae D’Arcy, University of Tennessee; Kyle Heuett, University of Tennessee; Katie Reno, University of Tennessee • In the wild world of men’s sports, women are making a showing. This is evident in competitions such as NASCAR where Danica Patrick raced in the 2012 Daytona 500. Some contributors to the comments section on ESPN web stories suggested that she did not belong on the track or in the sport. Three coders analyzed more than 1,300 comments on ESPN online stories before and after Patrick’s Daytona 500 race to find the meaning of her presence in NASCAR.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent? Analyzing the moral nature of fiction characters over time • Serena Daalmans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Ellen Hijmans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Fred Wester, Radboud University Nijmegen • Recently, the public eye and the academic community have started to focus on the presence and effects of morally ambivalent characters in television fiction. Both assume a prevalence of these characters, but neither is based on more than anecdotal evidence. This study explores the longitudinal changes (1985-2010) in the moral nature as well as the socio-demographic characteristics of the cast of television fiction aired during prime time in the Netherlands, through content analysis (N = 352).

The Chronicle of Current Events: uncensored information from the Soviet Union • Nino Danelia, University of South Carolina; Maia Mikashavidze, University of South Carolina • This study analyzed The Chronicle of Current Events, an underground Soviet publication issued from 1967 through 1982. Using scholarship on political framing, the study found Soviet dissidents using conflict and responsibility frames to write about the dominant themes of human rights abuses and persecutions of ethnic and religious minority groups. The publication was framing the dissidents’ cause as the protection of human rights, and aiming to get the word out to the international public.

The Miami Zombie Attack: How Broadcast News Media Constructed a “Bath Salts Epidemic” • Ruth DeFoster, University of Minnesota; Natashia Swalve, University of Nebraska • Using framing theory and textual analysis, this paper examines broadcast media coverage of a May 2012 crime in Miami that became rhetorically tied to a bath salts “epidemic” in mass media. It finds that coverage focused on bath salts use to the exclusion of other interpretive schema for the event, and finds a marked disparity between the portrait of bath salts use/effects presented in these texts and clinical literature and data on actual usage/effects.

Adolescent Perceptions of Digital Play: A Study in Third-Person Effects • Wendy Blanchard; Bryan Denham • Research on third-person effects has found that, relative to themselves, individuals perceive others as being more affected by media content. In this study, we examined perceived effects of video games and digital play among students enrolled at a charter high school in the Southeastern United States. As determinants of third-person perceptions, the study included measures of gender, race and age, time spent on video games during a typical school day, household rules governing time spent on video games and exposure to violent media content, and communication from parents about spending too much time in digital play. Results showed a consistent pattern of third-person perceptions, with those who reported lower levels of digital play estimating higher levels of adverse effects on others. Females and those who indicated the presence of household rules governing digital play and exposure to violent content estimated especially negative effects on others.

Surfing Alone: Search Engines, Flow, and Positive Outcomes • David Dozier; Valerie Barker, Journalism & Media Studies SDSU; Amy Schmitz Weiss; Diane Borden • This study integrates Stephenson’s (1967) play theory and Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) flow theory to examine the use of search engines. The challenge of an Internet search is balanced against the Internet surfer’s skills, permitting optimum experiences or flow. A national telephone survey, using probability sampling, provides evidence that search-engine flow mediates the relationship between search-engine usage and four positive outcomes: (1) focused knowledge gain, (2) incidental knowledge gain, (3) satisfaction, and (4) reputation.

Three Patterns of News Use in College Students • Eunjin Kim; Esther Thorson, University of Missouri; Margaret Duffy, U of Missouri; Heather Schoenberger • Through latent profile analysis, the study identifies three groups of college students based on self-reports of news consumption from various news sources. Most fell into Low News group, which also showed high levels of Entertainment Media use. Membership in the groups was strongly predicted by Parent and Friend News Use, needing the news every day, and confidence in knowing what others were trying to express.

A New Model for the Hierarchy of Influences?: Interviewing ‘Front Lines’ National Security Journalists • Heather Epkins, University of Maryland • This paper examines a critical tier in the global flow of terrorism information gathered through in-depth interviews with 35 national security journalists in the Washington, DC, ‘prestige press.’ Rarely studied but extremely influential, these ‘front-line’ reporters offer insider knowledge regarding how the post-9/11 era has altered journalist routines. Findings include evidence to reconsider the Hierarchy of Influences Model (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996) using the lens of an important modern frame: the “War on Terror.”

Do college students benefit from their social media experience? Social media involvement and its impact on college students’ self-efficacy perception • Ling Fang, Bowling Green State University • The indulgence in social networking sites (SNS) among college students has drawn scholars’ attention and research interest. Considering the importance of self-efficacy as a behavior indicator in every aspect of life, it is worth examining whether college students’ Facebook usage could influence college students’ self-efficacy perception in learning, socializing, and public participation. Based on a theoretical framework combining social cognitive theory and uses and gratifications theory, this study examined college students’ time spent on SNS as well as other users’ behaviors as indicators of perceived self-efficacy change after using SNS. This pilot study is based on a web survey of 395 students in public university in the Midwest on September 2012. Findings indicate a negative association between socializing use of SNS and perceived self-efficacy after using SNS. Specifically, students’ perception of SNS experience is an important indicator of their perceived self-efficacy after using SNS. However, students’ self-reported social learning behavior on SNS turned out to be a negative indicator. Moreover, positive associations found between perceived general self-efficacy change after using SNS and reported civic and politic participation suggest potential indirect effects of SNS involvement on students’ political and public participation. Interesting findings are discussed in this paper.

Thinking about issues: What drives opinion formation? • Stefan Geiss, Department of Communication, U of Mainz • Outcomes of collective opinion formation processes are often criticized. Obviously, some engage in sustained in-depth opinion formation while others process the information superficially and transiently. To account for this, a cognitive miser model is proposed: Individuals form cognitive appraisals of current issues which influence their motivation for engaging in opinion formation. A three-wave panel study tracks the progress of opinion formation. Findings support the notion that appraisals steer depth and duration of opinion formation processes.

Learning From “Fake News”: Is “Daily Show” Viewing Linked to Greater Political Knowledge? • Jennifer D. Greer, University of Alabama; Brooke Carbo, University of Alabama; Yeojin Kim • Using nationwide survey data from U.S. voters, this study examines whether exposure to “fake news” is linked to higher political knowledge, even when age, education, political participation, and political ideology are entered as control variables. “Daily Show” viewers overall had significantly higher levels of liberal knowledge than non-viewers. By gender, “Daily Show” viewing was linked to higher levels of all three types of political knowledge for women and higher levels of liberal knowledge in men.

Media repertoire and multi-platform media use: Media consumption diversity in a digital age • Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University; Yen-I Lee, Bowling Green State University • In this digital age, many media options are available to consumers. People can resist or embrace the diversity based on their own habit and preference. This study of general population’s media consumption patterns including mobile media in a local market shows that media content preference diversity, total news consumption time and household income predict the news media repertoire diversity. But within each medium, the repertoire is narrow with most consumers using only one outlet in newspapers and social media. It advances the media repertoire theory and utilizes brand loyalty and media accessibility to explain why the proliferation of media outlets and platforms may not translate to consumption diversity. To maximize time use and efficiency and for different content, consumers choose a variety of media platforms to satisfy their needs. But in each specific medium, one platform dominates as their primary format to consume.

Victimhood and restoration: Retooling memory in newspapers • Choonghee Han, Hope College • Claiming victimhood provides victims with a sense of restoration, and helps them recover their self-esteem. This seemingly psychological process is, in fact, political. In a nation-state context, remembering victimhood enables a country to avoid division in the society by reminding the public that they shared the memory of national suffering. This paper explores the discursive construction of victimhood and restoration in Asian flagship newspapers. A critical discourse analysis was conducted on news articles.

Can Enduring Values Endure? Examining Professional Self-Image of Local News Workers in a News Community of Constant Change • Shawn Harmsen, University of Iowa; Brian Ekdale, University of Iowa; Jane B. Singer, University of Iowa; Melissa Tully, University of Iowa • “They didn’t know it at the time, but when Tuchman (1978), Gans (1979), and Schudson (1981) wrote some of the seminal works in the area of the sociology of news, they were writing about what some later called the “golden age” of journalism. Part of what they found and described in various ways was a group of journalists who saw themselves as professionals, as part of a special group with its own special history, training, skill, rights, and responsibilities. Forty years later the news industry looks very different than it did in the 1970s. But despite all of the changes, including but not limited to technology, ownership, and job stability, have journalists changed as well? This research uses a case study approach (interviews, observations, and surveys) at a small-market converged newspaper/television/online news operation to explore how journalists define themselves in an ever-changing environment. This paper first discusses the amount of change in general this particular news staff has experienced in the last five years, asks how they feel about those changes, and then focuses in on their feelings about management driven exploration of what is sometimes called “community” or “public” journalism. This paper describes a staff facing its own conflicting attitudes about change and the future of their jobs, while also determined to hold onto what they find to be special about their profession. It concludes with a discussion about the normative implications of these findings for journalism and for the society which the journalists are supposed to serve.”

“Am I Pretty?” YouTube Answers. • Azeta Hatef • The purpose of this study is to uncover the motivations and effects of creating an “Am I Pretty or Ugly?” YouTube video. We are able to infer the young women’s motivations for creating and uploading videos through content analysis of words and actions as well as viewer’s comments. Analysis of data illustrates the strongest relationships correlate with the amount of activity on a YouTube video page rather than the level of attractiveness of the video creator.

Twitter’s Role in the Modern Newsroom: Circumventing the Gatekeepers and Pounding the Digital Pavement • Keren Henderson, Louisiana State University; Andrea Miller, LSU • Is social media so convenient that journalists are replacing traditional news routines with Twitter? Analyzing a survey of 166 local television news workers, this study offers insights into use of Twitter in the newsroom, rates of adoption, who journalists are following, and their attitudes toward the value of Twitter as a story idea source.

Perceived Realism, Enjoyment, and News Perception in the Context of Stereotypes: The Influence of Stereotypic Portrayals of Gender Roles on Attitudes toward News Stories • Jennifer Hoewe, The Pennsylvania State University; Alyssa Appelman, The Pennsylvania State University; Elise Stevens, The Pennsylvania State University • This study explores the relationship between stereotypic beliefs and subsequent attitudes, specifically how beliefs about women relate to attitudes toward news stories about a stay-at-home parent. A between-subjects experiment revealed that participants with more stereotypic beliefs about women thought a news story about a stay-at-home mother was more realistic than one about a stay-at-home father. Regardless of story condition, stereotypic beliefs about women were associated with negative attitudes regarding perceived realism, enjoyment, and news perception.

It’s All About Me: Narcissism and User-Generated Content on Facebook • Todd Holmes, University of Florida • It is thought that the content-generating capabilities of Facebook are leading to higher levels of narcissism within our society. A survey (N=344) was conducted that assessed a number of Facebook behaviors: self-promotion, ensuring a large network of friends, retaliation/anger over critical remarks, and entitlement/exploitativeness. Results were mixed concerning self-promotional behaviors and entitlement/exploitativeness, but were consistent with ensuring a large friend network and retaliating and becoming angry over negative comments.

Morally Engaged and Cognitively Mixed: The Prosocial Effects of Exposure to Unpleasant Media Violence on Charitable Giving • T. Franklin Waddell, Penn State; Edward Downs, University of Minnesota Duluth; James Ivory, Virginia Tech; Kwaku Akom, Virginia Tech; Marcela Weber, The University of the South; Desmond Hayspell, Southside Virginia Community College • Although media violence is generally assumed to desensitize psychological and physiological responses to real world violence, it should not be assumed that all violent content produces uniform, negative effects. An experiment found that individuals who viewed a media clip that portrayed the consequences of domestic abuse were more likely to donate money to a charitable organization for international victims of violence. These results provide evidence that exposure to some media violence can promote prosocial behaviors.

Occupying the Civil Rights Movement: Cable News Framing of Contemporary Protest through Historical Memory • Sarah Jackson, Northeastern University • This paper examines if and how public memory of the civil rights movement was put into action by newsmakers seeking to frame understandings of Occupy Wall Street on two of America’s most polarized news networks. A descriptive and discursive analysis reveals the differential journalistic values, and presumptions of core American values, that influence coverage of social movements on Fox News and MSNBC. Implications for debates about social change in the public sphere are discussed.

Promoting broadband and ICT access for persons with disabilities: International comparison of case studies • Krishna Jayakar, Penn State University; Chun Liu, Southwest Jiaotong University; Gary Madden, Curtin University; Eun-A Park, University of New Haven • Despite the promise of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and broadband to improve the lives of persons with disabilities, there are wide disparities in access and usage of ICTs between disabled and non-disabled populations. This paper researches ten case studies of policies and programs promoting ICT and broadband access for persons with disabilities in the leading economies of the Asia-Pacific region, in order to identify successful programs on the basis of effectiveness and cost efficiency.

The Features of Hegemonic Masculinity in Korea • Jaehyeon Jeong, Temple University • This study, focusing on the Korean variety-talk show, investigates how popular media form people’s consent to hegemonic masculinity, and what features of hegemonic masculinity are (re) produced through media discourses. The features of hegemonic masculinity are discussed in terms of the exclusion of the feminine, the exclusion of female masculinity, homophobia, and the division of labor.

The Priming of Arab – Israeli Stereotypes: How News Stories May Enhance or Inhibit Audience Stereotypes • Erika Johnson, University of Missouri • Present research shows that there is no study examining media representation of Arab women and Israeli women as a prime causing stereotype activation in Americans. The goal of this study was to understand how news stories about Arab and Israeli women prime stereotypes in Americans, extending research on priming and ethnic media representation. A 2 (female target ethnicity: Arab and Israeli) x 3 (depiction type: prototypical, non-prototypical, and control) x 3 (multiple messages) mixed factorial design was conducted to examine how depiction and ethnicity in news story stimuli would interact with stereotype activation and accuracy (N = 107). Results showed that participants exhibited higher stereotyping after reading prototypical stories about Arab women and after they were not primed by stories. Also, participants who read non-prototypical news stories about Arab women showed reduced stereotyping. The results give meaningful implications for scholars and journalists, including possibilities for expanding research and improving coverage.

Promoting the Tan Ideal? Does Exposure to Tanned versus Untanned Images Affect College Women’s Attractiveness Motivations for Tanning • Hannah Kang, University of Florida; Kim Walsh-Childers, University of Florida; Sarah Lashley, University of Florida • This study investigated how exposure to mass media images promoting a tanned appearance influence attractiveness motivations for tanning and how exposure affects tanning intentions. The study was based in social cognitive and social comparison theories. The participants were 106 undergraduate women who were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions (light, moderate or dark tan or control). The results indicated that attractiveness motivation for tanning was a predictor of sunbathing expectations and tanning salon use expectations at pre-test and post-test. However, exposure to models displaying different tan levels had no significant impact on women’s attractiveness motivations, body satisfaction, intentions to sunbathe in the future or intentions to engage in indoor tanning. Implications and limitations of the findings are addressed in the study.

Placing Blame and Seeking Solutions: Media Framing of School Shootings • Ana Keshelashvili; Kenneth Cardell, University of South Carolina • Analyzing newspaper articles and television transcripts, this study explores how American news media have framed the issue of school shootings in the United States. More specifically, through an examination at both the individual and societal levels, this research seeks to understand attributions of responsibility represented within the news coverage. Using a representative sample of newspaper and television news transcripts covering school shootings between 1999 and 2012, this study employs content analysis method to explore how the media has addressed the questions of who is responsible for school shootings and what can be done about them. Implications of findings, as well as suggestions for future research are also considered.

News Use and Cognitive Elaboration The Mediating Role of People’s Perception of Media Complex Issues Comprehension • Ji won Kim; Monica Chadha; Homero Gil de Zuniga • Using a two-wave panel data, the study attempted to find the relationship between news consumption and news cognitive elaboration while accommodating for the role of media perception. The results showed the mediating role of media perception in this relationship. The study contributes to the existing literature by introducing a new perception variable and examining its relationships with elaboration to make theoretical advancement and social implications in the democratic society.

Facebook, “Frenemy?”: Examining the Relationship between Exposure to Facebook Profiles and Body Image • Ji Won Kim, Syracuse University • This study examined the relationship between exposure to Facebook profiles and body image. From the online survey of 175 respondents, results showed that the Facebook usage was correlated with higher levels of self-objectification and appearance comparison, and the hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-objectification and appearance comparison mediated the relation between Facebook usage (Facebook Intensity, Facebook usage for social grooming) and body shame.

Investigating the Role of Motivated Reasoning on Third-Person Perceptions of PSAs • Nam Young Kim, Sam Houston State University • Since Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are perceived as socially valuable and promote positive behavioral changes, scholars have found that people tend to estimate larger impacts on themselves (i.e., a first-person effect) than on others (Cho & Han, 2004; Duck & Mullin, 1995; Gunther & Hwa, 1996). However, empirical studies have shown that individuals’ behavioral differences or a message’s features can evoke different estimates of media impacts on the self and on others (Duck & Mullin, 1995; Duck, Terry, & Hogg, 1995). In particular, when people are exposed to information that is inconsistent with their prior beliefs, it can be perceived as personally irrelevant as a defensive tactic toward the dissonance in their cognition (i.e., motivated reasoning) according to Keller and Block (1999). Using a 2 (Fear Appeal: High vs. Low) X 2 (Prior Attitudes: Negative vs. Positive) factorial experiment, this study therefore investigates how the dissonance between level of fears and individuals’ prior beliefs boosts their defensive information processing and influences the PSAs effects on both themselves and others in the context of an anti-binge drinking health campaign. The results show that there were no significant interaction effects between level of fears and participants’ prior attitudes toward drinking alcohol, which might differentiate third-person perceptions across conditions. However, a negative scores of other-self difference implies that participants generally evaluated the PSA effects on others is greater than the effects on themselves. The findings have practical and theoretical implications for future studies on the use of emotional appeals in PSAs.

Forewarning of Persuasive Intent: The Role of Regulatory Focus and Brand Attachment • Sang Lee; Hongmin Ahn • Forewarning people of incoming persuasive information often results in decrease in persuasion by conferring resistance to persuasion. The present research explored the forewarning effects and the moderating roles of regulatory focus and brand attachment in a public relations context. The results of a 2x2x2 factorial design experiment (N = 217) showed that forewarning of persuasive intent interacts with regulatory focus and brand attachment to influence participants’ attitudes and persuasiveness of the information. Specifically, the study showed that the impact of forewarning is more pronounced in prevention-focused than in promotion-focused conditions. It also showed that the impact of forewarning is less pronounced when participants’ brand attachment is high.

To Boldly Go: A Comparison of Early and Modern Gender Roles in Science Fiction Television • Alicia Linn, Oakland University • Through viewing the long-running United Kingdom shows “Doctor Who” (1963) and “Doctor Who” (2005), along with the United States shows “Star Trek” (1966) and “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” one can see shifts in gender expectations for both men and women in science fiction. These shifts can be linked to cultural expectations of gender roles. Using a list of stereotypical qualities typically associated with each gender, I have determined a few of these shifts. Contentious discourse and dynamic frames: The interplay among online public opinion, media report, and government discourse in public event • Shiwen Wu; Na Liu • How do online public opinion, mainstream media, and government construct interpretative frames towards contentious social events? Employing a content analysis of 765 online posts, 87 commercial media reports, 77 party media reports, and 14 government releases regarding a sociopolitical event in China, we test the frame building and frame interacting impacts originated from the four actors. We find that each actor constructs divergent but interrelated frames by employing different functions of the frames.

Second-Level Agenda Setting in 140 Characters: How Journalists Used Twitter to Report the Newtown Shooting • Megan Mallicoat, University of Florida • This study explores second-level agenda setting and social media through a content analysis of journalists’ tweets during a 10-day period following the Newtown, Conn., shooting. The results show gun control was by far the cognitive attribute most frequently identified, followed by timeline and story details, news content, and emotional reactions. They also show that, in terms of affective attributes, the tweets were neutral in about half the cases, but negativity increased as time progressed.

Educational TV Consumption and Children’s Interest in Leisure Reading and Writing: A Test of the Validated Curriculum Hypothesis • Nicole Martins, Department of Telecommunications; Jakob Jensen, University of Utah • The relationship between children’s TV consumption and literacy outcomes is currently unclear as past research has identified both linear (positive and negative) and curvilinear trends. It has been suggested that one source of variance in this relationship is the content children consume; specifically, researchers have argued that research-based educational TV programming (e.g., Between the Lions) should be positively related to literacy outcomes whereas non research-based programming (e.g., Boohbah) should be negatively related to literacy outcomes (what we refer to as the validated curriculum hypothesis). To test this hypothesis directly, fourth and fifth graders (N = 120) completed a survey assessing educational TV consumption and leisure reading/writing behaviors. The results upheld the validated curriculum hypothesis and revealed several key moderators including composite TV consumption and parent’s reading behavior. The results help to rectify conflicting results in the literature, support the validated curriculum hypothesis, and underscore the value of research-based educational TV programming.

Handheld Media Use at School: Increased Use Negatively Impacts Reading Outcomes • Nicholas Matthews, Indiana University; Jakob Jensen, University of Utah; Nicole Martins, Department of Telecommunications; Rebecca Ivic, The University of Akron • Two studies were conducted to investigate the possibility that portable video game (PVG) devices and cell phones displaced children’s leisure reading. In study one, 120 fourth and fifth grade children completed a survey about their media habits and found that bringing PVG devices to school and talking on cell phones negatively related to leisure reading. In study two, 136 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders completed a similar survey and found that cell phones but not PVGs negatively related to children’s leisure reading. These data extend the displacement literature by illuminating the impact these newer technologies have on reading outcomes.

Vicarious Experience: Experimentally Testing the Effects of Empathy for Media Characters with Severe Depression and the Intervening Role of Perceived Similarity • Robert McKeever, University of South Carolina • This study reports results from a 3-condition experiment (N = 80), wherein participants either read an article about a person (high vs. low social similarity) struggling with severe depression or no article (control), before viewing a stimulus website for a faux peer support organization. The results indicated that the level of empathic responses, positive attitudes, and the likelihood of engaging in helping behaviors, might be enhanced after reading about a socially similar person with depression.

A comparative study of the propaganda devices used by FOX and MSNBC • Aimee Meader, University of Texas at Austin • This study investigates the use of propaganda devices on two cable networks: FOX and MSNBC. These devices work to sway audiences toward a conservative or liberal ideology, respectively, and may increase the political divide through rhetorical manipulation. A contextual content analysis found that MSNBC used more testimonials and name-calling than FOX, but FOX used more fear appeals. The results of this study may partially explain why partisan often fail to see eye-to-eye.

Citizens as Opinion Leaders: Exploring the Effects of Citizen Journalism on Opinion Leadership • Seungahn Nah, University of Kentucky; Kang Namkoong, University of Kentucky; Stephanie Van Stee, University of Kentucky; Rachael Record, University of Kentucky • This study explores the effects of citizen journalism on opinion leadership concerning community issues and nonprofit and voluntary organizations. Results from a quasi-experiment showed that there were no differences in opinion leadership between the treatment and control groups. However, the results also revealed that the diversity of news sources produced (i.e., use of both web and human sources in news articles produced by citizen journalists) yielded a positive relationship with opinion leadership changes.

Public Risk Perception of Food Hazards: Understanding The Relationships Between Communication Channels, Risk Perceptions and Preventive Behavioral Intentions • SANG HWA OH, University of South Carolina; Sei-Hill Kim; Jea Chul Shim, Korea University; Jeong-Heon JC Chang, Korea University; Hwalbin Kim, University of South Carolina • Using food-safety issues in South Korea, this study examines whether two levels of risk perception – personal and societal – are related with people’s precautionary behaviors. Our findings point to the important role of personal risk perception in shaping South Korean’s precautionary behaviors for food-safety. We also look into the role of communication channels in shaping the public’s risk perceptions. Findings indicate that interpersonal communication and reading of online news are positively related with personal risk perception.

“Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do”: The Divine and the Damned in News Coverage of Executed Texas Death Row Inmates • Gregory Perreault; Berkley Hudson; Delia Cai • This historical analysis examines selected newspaper coverage of the last words of executed death row inmates in Texas, U.S.A. from 1982-2000. This study seeks to place the words of those silenced within the context of history and media coverage. It focuses on themes of religion, spirituality, and forgiveness. The findings argue that the prominence of spiritual themes in the newspaper coverage serves as a humanizing story element in contrast with the brutality of the crimes. This research builds on Campbell’s theory of myth (1988), examining the degree to which the newspapers themselves serve as a reifying, perpetuating ritual role in their coverage of executions.

Rediscovering Media-Value Associations in the Internet Age • Chris Roberts, University of Alabama • An update and improvement to a 1981 study shows that, more than ever, participants associate specific media channels with specific values. In 2011, digital natives and immigrants replicated 1981 research by associating Rokeach’s 36 values statements with mass media channels. Data were analyzed using Rokeach’s approach and by Schwartz’s and Bilsky’s motivational domains. Adding the Internet introduced many value shifts from 1981, as well as revealing significant differences between contemporary younger and older participants. The Internet was perceived high for “freedom” as well as many instrumental, achievement and self-direction values. Newspapers remained associated with a preponderance of values, but with many changes in intensity. Television remained affiliated with many terminal and self-focused values, while radio and magazine associations remained flat.

Explaining third-person perceptions: Comparing self-enhancement, social distance, exposure, normative fit, and exemplar accessibility explanations • Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University; Michael Boyle • Although many explanations are offered for third-person effects, few studies directly measure and compare multiple theories. We present participants with three distinct types of media meant to evoke varied third- and first-person perceptions, and measure how well each theory predicts the perceptual gaps. Results show that the acceptability of influence and ability to think of examples of influence best predict both expected influences and perceptual gaps.

Television Viewing and the Cultivation of Attitudes toward American Exceptionalism • Laras Sekarasih, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Gregory Blackburn, University of Massachusetts Amherst • This study examined the cultivation of attitudes toward American Exceptionalism. Controlling for demographic attributes, television viewing predicted pride in being American, but not attitudes toward U.S. unilateralism. Significant two-way interactions between television viewing and gender and political orientations in predicting attitudes towards U.S. unilateralism were found. Among male and liberal participants, more television viewing was associated with more positive attitudes toward unilateralism. An indirect relationship between television viewing and unilateralism was found through American pride.

Effectiveness of Entertainment-Education in Communicating Health Information: A Systematic Review • Fuyuan Shen; Ashley Han • This paper conducted a meta-analysis of published research on entertainment-education and health communication. A search of databases identified 22 studies (N = 19517) that met our inclusion criteria and contained relevant statistics. Analysis of the results suggested that overall, entertainment-education’s effects on health outcomes—as measured by knowledge, attitudes, intention and behaviors—was small but significant, with an average effect size (r) of .11 (p < .001). This effect size did not vary significantly across channels, health issues, study locations, and participants’ gender. However, research designs (surveys vs. experiments) and exposure time were significant moderators of entertainment education’s impact on health outcomes.

Being a Truth-Teller Who Serves Only the Citizens: A Case Study of Newstapa • Wooyeol Shin, University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities • This study explores the boundary work of the Korean independent newsroom Newstapa. The journalistic value of truth-telling is emphasized in Newstapa’s practices. Newstapa journalists, who previously worked in mainstream media, open the boundaries of professional work by embracing the nascent practices of digital culture. Although this process causes the journalists to relinquish their autonomy to the citizens, it leads to their being exclusively accountable journalists who serve only the citizens through truth-telling.

Trust, Happiness and the Watch-Dog: Social Trust in the Context of a Free Press • Heather Shoenberger, University of Missouri; Freya Sukalla, University of Augsburg, Germany • We conducted a hierarchical analysis using data from 45 countries from the World Values Survey wave with data from 2004 to 2008 and matching these with country information on the level of press freedom collected by Freedom House to simultaneously test for differences in levels of social trust among individuals and, more importantly, for variations in social trust between countries with different levels of press freedom. We also extend the theory of trust by examining the influence of press freedom as an important contextual factor. We find that countries with higher levels of freedom of the press (i.e., more free) are more likely to have a citizenry who report higher trust in their fellow citizens.

Media Credibility and Disaster: The Moderating Role of Information Satisfaction in Post-Earthquake Haiti • Erich Sommerfeldt, University of Maryland; Jennifer Mandel • The 2010 earthquake in Haiti left survivors in desperate need of information. This study examined if satisfaction with the availability of information moderated the relationship between frequency of radio use and perceptions of radio credibility. From data acquired in Haiti (N = 1,808), analyses revealed an interaction effect between radio usage and information satisfaction on the perceived credibility of radio. Lower satisfaction levels were found to enhance the relationship between frequency of use and credibility.

Once Upon a [Mediated] Time: How Retrospective Television Programs Shape Cultural Memory • Vivian Sponholtz, University of Florida • This paper examines how television shapes Cultural Memory through episodic retrospective dramas concerning gender equity in the workplace. It argues that television, as a ritually-viewed, performance-based, storytelling medium, which bridges the gap between orality and textuality, influences the cultural understanding of history and sense of identity for women through historic portrayals. Based on Cultural Memory theory, Social Cognition theory, and Transportation theory, and the Bechdel-Wallace Test, a typology of television programs as fables is proposed.

Constructing Digital Childhoods in Taiwan newspaper • Ping Shaw; Yue Tan • With a content analysis of news reports in the most popular children’s newspaper in Taiwan, this study examined the media framing of child computer users in Taiwan by showing how Taiwan media represent and construct childhoods and frame the impact of digital technology on children in order to explain how cultural assumptions of children’s nature, status, and needs influence the media representation, and as being mediated by children’s age and living domains (home vs. school).

FYI on FOI: Exploring the effects of freedom of information (FOI) laws around the world • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia • Many democracies, young and old, have instituted Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. FOI scholars and advocates argued that having an FOI law contributes to curbing corruption and improving standards of living. But having an FOI law can be different from effectively implementing it. Pooling together indices summarizing data from 168 countries, this study revisits the assumption that having an FOI law and implementing it can curb corruption and improve quality of life.

CNN’s Coverage of the 2012 Presidential Debates: Balanced or Liberally Biased? • Steven Voorhees, Rutgers University • Following the 2012 presidential election season, conservatives charged cable news networks CNN and MSNBC as being liberally biased in their news coverage. While MSNBC openly acknowledges its progressive leanings, CNN has maintained a commitment to balanced journalism. This study conducts a comparative rhetorical and semiotic analysis of both networks’ coverage following the three highly watched presidential debates to see if CNN holds to its balanced commitments. Results indicate a wide separation between the two networks.

Conflict avoidance, context collapse: Young citizens and politics on Facebook • Emily Vraga, George Mason University; Kjerstin Thorson, University of Southern California; Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, University of Southern California; Emily Gee, University of Southern California • Social networking sites like Facebook increasingly shape youth engagement with politics, but little is known about how individuals manage election-related content in this social space. This study combines twenty in-depth interviews with a survey of young adults to examine how individual predispositions and Facebook network characteristics shape attitudes and behaviors towards sharing political content. Our results suggest young adults perceive delicate norms governing political expression on Facebook, where mostly a motivated minority posts political content.

“Unbelievable job numbers”: Bias claims, economic reporting, and the 2012 presidential election • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • This content analysis addresses a specific claim of quantifiable media bias arising from coverage of unemployment statistics in the 2012 presidential campaign. Partisan assertions about what the media “always” do for Republicans or Democrats are often easy to dismantle, but the framing of economic issues provides a chance to examine real, rather than imagined, press performance. Results suggest that partisanship is hard to find among the ideologies that appear to influence how economic news is presented during elections. More influential is professionalism – despite the apparently contradictory forms it takes in different media sectors.

Meaningfully Moved, but Emotionally Mixed: The Dual Effects of Inspiring, Meaningful Films on Viewers’ Enjoyment of Media Violence • T. Franklin Waddell, Penn State; Stefanie Davis; Erica Bailey • Recent research suggests that media violence interventions can reduce the negative effects of media violence by affecting viewers’ preferences for violent media content. An experiment tested whether exposing participants to an inspiring, meaningful film could be used to reduce viewers’ subsequent enjoyment of media violence. Results suggest that inspiring films elicit co-occurring emotional responses that both enhance and inhibit the enjoyment of media violence. The moderating role of viewers’ hedonic orientation is also discussed.

She should have/She shouldn’t have: Examining the effect of combined news frames in sexual health on people’s emotions, perceptions of societal responsibility, and social policy intentions • Kimberly Walker, Indiana University School of Journalism, Indianapolis • This study manipulated two variables in an experimental design–cognitive framing (thematic/episodic) and affective framing (gain/loss)–to determine whether changing the way newspaper stories report HPV and teen pregnancy alters readers’ emotions, attribution of societal responsibility, and intentions to support health policy changes. Results revealed the affective gain frame led to more positive audience emotions, support for societal responsibility and intentions to support health policy changes. No interaction effects between frames were found.

Murder She Searched: The Effect of Violent Crime and News Coverage on Residents’ Search for Crime-Related Information • Brendan Watson, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • This paper examines the agenda-setting effect of local news coverage of crime and local violent crime rates on local residents’ Google searches for crime-related information. These web searches can be viewed as manifestations of the latent cognitive salience of an issue. The time-series analysis found that while news coverage, which does not reflect changes in “real-world” conditions (i.e., changes in the violent crime rate), does affect searches in the short-term, in the longer-term violent crime, not coverage, has an agenda-setting effect on local residents’ searches for crime-related information.

‘Child of Mine:’ Impacts of Prolonged Media Exposure on Women’s Fertility Desires • Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, The Ohio State University; Laura Willis, The Ohio State University; Ashley Kennard • A prolonged exposure experiment examined whether media portrayals of women’s social roles affect fertility desires with childless adult women. Participants viewed magazines pages five days in a row. Stimuli presented women either in mother/homemaker roles, professional roles, or beauty ideal roles. Exposure to mother/homemaker and beauty ideal portrayals increased the number of desired children across time. Exposure to the professional portrayal increased the time planned until first birth compared to the beauty ideal portrayal.

Not on my watch: A textual analysis of local and national newspaper coverage of the Martin-Zimmerman case • Erin Willis, University of Memphis; Chad Painter, Eastern New Mexico University • The shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman made national newspaper headlines. Textual analysis was used to examine news framing of race and crime in news coverage. Five themes are discussed: (1) the Sanford Herald compared to national newspapers, (2) Zimmerman’s mysterious race, (3) uneven descriptors of Martin and Zimmerman, (4) the case being used as a platform for discussion of larger issues such as race and gun control, and (5) the infamous “hoodie.”

Use of SNSs, Political Efficacy, and Civic Engagement Among Chinese College Students: Effects of Gratifications and Network Size • Qian Xu, Elon University; Lingling Qi, Nanjing University • A survey (N=471) was conducted to explore the impact of social networking site (SNS) use on political efficacy and civic engagement among Chinese college students. SNS network size positively predicted civic engagement, but not political efficacy. Social connection gratification positively predicted both internal efficacy and engagement in political voice, whereas entertainment gratification negatively predicted external efficacy and engagement in political voice. Information seeking gratification did not significantly correlate with either political efficacy or civic engagement.

A Multilevel Analysis of Individual- and Prefecture-Level Sources of Media Trust in Japan • Masahiro Yamamoto, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Weina Ran • Previous research has examined various sources of media trust including media consumers’ political stands and media use, objectivity in news reports, and perceived biases stemming from journalists’ political leanings. The goal of this study is to examine community contextual sources of media trust. Data from the Japanese General Social Surveys reveal that community structural pluralism and political heterogeneity have independent negative effects on audiences’ trust in the media.

Antecedents to Media Use: Effects of Parent Socialization and Childhood Behavior on Consumption Patterns During Adulthood • Chance York, Louisiana State University; Rosanne Scholl, LSU • Whether the media choices of adults are influenced by the socializing role of family during childhood is a largely unexplored question. Using parent-child panel data, this study shows that parent media behaviors and childhood media use influence news and entertainment consumption patterns later in life. Media consumption patterns, which have been shown to influence political knowledge and voter turnout, appear to be learned and habituated during childhood.

Insight for Policy-Making:Mothers’ Opinions of TV Snack/Fast-Food Advertising Aimed at Children Regarding Its Overall Amount, Content, and Influence on Their Children’s Health • Jay (Hyunjae) Yu • This exploratory study investigated the opinions of mothers who had at least one child between the ages of 7 and 12 on TV snack/fast-food advertising targeted at children. Mothers’ opinions were assessed concerning the amount of this advertising, its content, its influence on children’s health, and the need for stricter regulation of such content. The present research also examined whether there was a social distance or third person effect active in the mothers’ opinions about the influence of TV snack/fast-food advertising on children by identifying their opinions about the effects on their own children, their friends’ children, and the children of people they didn’t know. The results showed that most mothers in this study believed that there were too many TV snack/fast-food advertisements for their children to avoid, and the content of these advertisements should be improved, even if this required stricter regulation. However, it was also found that the mothers believed the children of people they didn’t know were more negatively influenced by exposure to TV snack/fast-food advertising compared to their own children. Thus, the third person effect was observed. There was evident complexity in mothers’ opinions about TV snack/fast-food advertising. Mothers hesitated to say that TV snack/fast-food advertising was the most important influence on their children’s eating habits, and even though they were generally negative about the impact of TV snack/fast-food advertising on their children and wanted to see greater regulation of content, they did not think that adverting was the most important factor influencing their children’s eating habits and health. Rather, they thought that they were, and should be, the most important mediator of how many TV advertisements their children watched and what kinds of food their children ate.

Framing depression: Cultural and organizational influence on coverage of a public health threat and attribution of responsibilities in U.S. news media • Yuan Zhang; Yan Jin; Jeannette Porter; Sean Stewart • We conducted the first study of how U.S. news media covered depression over the past three decades. We analyzed how media framed depression thematically vs. episodically and attributed causal and problem-solving responsibilities at personal vs. societal levels. We also explored how cultural and organizational factors influenced the frame building process. U.S. news media relied on thematic framing to cover the issue but placed more causal and problem-solving responsibilities on the individual than on the society.

A self-created spiral of silence?: Modeling the effects of media reliance and perceived media diversity on opinion expression • Xinyan Zhao, University of Maryland • This study investigated the effects of media reliance and perceived media diversity on individuals’ opinion expression intention and the psychological mechanism underlying such effects. Both direct and indirect effects of media reliance and perceived media diversity on people’s opinion expression were tested and compared. Using data from a survey of 317 undergraduates in China, it was found that: (1) Perceived media diversity does not directly predict one’s willingness to speak out; instead, it moderates the relationship between opinion congruency and individual opinion expression; (2) newspaper reliance has both a positive direct and indirect influence (through self-efficacy) on individual opinion expression; (3) perceived diversity of Internet rather than the perceived diversity of traditional mass media is positively related to self-efficacy and individual opinion expression.

<<2013 Abstracts

Magazine 2013 Abstracts

“Trail of Corpses”: Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report’s Coverage of Genocide in Southern Sudan, 1989-2005 • Sally Ann Cruikshank • This study examines how three U.S. national magazines, Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, framed the conflict in southern Sudan. Based on a textual analysis of the reports, the most salient frame associated with the conflict throughout all the coverage was that it was a “religious” civil war. In all three magazines, two dominant themes emerged: famine and the way children were being affected by the war. The implications of these findings are discussed at length.

Magazines in the new millennium: A concept explication • Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri • The format, content, and appearance of magazines have changed considerably during their history. As a result, the already fluid definition of “magazine” is changing. Following the steps described by McLeod and Pan (2005), this paper explicates “magazine.” After describing the history of magazines in America, the paper analyzes the definitions that have been assigned to magazines and examines their empirical properties. Lastly, the author proposes a new conceptual definition of “magazine” and suggests operational procedures.

Development of Men’s Magazines Industry in Taiwan • Chingshan Jiang, University of Nebraska at Kearney • The emergence of men’s magazines in Taiwan forms an interesting case study when looking at the growth of global media. Not only are men’s magazines popular in Taiwan, but they also shape readers’ attitudes about masculinity. International men’s magazines in Taiwan have had a significant influence on the format and content of local men’s magazines. Furthermore, the globalization of men’s magazines which includes foreign fashion, lifestyle, Western masculinity and editorials suitable for advertising has had an impact on the design and content of local men’s magazines in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to examine how men’s magazines in Taiwan are constructed as hybrids incorporating both local and international cultures.

Exploring How College Magazines Portray Science and Scientists: A Comparative Analysis of Harvard Magazine and KU (Korea University) Today • Hwalbin Kim, University of South Carolina; Jeong-Heon JC Chang, Korea University • This study explores how two college magazines – Harvard Magazine and KU Today – portray science and scientists. Based on a framing theory as a theoretical framework, we conducted a content analysis of science stories. Findings of this analysis show that Harvard Magazine framed science as the progress issue while KU Today portrayed science as the convergence and communication theme. As elite media, the university magazine can serve as a guide for news dealing with scientific research.

Between academia and journalism: Formation of the intellectual field in postwar South Korea (1953-59) • Ah-Reum Kim, The University of Tokyo • This study investigates the close ties between the media and knowledge production by analyzing rise of the intellectual field. An intellectual group formed around the magazine, Sasanggye, is considered as a middle range of analytical tool and material conditions of 1950s’ South Korean intellectual society are examined. These conditions situate the intellectual field between journalistic and academic field and suggest the way in which intellectual paradigm of American knowledge was appropriated.

Examining the lens on the world: Reader negotiation of identity through National Geographic coverage of Puerto Rico • Andrew Mendelson, Temple University Journalism; Nancy Morris, Temple University • This study examines how a 2003 National Geographic Magazine article on Puerto Rico was interpreted by Puerto Ricans. Their reactions to their representation by a U.S. magazine that positions itself as an arbiter of cultural knowledge is supplemented by examination of NGM content and interviews with NGM staff. NGM faces new challenges in representing culture in the Internet era in which media representations of the “other” are increasingly available to the “other.”

“50 Ways to Seduce a Man” vs. “The Better Sex Diet”: A Content Analysis • Chelsea Reynolds, University of Minnesota • This study analyzed magazine framing of sex, sexuality, and sexual health. The researcher conducted a content analysis of 134 sex articles in 53 issues of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Redbook, Esquire, GQ, Maxim, Women’s Health, Self, Men’s Fitness, and Men’s Health. Consistent with previous examinations of magazine sex content, women’s and men’s health and lifestyle titles gave more attention sex as entertainment than they did to sexual health or human sexuality. Differences between genres’ frames are discussed.

Portrayal of a Man and his Magic: The Image of Walt Disney in Magazines from 1934-1969 • Andi Stein, Cal State Fullerton • This study focuses on the image of Walt Disney that was portrayed by the magazine media during his time as the head of the Walt Disney Studios and in the years following his death in 1966. The study evaluates the recurring themes that emerged in magazine articles written about Disney to show how these articles portrayed him as an individual as well as within the context of his leadership role in his company.

Men’s images in women’s eyes • Yan Yan • Although women and girls have long been reported under great pressures from the image of “ideal beauty” communicated by mass media, little research focuses on the mediated “ideal male” image and its potential influences on the women’s expectations of the men. The current research examined how the “ideal male” and its related constructs were communicated by four top female beauty and fashion magazines— Vogue, Elle, Glamour and Cosmopolitan in 12 countries. Results showed that the ideal male and its related constructs varied significantly across magazines, indicating that the representation of male subjects was greatly influenced by each magazine’s self-positioning strategies and editorial intentions. Culture played a unique role in the representation of ideal male image. In particular, the U.S. and European magazines kept a relevant cultural independency in male model selection, but other countries confronted with a danger of being assimilated into the Westernized standard.

<<2013 Abstracts

Law & Policy 2013 Abstracts

Open Competition

Documenting Fair Use • Jesse Abdenour, UNC-Chapel Hill • The United States Copyright Act of 1976 allows for fair use of copyrighted material under certain circumstances, but federal courts have been inconsistent in rulings on copyright infringement cases in which a documentary filmmaker claims fair use. This can be problematic for documentarians, since they often use copyrighted materials such as historical footage and songs. The “Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use,” released in 2005, aimed to clear up the confusion surrounding fair use in documentaries by providing guidelines for documentary filmmakers to follow. This paper analyzes relevant federal court cases in which a documentary maker was sued under the Federal Copyright Act for infringement and in which the court addressed the issue of whether the use was or was not covered by the fair use provisions in the Act. This case analysis is conducted in an effort to determine if the federal rulings in such cases have changed since the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement was released, as some have indicated. Federal cases in which a news organization or production company was sued under the Act for infringement due to the use of copyrighted reality footage are also examined, as well as the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement itself.

The FTC Enters The Blogosphere: The Marketplace of Ideas and The FTC’S Regulation of Blogger Speech • Cassandra Batchelder • In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission made a step into the 21st century by amending its Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. The new Guides target endorsements of products or services by bloggers who have a connection to the advertiser who sells the good or service and do not disclose this connection. While the Guides may provide clarity to consumers, they also raise concerns about the First Amendment rights of bloggers. This paper employs a marketplace of ideas approach and examines the three instances since the Guides’ enactment in 2009 when the FTC relied on the Guides in its work. The paper finds that the Guides improperly treat all blogger speech as commercial speech and do not further the goals underlying the marketplace of ideas in the online context. The paper concludes that the FTC’s action to date have targeted advertisers, which faces far few First Amendment concerns, and that the Guides should be modified to reflect the FTC’s goal of encouraging advertisers to be honest about their dealings with bloggers.

Forcing the Web to Forget: The “right to be forgotten,” free expression, and access to information • Cheryl Ann Bishop, Non • New technologies provide instantaneous communication and access to information escalating tensions between the right to information privacy and rights to free expression and information in a digitized world. Recently the European Commission proposed a draft of new Data Protection Regulation, which includes the controversial “right to be forgotten,” a right to have one’s personal data erased from webpages. At the same time, the European Court of Justice is hearing a case on whether Google can be forced, under the Spanish “right to be forgotten” and the current EU data protection directive to removes links from its search indexes to webpages containing suspect personal information. This paper assessed implications for rights to free expression and information regarding the draft Data Protection Regulation and its proposed “right to be forgotten” by analyzing the pertinent sections of the draft and case law of the ECJ interpreting the current data protection directive. Drawing on this analysis, this paper assessed implications of a “right to be forgotten” in terms of the Google case currently being heard by the ECJ, and finds that there are possible negative implications for free expression and information regardless of outcome.

An “Actual Problem” in First Amendment Jurisprudence? Examining the Immediate Impact of Brown’s Proof-of-Causation Doctrine • Clay Calvert, University of Florida; Matthew Bunker, University of Alabama • This paper analyzes the immediate impact on First Amendment jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “direct causal link” requirement adopted in 2011 in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. Brown, in embracing an empirically focused proof-of-causation doctrine, marked the first time in the Court’s history it had used the phrase “direct causal link” in any free-speech case. But just one year later, the Court again deployed it a very different factual context in United States v. Alvarez to strike down a federal law making it a crime to lie about earning military medals. Then, in December 2012, a federal judge used Brown’s “direct causal link” test to enjoin a California law that prohibits healthcare providers from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with gay minors. The paper explores problems with adopting Brown’s quantitative and empirical causation standard in cases like Alvarez where an intangible injury (reputational harm) to an inanimate object (a medal) is the alleged compelling interest. Bridging doctrine with theory, the paper also examines how the direct causal link requirement comports with the marketplace of ideas theory upon which much of First Amendment jurisprudence is premised.

Fights From the First Amendment Fringes: Debating the Meaning of “Speech” Amid Shifting Cultural Mores & Changing Technologies • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • This paper examines the meaning of the word “speech” in the First Amendment, using three cases from 2012 as analytical springboards for both legal and cultural analysis. The cases center on whether tattooing and tattoos, “Liking” on Facebook, and begging for money constitute speech. The subjects were chosen, in part, because they force judges to confront shifting cultural stereotypes or technological advances. The paper draws on scholarly literature beyond the law to contextualize these skirmishes within broader cultural, social and/or technological frameworks. The paper concludes by identifying principles at the macro and micro levels distilled from the cases.

Lost in Translation: Reviewing the Stored Communications Act in Practice • Robyn Caplan, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University • Though the Stored Communications Act has faced criticism for being outdated, little has been done to revise the Act to reflect technological changes in remote storage and computing practices. And yet, can the judiciary system be tasked with the responsibility of interpreting the SCA to reflect current technological reality? This paper examines two subpoenas issued under the SCA to investigate the impact of the use of outdated technical distinctions on decisions governing the privacy and surveillance of data.

Sexual Conversion Therapy and Freedom of Speech • Kara Carnley, University of Florida; Brittany Link, University of Florida; Linda Riedemann, University of Florida • This paper analyzes, from both a doctrinal and theoretical perspective, the First Amendment speech interests now at stake before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Welch v. Brown and Pickup v. Brown. Those cases pivot on a new California law banning mental health providers from performing sexual orientation change efforts (conversion therapy) on minors. Two district court judges reached radically different conclusions about the First Amendment questions in December 2012. The paper explores how three recent Supreme Court decisions involving seemingly disparate factual scenarios – Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, United States v. Alvarez and Gonzales v. Carhart – and three venerable theories of free speech – the marketplace of ideas, democratic self-governance and individual self-realization – might affect the outcome of the cases on appeal.

The Arrival of Real Malicia: Actual Malice in Inter-American Court of Human Rights • Edward Carter, Brigham Young University • The Inter-American Court of Human Rights decided two cases in recent years that represent a significant step for freedom of expression in nations that belong to the Organization of American States. In 2004, the Court had stopped short of adopting a standard that would require proof of “actual malice” in criminal defamation cases brought by public officials. In 2008 and 2009, however, the Court did adopt actual malice in two similar cases. The Court’s progress toward actual malice is chronicled and the ramifications of that jurisprudential development for Central and South America are discussed.

The State of Indecency Law: A Positive and Normative Evaluation of the Fox Cases • Kevin Delaney, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This past summer, after nearly a decade of litigation, the Supreme Court released its long-awaited ruling in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. In Fox, many experts thought the Court would deem unconstitutional the government’s regulation of broadcast indecency. The Court did not, however. Rather, the Court offered a narrow holding that upheld the government’s regulations. This paper evaluates, both positively and normatively, the state of indecency regulation subsequent to the Court’s ruling in Fox.

Arab Media Regulations: Identifying restraints on freedom of the press in laws of six Arabian Peninsula countries • Matt Duffy, Georgia State University • This article analyzes media regulations of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries on the Arabian Peninsula—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The laws are analyzed and compared to international approaches that aim to balance freedom of expression against other societal obligations. The analysis shows that GCC laws go far beyond international norms in several areas including defamation, insults and criticisms, public order, and the banning of “false news.”

Transfer of Collective Journalistic Works from Real Space to Cyberspace under French and American Intellectual Property Law. • Lyombe Eko, University of Iowa • This article is a comparative analysis of how the exceptional intellectual property law regimes of the United States and France managed the legal conflicts that were spawned by the transfer of collective journalistic works published in newspapers and magazines in real space to cyberspace (digital electronic databases, servers, the Internet and the “cloud”). Both countries approached the issue within the framework of their respective, exceptional intellectual property law regimes. In the United States, courts refused to transfer wholesale, the law of collective works that is applicable to the print media in real space, to the dematerialized realities of searchable databases in cyberspace. In France, courts held that the unauthorized transfer of the journalistic work of both freelance and full-time journalists from real space to cyberspace violated the French Intellectual Property Code. While these controversies show that legal provisions governing the privileges of authors and the rights of individual contributors to collective works under intellectual property law are functionally equivalent in the United States and France, the contexts, and the philosophical rationales for the decisions are different.

The Impact of Next Generation Television on Consumers and the First Amendment • Rob Frieden, Penn State University • Consumers have access to an ever increasing inventory of video content choices as a result of technological innovations, more readily available broadband, new business plans, inexpensive high capacity storage and the Internet’s ability to serve as a single medium for a variety of previously standalone services delivered via different channels. They increasingly have little tolerance for “appointment television” that limits access to a particular time, channel and device. Access to video content is becoming a matter of using one of several software-configured interfaces capable of delivering live and recorded content anytime, anywhere, to any device and via many different transmission and presentation formats. Technological and marketplace convergence eliminate the viability of judicial and regulatory models that apply varying degrees of First Amendment protection as a function of the medium delivering the content. With the Internet serving as a single conduit for a variety of information, communications and entertainment (“ICE”), ventures can offer a bundle of services that span two or more regulatory classifications, e.g., the ability of wireless handsets to make telephone calls, to receive video programming and to access the Internet. This paper will examine the ongoing migration from channels to software-configured platforms for accessing video content with an eye toward assessing the impact on consumers and the First Amendment. The paper identifies the need for significant amendment of the Communications Act of 1934 to provide a light-handed and limited, but explicit statutory basis for the FCC to resolve predictable disputes between stakeholders and to remedy anticompetitive practices.

“Ag-Recording” Laws Disassembled • Emily Garnett, University of Missouri School of Journalism • Four “Ag-Recording laws” in place in Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah violate three major First Amendment rights. The laws are overly broad because they restrict a constitutionally protected form of speech, whistleblowing. They are content-based restrictions of speech that are not content-neutral, do not serve a compelling government interest, and are not minimally restrictive. Finally, two of the state laws in place in Kansas and Montana are examples of prior restraint.

Physicians, Firearms and Free Expression • Justin Hayes, University of Florida; Daniel Axelrod, University of Florida; Minch Minchin, University of Florida • This paper analyzes, from both a doctrinal and theoretical perspective, the First Amendment speech interests now at stake before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Wollschlaeger v. Farmer. The case pivots on Florida’s Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act, a statute supported by the National Rifle Association that limits physicians’ ability to question patients about gun ownership. The paper also addresses an issue unresolved by the Supreme Court in its abortion opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: What standard of scrutiny should apply to measure the validity of statutes affecting doctors’ speech within the doctor-patient relationship?

American Hemispheric Exceptionalisms: A comparative analysis of U.S. and Brazilian laws of defamation and racist speech • Brett Johnson, University of Minnesota • Two exceptionalisms exist in the American hemisphere: U.S. (i.e. “American”) exceptionalism, and Brazilian exceptionalism. These exceptionalisms are most evident within each country’s laws regarding racist speech and defamation. The United States permits racist, discriminatory, blasphemous and borderline defamatory speech like no other country. In Brazil, racism and other forms of hate speech are banned under constitutional and statutory law, and the law acts to protect the honor of citizens, especially public figures. This paper will compare these two areas of law within each country. The paper will address foundational cases and constitutional precepts in both the U.S. and Brazilian context and incorporate both U.S. and Brazilian legal theory in order to show how each exceptionalism plays a central role in its respective country’s civilization vision as both a hemispheric and global power.

New Media, New Guideline? • Hyosun Kim, University of North Carolina • This study examines the possible advertising regulatory issues surrounding DTC advertising of prescription drugs by analyzing NOVs and warning letters sent to pharmaceutical companies in the past five years, with particular attention to online media promotion. The study found that the fair balance issue is a concern for online pharmaceutical promotions of prescription drugs. In addition, the research shows that new alleged violation categories were added due to the advent of new media.

Cameras in the Courtroom 2.0: How Technology is Changing the Way Journalists Cover the Courts • Christina Locke Faubel, University of Florida • The “cameras in the courtroom” issue has expanded to include handheld image dissemination and real-time reporting using cell phones, laptops, and third-party platforms such as Twitter. This study examined the legal status of live-reporting with mobile devices in state and federal courtrooms across the country and developed both a model policy for courts on the use of electronic devices and a list of best practices for journalists.

The right to bear cannons: Reevaluating DDoS actions as civic protest • Vyshali Manivannan, Rutgers University School of Communication & Information • This article will reconstitute Distributed-Denial-of-Service actions as symbolic speech within a civil disobedience framework. It will consider technical, historical, and sociocultural inflections of law and policy concerning the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, DDoS case law, symbolic speech considerations, and semiotic disobedience of expressive altlaws. Finally, it will suggest a revision of legal frameworks and current DDoS strategies to redress the overreach and exorbitant punishments of the CFAA without exceeding First Amendment protections.

Drone Journalism: Using Unmanned Aircraft to Gather News and When Such Use Might Invade Privacy • Karen McIntyre, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Journalists in the United States have started gathering news by collecting photos, video, and other data using small drones – aircraft with no onboard pilot. The new use of this technology could benefit the future of journalism. However, it currently is illegal for private people or entities to operate drones for commercial purposes. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates drone use, is developing new rules that are expected to allow commercial drone use, but not until the end of 2015. Once journalists can legally operate drones, how will they be able to use them without invading people’s privacy? This paper examines the possible uses of drones for journalism and how drones are regulated. Further, it analyses court decisions in existing surreptitious newsgathering and aerial surveillance cases, which courts might rely upon to decide future cases in which journalists intrusively use drones. Based on these cases, this paper suggests the ways drone journalism may invade a person’s privacy and offers guidelines to journalists considering the use of unmanned aircraft to gather news.

Check your rights at the schoolhouse door: Thomas and the narrowest view of student speech • William Nevin, University of Alabama • In Morse v. Frederick, the Supreme Court was confronted with a difficult issue: Should students be allowed speech rights where that speech is on illegal drug use? Justice Clarence Thomas, in siding with the majority against the student, went so far as to claim students should have no First Amendment rights. This paper is an examination of how Thomas came to that conclusion and ultimately a refutation of his methods.

Participatory Democratic Governance and Judicial Balancing of Privacy and Expression in the United Kingdom • Bryce Newell, University of Washington, Information School • The rights of privacy and expression often conflict. Case law from the United Kingdom suggests that the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law has changed domestic participatory governance in the UK and, in line with prior theory, has increased transparency and given greater political authority to courts. It has also spurred the growth of domestic privacy law at the expense of the rights of the press to free expression.

The Supreme Court’s “Indecision” on the FCC’s Indecency Regulations Leaves Broadcasters Still Searching for Answers • Robert Richards, Pennsylvania State University; David J Weinert • In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court left broadcasters in a “holding pattern” by sidestepping the longstanding question of whether the F.C.C.’s broadcast indecency policy can survive constitutional scrutiny today given the vastly changed media landscape. The Court’s narrow ruling in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. let broadcasters off the hook for the specific on-air transgressions that brought the case to its docket, but did little to resolve the larger issue of whether such content regulations have become obsolete. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the legal hurdles the F.C.C. will face in attempting to construct any modified policy governing broadcast indecency. It discusses the insurmountable First Amendment considerations that will plague the Commission in its efforts, including the current exceptions that swallow the rationale for the regulations and the dramatically changed media landscape that render them futile.

Newspapers, Cross-Ownership, and Antitrust in the Digital Era • Frank Russell, University of Missouri-Columbia • This paper examines the Federal Communications Commission’s newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule in the context of reduced print publication days for Newhouse Newspapers’ publications in New Orleans and Alabama and the rise of online sources for local news. A standard of audience concentration is proposed based on the Herfindahl-Hirschmann Index, or HHI, used by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to measure economic concentration in a market.

The “First Amendment” in Nepal: How Madison’s America Informs Press Freedom Efforts Globally • Joseph Russomanno, Arizona State University • As the reality of McLuhan’s global village grows by the day, previously under-the-radar nations assume new positions of relevance. Analyzing Nepal’s efforts to transform itself from monarchy to democracy, complete with a constitution that includes press and speech freedom provisions, is useful. It serves to highlight the uniqueness of America’s post-revolutionary experience that resulted in, among other documents, the First Amendment. This paper focuses on those unique circumstances, in part by utilizing a Madisonian perspective.

A Reputation Held Hostage? Commercial Mugshot Websites and the Trade in Digital Shame • Kearston Wesner, University of Minnesota Duluth • Recently, a spate of websites trafficking in arrestees’ booking photographs has emerged. Booking photographs, commonly known as mugshots, are ordinarily legitimate public records that enable people to engage in a “community watchdog” function and ferret out government abuses of power. However, these new websites also serve a nefarious commercial purpose. They post mugshots for public review and only offer to remove them upon suitable payment, even when the subject of the mugshot has been exonerated of any crime. Publication of mugshots raises significant privacy interests and concerns about prejudicial trials. Further, easy access to government documents and a high possible payoff will likely fuel the creation of more similar sites. The paper analyzes the status of mugshot websites and considers two recent proposals for dealing with them: the right-of-publicity lawsuit and statutory measures.

When (News)Gathering Isn’t Enough: The Right to Gather Information in Public Places • Elizabeth Woolery, UNC-Chapel Hill • In dozens of highly publicized cases in 2011, reporters were arrested covering Occupy Wall Street and spin-off protests. In other cases citizens have been arrested for using their cell phones to videotape law enforcement officials. Though these cases are factually different, they raise this same important legal issue: Is there a First Amendment right to gather information in public places?

The Press, the Public, and Capital Punishment: California First Amendment Coalition and the Development of a First Amendment Right to Witness Executions • Elizabeth Woolery, UNC-Chapel Hill • The United States Supreme Court has never addressed the issue of access to government-conducted executions. This paper examines the approaches courts have used to determine whether a First Amendment right of access to witness all phases of executions exists, in light of and following the the Ninth Circuit’s 2002 holding in California First Amendment Coalition v. Calderon (CFAC). Two recent cases have again put the issue of constitutional access to executions in the national spotlight.

(Virtual) Crime & (Real) Punishment: The PROTECT Act’s Punishment of Erotic Cartoons as Child Pornography • Jason Zenor, SUNY-Oswego • In 2008, Christopher Handley was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail for receiving Japanese anime cartoons that portrayed fictional children engaged in bestiality. Pursuant to the PROTECT Act, possession of virtual child pornography was punished as it was found to be obscene. This current law replaced the Child Pornography Protection Act, which had an outright ban on virtual child pornography, but was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.  However, under the PROTECT Act, if the work is deemed to be obscene, the defendant will be sentenced under the more severe crime of child pornography- and is forever branded a sex offender- even if it is only possession of the work. This paper argues that such an overbroad law-based in the good intention of protecting children from actual harms- is instead, at best, a tenuous connection between the unwanted harm and the speech prohibited. First, this paper will examine the development of sexually explicit Japanese animation and the sociological and historical roots of the genre, illustrating the social value that it has for its fandom. Second, the paper will outline recent cases where collectors of such anime have been convicted of obscenity possession and sentenced as child pornographers. Next, the paper will outline the law of obscenity and child pornography in the United States. Finally, the article will argue that the PROTECT Act is overbroad and misguided and is antithetical to free expression values.

<<2013 Abstracts

Internship and Careers 2013 Abstracts

Reasons Underlying The Choice Behind Seeking a Major in Journalism: The Journalism Degree Motivations Scale (JDMS) • Serena Carpenter, Michigan State University; Anne Hoag, Penn State University; August Grant, University of South Carolina • Journalists are socialized into the profession through education. The purpose of the research was to develop and validate a measure determining the motivational variables underlying both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons why undergraduate students seek a degree in journalism, the Journalism Degree Motivations Scale (JDMS). It is important to examine motivations in order to understand why they pick the stories they do. Through a multi-method approach and exploratory factor analysis, it established a set of motivations that reflect existing theory and measures. The results show that the JDMS is composed of seven factors: social justice and responsibility, social prestige, sports media, public interaction, photography, writing, and a varied career.

Promotion and Tenure: Exploring the Guidelines of Journalism, Mass Communication and PR Departments in a Digital Era • Mia Moody; Yueqin Yang, Baylor; Poplar Yuan • This study examined tenure-review policies of 40 journalism, mass communication, and PR departments to identify trends and the impact—if any—that new media has had on tenure guidelines. The call for changes among departments can be traced back to more than 20 years ago, yet most of the documents in our sample are unreflective of a digital era. This analysis provides guidelines to help journalism, PR and communications departments transform their tenure and promotion guidelines for today’s technology-driven environment.

Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Journalism: On the Field, but in the Classroom? • Sada Reed, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Though the first American journalism school began in 1908, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that sports journalism majors were created. By 2012, at least 10 American universities offered sports journalism tracks, and at least a quarter of mass communication-accredited institutions offered sports journalism courses. With the creation of these sports journalism-specific tracks comes new opportunity for educators to inform students about the role hegemonic masculinity, a critical theory that explains how ingroups maintain power, plays in sports journalism. Scholars regard sports journalism as a cultural maintenance site for hegemonic masculinity, as this theory has been used to explain the “common sense” ways in which outgroups are represented. This paper contains a brief overview of hegemonic masculinity, followed by a more in-depth section on hegemonic masculinity in sports and hegemonic masculinity in the classroom. The paper concludes with recommendations for educators regarding how to address hegemonic masculinity in the classroom and to ultimately create more critical, diverse student sports journalists.

<<2013 Abstracts

International Communication 2013 Abstracts

Bob Stevenson Open Paper Competition

Inside and Outside of the Great Firewall: The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis Revisited in a Censored Online Environment • Yi Mou; Kevin Wu, University of Connecticut; David Atkin, University of Connecticut • Although China has surpassed the United States to command the world’s largest Internet user base, government-led information regulations prevent common users from enjoying free access to information. Owing to a special software apparatus that helps define China’s Great Firewall, savvy users can bypass online censorship. Based on Knowledge gap hypothesis and reactance effects, this paper reveals a knowledge gap existing as a side effect of state censorship, one that is emerging between the savvy users and common users.

Communicating External Voting Rights to Diaspora Communities. Challenges and Opportunities for El Salvador and Costa Rica • Vanessa Bravo, Elon University • “This paper fills a gap in the literature of international communication by exploring the challenges that home governments face when trying to convey information about newly established political rights to diaspora communities located in host countries. It does so by analyzing the cases of El Salvador and Costa Rica, two Central American countries that will offer external voting rights (absentee vote) to their citizens, for the first time, in the national elections of 2014.

The ability of video-mediated training approaches to reduce agricultural knowledge gaps between men and women in rural Uganda • Tian Cai; Eric Abbott • This study explored the effectiveness of video training delivered by portable battery-operated projectors to narrow the gap in agricultural knowledge between men and women in rural Uganda. Through a pre-post quasi-experiment, this study found that the method that combined video and lecture-demonstration was significantly more effective in narrowing the gender knowledge gap. Use of video alone improved women’s knowledge scores as much as men, but did not close the knowledge gap.

(Re)categorizing Intergroup Relations: Applying Social-Psychological Perspectives to News Reporting on International Conflict • Michael Chan • This study examines how intergroup relations between nations are categorized and recategorized through news discourse. Theories from social psychology, including the common in-group identity model, mutual intergroup differentiation model, and optimal distinctiveness theory, form an integrated framework to analyze news coverage of the territorially-disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands by the China Daily from 2002 to 2011. Findings from content analyses showed that despite the local nature of the dispute that invokes clear in-group/out-group distinctions between China and Japan, the majority of the articles in the newspaper discursively recategorize intergroup relations. This includes the assimilation of Japan under a superordinate ‘Asian’ identity, and the categorization of the United States as the ‘outsider’ purposefully interfering in Sino-Japanese relations. The findings provide important ideological insights of the ruling party state and its attempts to influence intergroup comparisons by reconfiguring the basis of intergroup evaluation and differentiation.

A Theoretical Model of Transnational Communication by Dominican Diaspora Organizations • Maria De Moya, North Carolina State University • This study presents a theoretical model of strategic communication by diaspora community organizations (DCOs) serving the Dominican-American community. Using constructivist grounded theory, this study explored the reasons why DCOs engage in these efforts, the means through which they communicate to national and international in-group and external publics, and their desired community outcomes. The model highlights a combination of mediated and interpersonal efforts conducted to engage publics in both the home and the host country.

The Facilitative and Monitorial Roles of Bulgarian Media in the Coverage of the 2011 Presidential Election • Daniela Dimitrova, Iowa State University • Using a systematic content analysis, the present study investigates the coverage of the 2011 presidential election campaign in Bulgaria in order to evaluate the quality of news reporting 23 years after the end of Communism. The study examines several characteristics of the coverage, including the use of news sources, the framing of politics, references to scandal and journalistic speculations. The findings show that while the media have moved beyond direct political controls of the past, there are a number of areas that need improvement. Implications for normative democracy are briefly discussed.

Legitimating Journalistic Authority under the State’s Shadow: A Case Study of the Environmental Press Awards in China • Dong Dong • This study attempts to investigate the legitimation of journalistic authority in the form of journalism awards. The Environmental Press Awards (EPA), an unofficial but highly regarded news competition among Chinese environmental reporters, has been chosen as a case study. The case is examined from three interconnected dimensions: the creation and maintenance of moral and pragmatic legitimacies, the strategic processes of cognitive and social legitimation, and a dual process of symbolic legitimation of the market media ideology. Research data is formed based on statistical analysis of 181 award submissions and 10 in-depth interviews with key personnel in the host organizations, the journalism community, and environmental NGOs. By looking into the establishment, dynamics and results of the awarding process, it is found that the alliance between the market media and the green civil society has created and buttressed the legitimacy of the award. However, without blessing from the Party/state, such legitimacy is vulnerable and can easily be dismantled.

Governmental Corruption through the Egyptian Bloggers’ Lens: A Qualitative Study of Four Egyptian Political Blogs • Mohammed el-Nawawy; Sahar Khamis • Corruption was among the serious problems of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Egyptian political bloggers played a critical role in exposing this regime’s corrupt policies. This study analyzed a number of threads from four prominent Egyptian political blogs that tackled corruption, which performed three functions, namely: mobilization, documentation, or deliberation. This analysis highlighted the strengths and weaknesses and the potentials and limitations of political blogs in promoting civic engagement, democratization, and political change.

Russia versus the World: Are Public Relations Leadership Priorities More Similar than Different? • Elina Erzikova, Central Michigan University • As a part of a world-wide study, 215 Russian public relations practitioners completed an online survey of their perceptions related to professional leadership and communication management. The Russian sample’s demographics differed significantly from the overall sample’s make-up (N=4,484; 22 countries). Despite the differences, there was a significant overlap between Russian participants’ and their global peers’ beliefs. This result might signal, among others, universality of some specific leadership aspects and/or a globalization effect in Russian public relations.

Framing the Egyptian Revolution: An online frame building case study • Hogar Mohammed; Peter Gade, University of Oklahoma • This agenda setting study explored the influence of citizen media on legacy media during the Egyptian Revolution. It examined the extent to which the frames in the posts on two popular citizen Facebook pages, We Are All Khaled Said (Arabic) and We Are All Khaled Said (English), were also found in frames of three online legacy media, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and The New York Times, during the revolution from January 25, 2011 to February 11, 2011. Results showed the two Facebook pages’ frames had an indirect influence on the frames of the three online legacy media.

Mediated Public Diplomacy in Times of War: An investigation of media relations in Pakistan • Rauf Arif; Guy Golan, Syracuse University; Brian Moritz, Syracuse University • The current study provides a unique perspective into US-Pakistan and Taliban-Pakistan media relations in the context of the regional war on terror. Based on mediated public diplomacy and news construction literature, the study explores some of the key challenges and opportunities that both sides face as they aim to influence Pakistani media coverage and win the political support of the Pakistani people. Eighteen online in-depth interviews of Pakistani media practitioners explore their perceptions of wartime media relations involving four main categories: US-Pakistani media relations, Taliban-Pakistani media relations, Taliban/extremist groups’ understanding of Pakistani news routines, and US officials’ understanding of Pakistani news routines. The study’s key findings are discussed in the context of wartime media relations and mediated public diplomacy.

Journalism in times of violence: Uses and practices of social media along the U.S.-Mexico border • Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante, University of Arizona; Jeannine Relly, University of Arizona School of Journalism • Mexico ranks as one of the most violent countries in the world for journalists, especially those who work on the country’s periphery such as its northern border. Our research examines the way that violence has influenced social media use by U.S. and Mexican journalists who cover northern Mexico, and advances the hierarchy of influences model (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Reese, 2001) through qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews conducted in 18 cities along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Online Coverage of the 2010 Brazilian Presidential Elections: framing power and professional ideology • Heloiza Herscovitz, California State University Long Beach • A framing analysis of news and commentaries published by mainstream online media organizations and their bloggers and columnists on the 2010 Brazilian Presidential Elections revealed that framing do have the potential to uncover journalism’s ideological elements. Political preferences marked the Brazilian online coverage blurring the lines between the private and the public. Journalism status quo emerged as a main topic in the coverage as a free press under attack quickly reacted with rage causing a rift between news organizations that criticized the outgoing president and those that supported him. A popular president, apparently unaffected by corruption scandals, and the country’s most powerful media groups confronted each other in an exhaustive and unfinished battle.

Journalism on the Fly: Youth Reporters in Benin as a New Model of Development Journalism • Robert Huesca, Trinity University • “The concept of “”development journalism”” was introduced in the late 1960s and proposed as a new press theory more amenable to developing nations. The concept has been criticized as conceptually vague and professionally problematic due to a lack of independence vis a vis the state. Despite this criticism, the concept has continued to draw adherents and advocates who claim that this practice continues to hold promise as an alternative to other models of journalism. This paper reports on a development journalism project conducted in Africa among young women in terms of its potential contributions to development journalism. The journalism camp for girls was designed out of a framework drawn from the scholarship of development journalism and participatory development communication. The findings indicate that projects such as the journalism camp for girls addresses many of the criticism leveled against development journalism, while suggesting a sustainable, viable, and compatible model of development journalism in the developing world.”

Testing Cyber Nationalism in China: A Case Study of Anti-Japanese Collective Actions • Ki Deuk Hyun, Grand Valley State University; Jinhee Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology; Shaojing Sun • Although the rise of nationalist activism in Chinese online sphere has drawn much scholarly attention, few studies examined how nationalism, usages and motivations of the Internet affect nationalist collective actions. Using Sino-Japanese diplomatic disputes as a testing ground, this study investigates the effects of news use of both traditional and social media, nationalist attitudes, motivations in using the Internet specific to the disputes on anti-Japanese political behaviors such as boycotting and protest. Analyses of online survey data of Chinese netizens demonstrate that nationalism positively correlate to news use and Internet use motivations of information seeking and social interaction. The results also show that respondents who are motivated to use the Internet for expression and discussion related to the Sino-Japanese disputes are more likely to engage in anti-Japanese behaviors.  This study demonstrates that motivations involved in the use of new media technologies related to specific political issues and events play significant roles in mobilizing supporters for collective actions.

Determinants of Satisfaction and Behavioral Intentions: Role of Perceived Authenticity, Identity, and Reputation in Tourism Promotion • Rajul Jain, DePaul University • This study examined a model with causal linkages among identity, reputation, perceived authenticity, tourists’ satisfaction, and intended behavior. Survey data from 545 tourists and in-depth interviews with 16 visitors of a cultural and eco-archaeological theme park in Mexico showed significant linkages among constructs. Variations in perceived authenticity with demographics, visit characteristics, and information sources were also examined. Findings imply the value of strategic communication, which could lead to supporting behavioral intentions towards a destination.

Tweeting as a Journalistic Social Engagement Routine in Africa and Beyond • Yusuf Kalyango, Ohio University, Ohio, Athens, USA; Pamela Walck, Ohio University • This study explores how international journalists based in East Africa and the United States communicate with their audiences about current affairs on Twitter and whether the reporting beats and their news-gathering routines reflects their tweets they share with their followers. This qualitative study also explores whether the issues that the four prominent journalists from East Africa and the United States tweet are driven by the need to brand themselves or to crowd-source through other social engagement approaches. The findings indicate that the two prominent East African journalists were more prone to use Twitter for a more conversational, less formal tone to convey information but the journalists from the United States eschewed using Twitter for personal conversations or editorial opinions. They were more likely to include informal, sarcastic or critical commentary on Twitter than the African international journalists.

U.S. vs. the rest of the world: Perceptions of war correspondents in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars • Hun Shik Kim, University of Colorado Boulder • The first decade in the 21st century saw two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which journalists from different countries covered either as embedded and unilateral journalists. This study, based on a survey of 309 war correspondents, examines and compares the U.S. and non-U.S. journalists’ perceptions of various aspects of the two international conflicts. There are stark contrasts between U.S. and non-U.S. war correspondents in their perceptions of overall quality of news coverage, embedded reporting practices, censorship pressures from the military, and news themes involving high human casualties. It was evident that differences in nationality based on U.S. vs. non-U.S. distinction shaped the war correspondents’ overall assessment of news coverage from the two wars. Reasons for the divergent news coverage were discussed, including war reporting from the perspectives of our own wars vs. other people’s wars.

Journalists of Botswana: Roles and Influences • Katie Lang, University of Miami, School of Communication; Jyotika Ramaprasad • This study is likely the first systematic study of journalists in Botswana. It examines their perceptions of their roles as well as the influences on their work within the framework of professional milieus and content theory respectively. The data was collected in person from 115 randomly selected journalists representing various ranks, media types, media ownership, and media orientation. The study’s contribution lies in the quantitative benchmarks it establishes for Batswana journalism practices.

Socio-cultural value difference of the media and news framing on business conflict issue • Min-Kyu Lee, Chung-Ang University; Wan Soo Lee, Dongseo University • This study conducted a comparative analysis on how media framing varied across two countries as well as the ideologies of newspapers when it comes to the market competitive reports such as the Samsung-Apple patent lawsuit. In addition, this study attempted to provide an integrated explanation of news frames quantitatively, analyzing both the generic frame and the issue-specific frame. This study shows that there were differences according to the ideological characteristics of the newspapers as well as to socio-cultural values, economic and social factors. While the news frame in favor of Samsung was absolutely abundant in South Korea, neutral frames were dominant in the U.S. This implies that the ethnocentrism or patriotism can have little significance in some issues that place emphasis on moral evaluations and market principles.

Web Credibility in China: Comparing Internet and Traditional News Sources on Credibility Measures • Yunjuan Luo; Hongzhong Zhang • China has the largest Internet population in the world. The rapid increase of Internet use has raised the question of whether the Internet is judged to be a more credible news source compared to the traditional media. Based on probability sample telephone surveys in two major Chinese cities, this study found that the Internet was judged as less credible than television and newspapers, but it was perceived to be more credible than other traditional news sources such as radio and magazines. Internet use was the strongest predictor of Web credibility. Newspaper use and television use were found to be negatively correlated with Web credibility. Some demographic variables such as age and education also turned out to be significant predictors.

Developing a survey instrument of journalistic peace/war performance: Toward a reliable assessment of crisis-reporters’ attitudes • Rico Neumann, UN-mandated University for Peace; Shahira Fahmy, U of Arizona • Based on Galtung’s concept of peace/war journalism, this exploratory work attempts to advance an empirical method to develop a survey instrument for a reliable and valid assessment of journalists’ attitudes toward peace/war performance. The authors propose a measurement index of conflict reporting which combines practices linked to peace/war journalism. The approach’s usefulness is demonstrated by quantitative and qualitative evidence from a pilot study–a survey of worldwide members of The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

State of Research on Media Representation of China: A Thematic Meta-Analysis • Zengjun Peng, St Cloud State University; Xi’an International Studies University; Yuan Zeng, Xi’an International Studies University; Pei Zheng, Xi’an International Studies University; Tianding Wang, Xi’an International Studies University • State of Research on Media Representation of China: A Thematic Meta-Analysis. This study, by way of thematic meta-analysis, analyzed 91 research articles in the area of media representation of China published in Chinese academic journals between 1994 and 2013. Targeting at an overall picture on the state and health of the scholarship in this field, the study used a comprehensive list of categories including publication and authorship profile, theory use, citation patterns and methodological details. Results identified several weaknesses and deficiencies, particularly in theory use and methodological execution. Implications for future research were discussed.

Tensions, Conflicts and Challenges: A Case Study of Foreign Correspondents in China • Wei Zhou, Beijing Foreign Studies University; Jiang Zhan, Beijing Foreign Studies University; Zengjun Peng, St Cloud State University; Xi’an International Studies University • This study, based on results from semi-structured interviews with nine foreign correspondents stationed in Beijing, China, offered a qualitative examination into the daily practices of foreign correspondents in a country undergoing dramatic political and social transitions. Focusing on themes emerged from the narratives of the foreign correspondents themselves, including profile feature, news agenda, sourcing pattern and special challenges in reporting, the paper explored the tensions, conflicts and special challenges foreign correspondents face in doing professional reporting in an authoritarian state. Related issues and implications were also raised and discussed against the theoretical premises in international communication and journalism scholarship.

The Digital Divide In Brazil, 2004 – 2009: Evolution and Effects on Political Engagement • Rachel Reis Mourao, University of Texas at Austin; Charles Wood, University of Florida • Results of a 2010 survey of twenty-two Latin American countries show that Brazil ranks first with respect to Internet connectivity. Analyses of national household surveys further show an increase in microcomputers and Internet access between 2004 and 2009, and a decline in the digital divide by rural-urban residence and socioeconomic status. The study also finds that the intensity of Internet use has a positive effect on the knowledge and attitudes deemed relevant to democratic governance.

Journalists’ perceptions of professional ethics norms in post-Ba’athist Iraq • Jeannine Relly, University of Arizona School of Journalism; Margaret Zanger, University of Arizona School of Journalism; Shahira Fahmy, U of Arizona • In the post-Saddam Hussein period in Iraq, thousands of Iraqi journalists were trained in journalistic professional norms as U.S. government officials paid for propaganda placement in news reports and local politicians handed out envelopes of cash at press conferences. This survey (N = 588) of Iraqi journalists examined influences on ethics perceptions. The study found when controlling for demographics that occupation, watchdog attitude, journalistic role perception, and training had the greatest impact on professional ethics.

The Journalist’s Role in a Digital and Social Media Era: A Comparative Analysis of Journalists in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru • Amy Schmitz Weiss • Based on a survey conducted of over 1,100 journalists, this study examines how journalism is transforming in today’s global media climate. It specifically investigates the professional roles as well as the digital and social media routines of journalists in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Findings show the professional roles of the journalists surveyed show significant differences between countries in the area of the populist mobilizer and the interpretative role. In addition, the journalists also identified multiple uses of the digital platform for newsgathering tasks and social media channels for tasks ranging from using it to post news to using it to encourage dialog and conversation with the public. Implications of the findings are also discussed.

Cultural Values in Viral Video Advertisements in China and the U.S. • Fei Xue, University of Southern Mississippi • The current research analyzed 194 popular online video advertisements in China (YouKu) and the U.S. (Advertising Age) from November 2012 to March 2013, to explore differences between two countries in cultural values and advertiser characteristics. It was found that ads from YouKu used more group/consensus appeals, more tradition/elderly appeals, and less individual/independence appeals, compared to those from Advertising Age. Significant differences were also found in terms of country-of-origin and product categories.

Communicating AIDS in Africa: A Case Study of Ugandan Newspapers • Angella Napakol; Nan Yu, North Dakota State University; Charles Okigbo, North Dakota State University • This empirical content-analytic study of AIDS coverage in two Ugandan newspapers — one government owned and the other private – showed that the media can be useful tools in framing AIDS narratives and directing attention to people at risk. Although there were slight differences between the two newspapers, on the whole they were similar in their AIDS reportage and portend great benefits in the fight against the epidemic. We conclude that the mass media can contribute in important ways to the various efforts toward HIV/AIDS prevention.

Framing Strategies At Different Stages of Crisis: Coverage of the “July 5th” Urumqi Event by Xinhua, Reuters, and AP • Lily Zeng, Arkansas State University; Lijie Zhou, Arkansas State University; Xigen Li • This study examined how Xinhua, Reuters, and AP adjusted their framing strategies when covering the 2009 “July 5th” Urumqi event, a series of violent activities between two ethnic groups in far west China. The findings revealed that during the initial stage, the three news agencies displayed considerable similarities, relying on official sources, addressing damages, and focusing on updates. They also tended to portray the crisis from the regional perspective, reflecting the nature and scope of the incident. However, reporting of the same crisis varied dramatically after the first stage. When it was time to define the situation by selecting background or contextual information, media organizations began to reveal the different interest they represent.

Bridges in the Global News Arena:  A Network Study of Bridge Blogs About China • Nan Zheng, James Madison University • The concept of bridge blogs as a form of global journalism was examined by content analysis and network analysis of 426 blog posts and 1026 links in 11 bridge blogs about China from 2009 to 2010. This study proposes a theoretical framework to examine how bridge blogs’ network characteristics (i.e. attentive cluster, betweenness, centrality) are related to their communicative practices as reflected in their linking preferences.

Markham Student Paper Competition

Euros over Citizens: The Dutch Press’s Narrow Conception of Democracy • Tabe Bergman, University of Illinois • The disruption of European politics as usual resulting from the Greek prime-minister’s proposal in late 2011 to hold a referendum on the euro-crisis provides an opportunity to examine the commitment to democratic deliberations among Dutch journalists. This paper first documents the current crisis in Dutch democracy and then argues that Dutch journalists have incorporated a narrow conception of democracy, similar to Walter Lippmann’s, that discourages citizen participation in the democratic process. The assumption that this almost antidemocratic conception of ‘democracy’ influenced the commentary on the referendum proposal is tested with a content analysis of four newspapers. The results show that, indeed, the proposal was widely and often vehemently dismissed.

“Blind dating” with culture, market, and governmental regulations: A case study of Meeting with Mother-in-Law, a blind date reality show in China • Li Chen • This study attempted to reveal and discuss how Meeting with Mother-in-Law, a Chinese blind date reality show, reflects glocalized cultural elements in urban areas in China. The study also analyzed how Chinese media practitioners balance market needs and governmental regulations through examining the role of judges in the show. By conducting textual analysis on eight episodes of Meeting with Mother-in-Law, the study revealed that the show reconstructed gender roles and reinterpreted Western values within a local context, which is a result of cultural hybridization. In addition, the study discussed how judges cautiously monitor the conversations to make the show appealing to the public without violating state regulations.

Online Social Support Messages for Intercultural Adaptation of Mainland Chinese international Students in Singapore • Liang Chen, Nanyang Technological University • China has become the biggest source nations of overseas students worldwide. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of Chinese students flocking to universities or colleges in Singapore. While the culture of Singapore, to some extent, is similar to China’s culture, mainland Chinese students might present the difficulty of adapting to an English medium education system, local culture and academic pressures in Singapore. Thus, many of them in Singapore feel homesick, isolated and frustrated at the beginning of their overseas study. Fortunately, a computer mediated social support group (the LSg Group), a sub-forum of most popular Chinese overseas study forum founded in April 2000, provides various types of social support messages for mainland Chinese students in Singapore. The present study does leading examinations to inquire the nature of social support that took place in the LSg Group for intercultural adaptation of mainland Chinese overseas students. A directed qualitative content analysis was applied to analyze all 736 posted messages collected from 6th July to 6th October .The results suggests that the social support messages can be categorize into many subcategories under three existing main categories, informational, instrumental and emotional support and a new created category: network support. In sum, this online social support group provides a convenient and effective platform for mainland Chinese students in Singapore to seek and share information, emotional encouragement, tangible services and opportunities to expand their social networks in order to orient themselves to a new cultural environment.

The Freelancer-NGO Alliance: What a Story of Kenyan Waste Reveals about Contemporary Foreign News Production • David Conrad, University of Pennsylvania – Annenberg School for Communication • This paper explores the impact that foundation/NGO partnerships are having on the practices of contemporary foreign news reporting in American journalism. Through an exploration of a widely published project on a health crisis in East Africa – funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and reported by the study’s author – this paper ultimately argues that issues of framing, representation, and ideology are not dominating foreign news production; they are being hotly contested within it.

Does the medium make a difference? A comparative analysis of international news in Chinese online and print newspapers • Ming Dai • The study examined the influence of new media technologies on agenda diversity of international news coverage and how the influence varied by media’s audience orientation. A content analysis of major Chinese newspapers and their websites showed that the online media reproduced some of the traditional media’s practices of covering international news unevenly. The influence of the internet was more pronounced on the government-oriented media than on the market-oriented media.

The role of social media in helping voters to resist mainstream media propaganda in Argentina • Mariana De Maio, University of Florida • In the last decade popular democracies have survived mainstream media opposition in many countries in Latin America.  This demarks a departure from history.  Voters support governments aligned with their needs in spite of media propaganda.  Within the propaganda theory framework, this paper will propose a model to study the case of Argentina focusing on how social media messages have helped media news consumers to resist the propaganda.

The South African Press’ Framing of Human Rights in the 2011 Libyan Conflict • Anthony Frampton • This qualitative study examines the South African Press’ coverage of the 2011 Libyan conflict and their framing of human rights abuses and discourses advocating Western intervention. I performed a content analysis of news stories from South African newspaper available on LexisNexis that referenced the Libyan Civil War during the period February 14 to March 17, 2011. To analyze the data, I used a customized thematic framework based on framing theory. I found that overwhelming, the coverage by the South African press appeared more closely aligned with war journalism than peace journalism. Their newspaper reports largely explored human rights issues by highlighting the negative actions of the Libyan Government and demonizing its leader, Colonel Gaddafi, while ignoring human rights violations by the rebel fighters. The research also revealed that while South African journalists adopted a nationalistic perspective, they ignored racial violence, depended heavily on elite political sources, and privileged Western proposed resolutions over local or regional mediation. That the African press’ framing of the conflict was little different from Western reports highlights the relative consistency of mainstream journalism around the globe on war and conflict, although it also points to significant insights into the uniqueness of war reporting on the continent by African-based newspapers.

Cyber Security in Developing Countries, a Digital Divide Issue: The Case of Georgia • Ellada Gamreklidze • Based on the case study of the cyber war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, this paper is a theoretical deliberation in an attempt to illustrate connection between Digital Divide and cyber security. Through a qualitative case study of cyber warfare between the two countries, it shows that states on the disadvantaged side of the Digital Divide are subject to cyber insecurity. As a result, even though relatively low dependence of their vital systems on online networks supposedly makes them less vulnerable to cyber offensives, disruptions to communication infrastructures causes these states turn dysfunctional. The conclusion is that the level of country’s cyber security serves as a litmus test for the level of its cyber power that, in turn, is indicative of the country’s strategic political standing among other states.

Losing Focus: Goal Displacement at an Alternative Newspaper in El Salvador • Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines whether a Salvadoran alternative newspaper maintained its critical, independent, and alternative position after the country’s first leftist president was elected and the newspaper no longer was in opposition to the government. Via a content analysis and in-depth interviews, this study improves our understanding of “alternativeness” in a non-U.S.-context. Findings indicate that the newspaper’s goals became less radical, with more pro-government coverage, and less coverage of social movements and civil society.

Framing Mediated Activism: Lokpal Bill Campaign in India • Sumanth Inukonda, BGSU • Anti-corruption agitations in India coincided with the Arab Spring inspiring many to draw parallels. This paper argues that the ease with which the frames crossed the boundaries of social and traditional media confirms the relevance of media framing. The cascade model helps explain circumstances under which the discord between media and political elite arises. This paper argues that initial media frames need not subscribe to the views of political elite; rather discord draws from historical struggles to maintain press freedom.

The Limits of Revolution in the Digital Age: The cases of China and Cuba • Haiyan Jia, Penn State University; Cristina Mislan, The Pennsylvania State University • The Internet, with its ease of obtaining information, is supposedly constructive to democracy while corrosive to non-democratic rule. The assumptions that technological advances foment democratization have roots in historical events, such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the libertarian ideology of early proponents of the Internet. While we have witnessed social movements such as “Arab Spring,” the prediction remains largely as an ideal. China and Cuba have shown that technology is moderated by external and internal factors, from macro to micro, instead of a single technological determinant. In this paper, we look at modernization theory to understand the rationale of technology as a liberalizing tool, and further analyze the effectiveness and limitation of this approach using two cases studies that investigate the utilization of Internet in China and Cuba. Based on a review of the literature and theories, and two case studies on Cuba and China, we propose different factors that influence the actual use of Internet and discuss the implications.

The Political Economy of Burma’s Media System: Democratization, Marketization and the Media • Brett Labbe, Bowling Green State University • Using political economy as a theoretical framework, this study employs Hallin and Mancini’s five-dimensional media systems model to the case of Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) in an attempt address the relationship between media systems and political change. It finds that political structures cannot be adequately understood apart from national media systems and the global economic context in which they are embedded. Furthermore, the findings challenge theoretical assumptions asserting an organic, inherently linear relationship between democratization and marketization.

Can Regimes Really Discourage Social Networking? Urbanization, Cellphone Use and the Dictator’s Plight • Shin Haeng Lee • Are authoritarian regimes ever really successful at stopping at the use of social networking services? This study conducts a panel data analysis on 182 countries observed from 2009 to 2012, to reveal under what conditions and to what extent political institutions shape a cross-country difference in the adoption of Facebook. Including fixed effects, the findings support that authoritarian regimes are detrimental to the diffusion of the digital technology. However, the government’s suppression is moderated by the increased use of cell-phones and the growth of urban population. In other words, urbanization and mobile phone diffusion undermines a regime’s ability to censor the use of Facebook. The authoritarian control is also eroded when people perceive high levels of political efficacy.

Media Modality Effects on Perceptions of China: A Study of Text and Video Frames • Ruobing Li, The Pennsylvania State University; Steve Bien-Aime; Lian Ma, The Pennsylvania State University • The present paper describes an experiment that compared the strength of negative framing effects in text and video on people’s perceptions of China. Controlling for avidity for following international political news, results suggest that audience’s nationality moderate the effects of modalities on audience’s perceptions of China. For Chinese audience, video news increases their negative perceptions of China, while for non-Chinese audience, textual news elicits more negative perceptions of China.

Framing H1N1 Influenza in U.S. and Chinese TV News • Jingfei Liu; Gang (Kevin) Han, Greenlee School/Iowa State University • This study examines the news frames of H1N1 influenza in NBC Nightly News (NBC) in the U.S. and CCTV Evening News (CCTV) in China from April 2009 to October 2010. The content analysis reveals significant differences in news frames and news sources between the two programs. Attribution of responsibility and human interest are the most visible frames in NBC, and the former is also the dominant frame in CCTV. The visibilities of human interest, conflict, and economic consequence frames in NBC are higher than those in CCTV. Domestic government officials and citizens are the most cited sources in NBC, followed by scientists and non-government organizations. The most cited source in CCTV is the domestic government, followed by foreign governments and international organizations. Positive correlations are found between the attribution of responsibility frame and the domestic government source, and between the human interest frame and non-government organizations, citizens and victims in NBC. In CCTV, positive correlations are found between the attribution of responsibility frame and the domestic government, between the human interest frame and both the domestic government and citizens, and between the conflict frame and scientists.

Netizens Overlook “Official Frames” in China? A Framing Analysis of Online news and Micro-blogging Posts • Yanqin Lu • This framing analysis study examined China’s online news and micro-blogging posts on the disputes on Dioayu/Senkaku Islands. Compare to online news, micro-blogging users were more likely to put a human face and make moral judgments on the issue. Within the micro-blogging network, public figures tended to employ thematic frame while news media users preferred episodic frame. Pearson correlation test determined that public figures have a significant impact on the general users in the micro-blogging network.

Weibo, a Better Civic Medium?  A Comparative Framing Analysis of Weibo and Xinhuanet in Covering the 7.23 China Train Crash • Luyue Ma, Bowling Green State University • This study employs a comparative framing analysis approach to examine how the popular Chinese social media Weibo and the government-run news website Xinhuanet cover the 7.23 Wenzhou train crash event (2011). The findings indicate that compared with Xinhua coverage, Weibo users are more likely to employ societal or political frames to cover the event. The discourse on Weibo diverges independently from the mainstream media and is more civic oriented.

Framing Poll News in a Unbalanced Media System Society: A Study of Poll Coverage in South Korean Newspapers and Broadcasters during the 2012 Presidential Election • Chang Sup Park, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study examined the coverage on public polls by mass media during the 2012 presidential election in South Korea. Through the coding of news stories on public polls published in four newspapers and three broadcasters, this study finds South Korean mass media depended excessively on the strategy frame rather than the issue frame. This means that South Korean mass media presented readers the presidential election as an image of battle between candidates or political parties, rather than making voters engage in constructive dialogue about important issues regarding candidates and parties. Second, South Korean newspapers were very unkind in providing basic information about public polls that is necessary for voters to judge the results and implications of the polls. Third, topics that need to be delivered to voters were missing in the coverage of public polls in both newspapers and broadcasters. Important topics that the electorate should know in judging the candidates were rarely seen (e.g., main difference in policies between parties, human rights issues, and social welfare problems). Most importantly, South Korean media showed a very partisan attitude in the polling coverage. While the two conservative newspapers were positive toward the ruling party candidate, the two liberal newspapers were positive toward the opposition party candidate. Also, the two government-controlled broadcasters were seriously biased toward the ruling party and its candidate. The outcomes suggest that how the media system of a society is closely associated with the news coverage on important political issues.

Foreign Correspondence in the Digital Age:  An analysis of India Ink The New York Times’ India-specific blog • Newly Paul, Louisiana State University • This paper is a case study of India Ink, the New York Times’ first country-specific blog, launched in September 2011. This paper examines the blog’s content in order to analyze the ways in which participatory Web 2.0 tools have changed foreign coverage. Findings indicate that through interactive multimedia, crowd-sourced content, and collaboration between Indian and American reporters, India Ink is helping foreign correspondence thrive amidst drastic newsroom budget cuts.

Anonymous Sources Hurt Credibility of News Stories across Cultures: A Comparative Study of America and China • Ivanka Pjesivac, University of Tennessee; Rachel Rui, University of Tennessee • This experiment (N=620) tested the impact of the use of anonymous sources on perceived news story credibility in America and China, two countries with assumed different journalistic standards. Both Americans and Chinese rated news stories with only anonymous sources as less credible than stories with identified sources. Attitude of Americans towards news stories was found to be more positive. The study represents the first comparative research on the topic with rigorously established cross-cultural equivalences.

Still in the dark about Africa: 21st century perceptions of development in Sub-Saharan Africa among American college students • April Raphiou, Student • For decades, African countries have been portrayed inaccurately in mainstream media, often as a land filled with wild people, exotic wildlife and widespread poverty. On the contrary, the Africa of today is slowly moving beyond these stereotypical images with burgeoning economies and improved quality-of-life in many areas. However, this study illustrates that perceptions of Africa among young news consumers do not reflect the changing landscape of the continent. Even though information and communication technologies make it possible for younger generations to access more information, they are still misinformed or uniformed about developments in Africa. Employing media use, cosmopolitanism level, and socioeconomic status as guiding frameworks, the current study measures young news consumers’ knowledge of African development. An online survey was administered to 202 college students at a public university in the southeastern region of the United States to gauge their perceptions of the current state of development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Results indicate that students continue to associate Africa with negative aspects of development, such as poverty and disease. Additionally, respondents with high cosmopolitan or socioeconomic levels were more knowledgeable about African development. Interestingly, media use did not correlate with knowledge This study also highlights differences in perceptions based upon respondents’ ethnicities; Asian respondents were more knowledgeable that individuals of other races.

Right and Satisfied:  How the Influence of Political Leaning on Job Satisfaction of Journalists is Mediated by Their Perceived Role Fulfillment • Philip Baugut, U of Munich; Sebastian Scherr, U of Munich • This paper challenges the relevance of journalists’ political leanings. A secondary analysis of a representative survey of journalists (n = 1536) (see Weischenberg et al., 2006) shows that liberal journalists have a more active role conception, perceive stronger discrepancies between their role and their role fulfillment, and are less satisfied with their job. The indirect only effect of journalists’ political leanings on their job satisfaction underlines the significance of intrinsic factors for job satisfaction.

“A Hero With A Thousand Faces”: A Narrative Analysis of US and Taiwanese News Coverage of Linsanity • Chiaoning Su, Temple University • This paper examines the interconnectedness of the construction of ethnicity, nationalism and identity in contemporary media sports. This paper first describes the development and progression of the Linsanity phenomenon, a global sports story that defined 2012. Next, it reviews scholarship on the intersection of news media, sports, and national identity in the context of globalization, and further discusses research methods and data collection procedures. Finally, it compares US and Taiwanese news coverage of Jeremy Lin and argues that media in both countries reflect traditional racialized and nationalist ideologies in their representation of Linsanity, supporting the dominant nationalistic rhetoric in the US and increasing social solidarity in Taiwan. Consequently, this paper aims to demonstrate how national ideology sanctions specific constructions of ethnicity and identity, and how Jeremy Lin was framed differently by nationally-preferred archetypal narratives in the US and Taiwan that enable a hero to have “a thousand faces” on the stage of global media sports. Furthermore, the similarities and differences between US and Taiwanese media coverage of Jeremy Lin can be interpreted as clear evidence that global media sports are a contested terrain characterized by constant conflicting global cultural flows and local resistance to cultural domination.

Media in the Middle East: A Credibility Crisis or a Case of Rising of Confidence? Jordan as a Model • Khalaf Tahat, University of Oklahoma; Azzam Elananza, Yarmouk University • The main purpose of this study was to investigate journalism students’ perceptions of the credibility of the media in Jordan. Specifically, this paper sought to test the difference in media credibility between public media and private media. A questionnaire translated into Arabic was used and handed to a systematic random sample that consisted of 200 students at The Mass Communication College in Jordan. The study found that Jordanian journalism students perceive private media as more trusted than public media. Participants did not rate public media which is run by government as the most credible sources. Today, with the ongoing the “Arab Spring,” private media play a major role in expanding the freedom margins in different countries in the Middle East compared with those media operated by governments that serve only their agendas. Also, the study revealed that people who spend more time in using media tend to trust private media than public media. The high competition between different types of media, the advent of new technologies, and adoption of a market approach in creating media content could explain how private media could employ different effective tools to enhance its communication with potential audiences and keep them following their content for a long time. Future studies and limitations are reported.

Does Censorship or Culture Explain the Isoated Chinese Internet: Analyzing Global Online Audience Flows • Harsh Taneja; Angela Xiao Wu, Northwestern University • Censorship seemingly isolates Chinese internet users. We argue that blocking foreign websites has a limited role in shaping user behavior, as audiences anyway prefer local content. Analyzing traffic among the 1000 most visited websites globally we find that websites cluster according to language and geography. Chinese websites constitute one such cluster, which resembles other such geo-linguistic clusters. This cluster however excludes many uncensored foreign websites that offer content in Chinese language.

<<2013 Abstracts

History 2013 Abstracts

Professional Identity: Wisconsin Editorial Association Records Show Members Self-Identified as Professionals Before the Civil War • Stephen Banning • An examination of the minutes of the Wisconsin Editorial Association in the mid nineteenth century revealed some journalists self-identified as professionals much earlier than previous research indicated. This research reveals the earliest reference to journalism as a profession by a journalist, an instance which occurred well before the Civil War. This has implications in regard to understanding roots of journalistic identity, journalistic education and journalism codes of ethics, all of which stemmed from an interest in professionalism in the nineteenth century.

From Researcher to Redbaiter: The Odyssey of the Hutchins Commission’s Ruth Inglis • Stephen Bates, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • Ruth Inglis worked effectively with the New Deal liberals on the Commission on Freedom of the Press. After the job ended, though, her life took a different path. She helped ghostwrite a book for Senator Joseph McCarthy, researched for William F. Buckley Jr., befriended Ayn Rand, and got called a fascist by Paul Lazarsfeld. In 1951, four years after publication of her Commission book Freedom of the Movies, Inglis added names to the Hollywood blacklist.

From Switchboard Operator to City Editor: Agness Underwood’s Historic Rise in Los Angeles Journalism • Stephanie Bluestein, California State University, Northridge • Desperate to help support her struggling family, Agness “Aggie” Underwood took a job at the Los Angeles Record newspaper in 1926, filling in for a vacationing switchboard operator. Although it was intended to only be a two-week position, it was the beginning of a legendary 42-year career that culminated with her becoming the country’s first woman city editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. Underwood’s editorship generated coverage by national news magazines that published articles about the historic promotion, and her current newspaper, the Evening Herald-Express, touted her in promotional material as “Newsroom’s Lady Boss” and “America’s only Major Newspaper with a Lady City Editor” (Battelle, 1955). Underwood became a source of inspiration for women journalists wanting to break away from the women’s section and become front-page reporters covering crime, politics, and other stories of importance. This study aims to explore Underwood’s career and personal life to help explain her unlikely success as a female city editor commanding an all-male newsroom. This study is significant because the majority of the research was gathered through recent interviews with her colleagues and children, all of whom are elderly. Their detailed recollections of Underwood contribute to the field of journalism history by explaining how she was able to break through gender barriers, which in turn, paved the way for women to enter the field and helped other women journalists to have more meaningful careers.

Universal Invitations and Inexhaustable Resources: Portrayals of Rural Life in Popular Magazines of the Late 1800s • Michael Clay Carey, Ohio University • This exploratory study examines the descriptions of rural situations, people and places that appeared in three popular magazines – Munsey’s, McClure’s, and Cosmopolitan – in the late 1800s and early 1900s. During the Progressive Era, industrial and financial growth were rapidly reshaping the American social landscape, contributing to the growth of large cities, increasing transportation opportunities, and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. This work suggests that three dominant frames emerge to orient coverage of rural America. A fourth frame, less common than the others but still relevant, is also discussed. The paper argues that the frames present an interesting and at times conflicting view of America’s rural communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Rural areas were presented as lands of financial opportunity – places where, with the aid of cosmopolitan sophistication and science, wealth could be found and modern society could thrive. Stories also depicted rural America as a place to be admired, consumed, and sometimes disdained. Its traditional values were lauded while its backwardness was chided. The paper argues that the dichotomies present in those frames – old and new, tradition and progress, work and leisure – are not unlike those evident when one considers the state of the magazine publishing industry, and in fact society as a whole, in the early 1900s.

Murrow and Friendly’s Multimedia Maturation: How Two Non-Visual Communicators Created A Groundbreaking Television Program • Mike Conway, Indiana University School of Journalism • CBS’s See It Now, with Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly, is one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated news broadcasts. But how could two men with little visual experience create a landmark 1950s television program? This project explores the thoughts, ideas, and decisions made to blend existing news formats. Murrow’s fame did not guarantee See It Now’s success. Instead it was a willingness to learn from experts in all news media.

Our Voice and Our Place in the World: African-American Female Columnists Discuss Diaspora Politics, 1940-1945 • Caryl Cooper, University of Alabama • This study uses the historiographical method to analyze the themes Charlotta A. Bass, editor and columnist for the California Eagle, Rebecca Stiles Taylor, women’s columnist for the Chicago Defender, and Marjorie McKenzie, columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier, used in their columns to inform their readers about the politics and events of Africa and the nations of African Diaspora during World War II, 1940 through 1945. These three women stand out for their contribution to the wartime discourse about U.S. segregation, colonialism and the meaning of the war. Although Bass, Taylor and McKenzie maintained their column throughout the war years, the specifics of what they wrote about diaspora politics have not been explored. This study seeks to add to the body of knowledge about the role of the black press during a time of national crisis by infusing the female voice into an otherwise masculine body of knowledge.

“To Exalt the Profession”: Association, Ethics and Editors in the Early Republic • Frank Fee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This research demonstrates that by the 1830s editors in America were coming together to talk about ethics and raising journalistic standards. Fearing that the excesses of partisanship had made their business “a vehicle of ribaldry and personal defamation,” antebellum editors in nearly every state and territory met to try to tame their free-wheeling craft. The convention movement soon led to formal associations of editors, a development that occurred significantly earlier than scholars generally have recognized.

A Confederate Journalist Held Captive in the North: The Case of Edward A. Pollard • Michael Fuhlhage, Auburn University; Julia Watterson, Auburn University • This project examines how Richmond Examiner editorialist Edward Pollard turned his captivity in the North into Confederate propaganda during the Civil War. Pollard’s journalism aimed to lift Southern spirits by arguing the South could win if only it held out a little longer because the North lacked the resources and will to continue fighting. He argued gallantry and bravado would lead to Confederate independence and the continuation of slavery. Primary sources: newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, books.

The past, present, and future of newspapers: Historicity, authority, and collective memory in four that failed • Nicholas Gilewicz, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania • This article analyzes self-authored histories published in final editions of four United States newspapers that failed between 1978 and 1982. Problematizing the newspaper’s status as an historical document, journalists inscribed historic weight to the closing of their newspapers. This article discusses how journalists shade their histories through hagiography and appeals to collective memory, and how at moments of existential crisis, seams in the interpretation of reality, and journalists’ roles in that interpretation, are made manifest.

Blogging Back Then: Annotative Journalism in I.F. Stone’s Weekly and Talking Points Memo • Lucas Graves, UW – Madison • This article develops the concept of “annotative journalism” with a review of two muckraking investigations, fifty years apart, by the newsletter I.F. Stone’s Weekly and the website Talking Points Memo. Both cases highlight a fragmentary, intertextual style of newswork that unsettles the practices and assumptions of objective journalism, producing dramatic breakthroughs despite little original reporting. This history argues that as a form of reporting annotation works through, not despite, a wider political and media critique.

“The day Eunice Kennedy Shriver Came to the Iron Range” (…and rode a snowmobile) • John Hatcher, University of Minnesota Duluth • This manuscript recounts how it came to be that Eunice Kennedy Shriver came this mining town of less than 6,000 people on Minnesota’s Iron Range, less than 100 miles from the Canadian border, in the dead of winter and rode a snowmobile. Her visit was the culmination of an effort that brought together Veda Ponikvar, a newspaper publisher, with John A. Blatnik, the region’s congressman to rally support at the local, state and national level for the construction of what was touted as one of the first day treatment centers for children with developmental disabilities in the state. This manuscript presents in narrative fashion the story of how the national issue of the deinstitutionalization of the developmentally disabled became a local issue in the community of Chisholm.

“This Has Been a C. D. Chesley Production:” The Story Behind the Early Broadcasting and Sponsoring of Atlantic Coast Conference Basketball • Daniel Haygood, Elon University • Most college sports fans recognize the enduring success of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball teams. Yet, few know that the early television broadcasts of conference games helped set the stage for that success. This research captures the story behind the producing, broadcasting, and sponsoring of ACC basketball from 1958 to 1981. This is when Castleman DeTolley Chesley brought ACC basketball to area fans via television broadcasts, helping to popularize the conference and establish the ACC brand.

“Reagan or Carter? Wrong Questions for Blacks”: Race and 1980s Presidential Politics in the Black Press • Justin Hudson, University of Maryland, College Park • This project analyzes the coverage of racial politics during the 1980s presidential campaigns in two prominent African American newspapers, the Los Angeles Sentinel and the Philadelphia Tribune. Both the Sentinel and Tribune became frustrated by the lack of attention given to black issues by both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and pushed for alternative solutions, such as backing civil rights activist Jesse Jackson’s bid for presidency, as a means to politically empower the black community.

Arguing for Abolition in “American Slavery As It Is” • Paula Hunt, University of Missouri • This paper uses the theoretical framework of field of discourse to examine how Theodore Dwight Weld’s American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839) communicated to different communities in antebellum America to persuade them to join the abolitionist cause. It suggests that a close reading of historical texts like this one can help illuminate how the discursive strategies of social movements contributed to shaping of public opinion on critical issues.

Media Archaeology and Digitized Archives: The Case of Great White Hopes • Phillip Hutchison, University of Kentucky • This case study demonstrates how digitized media archives can help journalism historians better contribute to the rubric of media archaeology. The case study traces usage of the media tagline “great white hope” to reveal overlooked insights about this moniker. The findings indicate that contemporary research often uses these idioms nebulously or inaccurately. Of note, white-hope phrases predate Johnson by at least a century; furthermore, the boxing moniker Great White Hope does not directly relate to the original Jack Johnson controversy. Instead, it reflects 1960s phraseology that was interposed onto a historical artifact. This approach highlights the utility of these databases to media archaeologies in general, and it also illustrates how journalism historians can capitalize on searchable media archives to develop more precise and culturally informed histories.

Great Hopes Forgotten: A Narrative Analysis of Boxing Coverage in Black Press Newspapers, 1920-1930 • Carrie Isard, Temple University • The following paper analyzes the overriding narrative that emerged during the 1920s in discussions of pugilism in the black press, arguing that the boxing ring served as a microcosm of Jim Crow segregation for many sports writers, who connected the color line with larger issues of critical citizenship; that the coverage focused largely on the biggest story of the decade, Harry Wills’ unsuccessful pursuit of Jack Dempsey; and finally, that within that narrative, the black press was actively negotiating the construction of a historical narrative of the boxing color line, with Jack Johnson as its main focus.

The WUSC shutdown: Exploring the reasons the University of South Carolina shutdown its radio station • Joseph Kasko, University of South Carolina • In the early 1990s WUSC-FM in Columbia, SC was considered one of the most prestigious college radio stations in the country. However, for several weeks beginning in late 1995 between the fall and spring semesters the station was taken off the air and its student staff was dismissed for reasons that have never truly been explored. This paper will examine the events and circumstances that ultimately led the university to take this course of action.

‘Mr. Justice Everyman’s Far-Reaching Legacy: Transforming Corporate Political Media Spending into Free Speech, 1978-2010, in Terms of Carl Becker’s Theory of History • Robert Kerr, University of Oklahoma • This paper utilizes an analytic approach grounded in Carl Becker’s “Mr. Everyman” theory of history to consider the manner in which Justice Lewis Powell understood the societal role of corporate political media spending and effected that understanding so as to transform it into protected First Amendment “speech.” It suggests the continuing relevance of Becker’s thesis in illuminating what he called “history that does work in the world.”

Ghost Trains: Past Legends and Present Tragedies • Paulette D. Kilmer, University of Toledo • Ghost trains evolved from the archetype of phantom conveyances, like carts and wagons. Long hours, treacherous working conditions, and horrific accidents, which maimed or killed railroaders encouraged belief in apparitions. This essay analyzes the role of storytellers, newspapers, and songs in these legends about ghosts foretelling catastrophes, bringing death, and reenacting the carnage. Today, few fear phantom expresses, but some die playing the ghost train game.

The Writer, The Artist, And The Gentleman: Key Ideas Of News Values From S.S. McClure • Claudia Kozman, Indiana University • This study is an examination of news values from the perspective of S. S. McClure, the editor of McClure’s magazine. Basing this research on S.S. McClure’s papers in the archives of the Indiana University Lilly Library, the author constructs three themes that constitute the news values practiced by McClure. This study also places McClure’s thoughts in the era they functioned in, discussing how they fit and differ from the prevailing ideas of his times.

From Colonial Evangelism to Guerilla Journalism: A Public Sphere History of the Nigerian Press • Farooq Kperogi • This paper traces the history of the press in Nigeria and show how the form and character of the government of the day (colonial governments, military dictatorships, and constitutional democracies) defined the editorial temperaments and public sphere debates in the country. This is important because existing media historiographies of Nigeria often fail to connect the historical dots between the emergence of the first newspaper in Nigeria and the current editorial complexion of the Nigerian press.

“Bright and inviolate:” the growth of business-newsroom divides in the early twentieth century • Will Mari, University of Washington • This paper examines growth of the supposed divide between business and news spaces in American newspapers in the twentieth century, relying on a close reading of business-management textbooks published between 1901 and 1946. These texts were intended to transmit journalistic norms and values across generations of news workers. They were aspirational texts for how newspapers should be run as both businesses and as community trusts, and show some of the struggles and tensions between the different functions of a newspaper, and how their operating principles either advanced or conflicted with one another.

Tributes to Fallen Journalists: The Evolution of the Hero Myth in Journalistic Practice • Raymond McCaffrey, University of Maryland • An analysis of New York Times tributes to fallen U.S. journalists who perished while at work from 1854 to 2012 revealed that articles were written about 87 percent of the 223 journalists who died on foreign assignment compared to coverage of about 58 percent of the 139 journalists whose deaths were in the U.S. Foreign correspondents were often depicted in heroic terms, while those dying in the U.S. were largely portrayed as the archetypal victim.

The Rosie Legend and Why the Ad Council Claimed Her • Wendy Melillo, American University • Since 2002, the Ad Council has used the iconic “We Can Do It!” poster – also known as the Rosie-the-Riveter poster – to showcase its well-known “Womanpower” public service advertising campaign done for the federal government during World War II. This paper explores why the Ad Council claimed the poster and the recruitment campaign’s symbolic representation of female empowerment as part of its history and public image when the historical record reveals both claims to be fiction.

Authorizing the Nation’s Voice: American Journalism, the Department of State & the Transition to Peacetime International Broadcasting • Emily Metzgar • After the end of World War Two, American political leadership sought passage of legislation to authorize peacetime, government-sponsored, international broadcasting that would teach the world about the United States. This article tells the story of disagreement between the Department of State and American journalists in the period between the war’s end in 1945 and the 1948 passage of authorizing legislation, known today as the Smith-Mundt Act.

The 1929 Torches of Freedom Campaign: Walking “into obscurity” or “publicity stunt of genuine historic significance”? • Vanessa Murphree, The University of Southern Mississippi • This paper examines how newspapers responded to Edward Bernays’ Torches of Freedom campaign, which included carefully selected cigarette-smoking women marching in the 1929 New York City Easter Parade with the purported goal of encouraging women to smoke in public. The evidence indicates that Bernays was not particularly successful in getting significant newspaper support and that coverage of the parade event was never as extensive or persuasive as some historians have long suggested.

Institutionalizing Press Relations at the Supreme Court: The Origins of the Public Information Office • Jonathan Peters, U of Missouri Columbia • At the Supreme Court, the press is the primary link between the justices and the public, and the Public Information Office (PIO) is the primary link between the justices and the press. This paper explores the story of the PIO’s origins, providing the most complete account to date of its early history. That story is anchored by the major events of several eras—from the Great Depression policymaking of the 1930s to the social and political upheaval of the 1970s. It is also defined by the three men who built and shaped the office in the course of 40 years.

Partisanship in the Antislavery Press During the 1844 Run of an Abolition Candidate for President • Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington • This study of antislavery newspapers during the 1844 presidential campaign concludes that although the antislavery press claimed to be singularly focused on the abolition of slavery, its editors were largely distracted by the election and mirrored the partisan press of that era in their treatment of the various candidates. Furthermore, Liberty Party editors and their Garrisonian counterparts addressed each other with the same level of disdain that they directed at the Whigs and Democrats.

“A World in Perilous Disequilibrium”: Marquis W. Childs and the Cold War Consensus • Robert Rabe, Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications • This paper is a study of the newspaper columnist Marquis Childs and his role as part of the emerging Cold War consensus in the late 1940s. It examines his writings about defense spending, American-Soviet relations, the United Nations, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and other early aspects of Cold War policy-making. It also looks at his involvement with the liberal ideas and organizations that made up the left end of the political spectrum of the era.

“Modern Joan of Arc”: Coverage of Ida Wells-Barnett and the Alpha Suffrage Club • Lori Roessner, UTK; Jodi Rightler-McDaniels, University of Tennessee, Knoxville • Known most prominently as a daring journalist and anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) also worked tirelessly throughout her life as an advocate of women’s rights.The piece not only grapples with the transformation of Wells-Barnett’s portrayal as women’s rights advocate in the press, it also considers how through Wells-Barnett’s involvement the Alpha Suffrage Club was promoted as a site of united womanhood and as a site of resistance and empowerment for African-American women in the Chicago Defender.

The Voice in the Night Unheard by Scholars: Herb Jepko and the Genesis of National Talk Radio • Miles Romney, Arizona State University • Radio scholarship is an emerging field of study among broadcast historians and much remains unexplored. There exists little investigation into how early FCC clear channel radio stations provided the first platform for national radio communication. Much of historical scholarship recognizes Larry King’s satellite-distributed program as the pioneering stride in national overnight talk radio. This study examines new archival evidence that reveals Herb Jepko used clear channel signals to broadcast the first national overnight talk radio program

Arthur J. Goldberg on Freedom of Expression • Thomas Schwartz • Arthur Goldberg had an unusual impact on the development of constitutional theory on freedom of expression while he briefly sat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962-64, but his contributions exceeded those while he was on the bench. His early life and experience as a labor lawyer and labor secretary fed his strong interest in maximizing freedom of expression. As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he promoted freedom of expression as an international value. Later, he wrote and spoke extensively about the significance of freedom of speech in a variety of contexts, seeing it as the essence of democracy. This research uses his Supreme Court record and materials from his papers to demonstrate his intensive and extensive thinking and application of First Amendment principles.

‘An Offense to Conventional Wisdom:’ Press independence and Publisher W.E. Chilton III, 1960 to 1987 • Edgar Simpson, Central Michigan University • Over more than two decades as owner/publisher of West Virginia’s largest daily newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, W.E. “Ned” Chilton III established a legacy of independence that serves as an apt framework to discuss today’s core issues surrounding the meaning of a free press. Through the prism of a public sphere invigorated by an independent press, this case study examines Chilton’s insistence on journalism as a seeker of truth – or at least his version of truth – and a hammer for change rather than a “neutral” purveyor of information. This paper, which uses Chilton’s archives, interviews, existing literature, and more than 200 articles of the time period, focuses on three episodes: His battle for the Gazette’s file compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which revealed to the nation for the first time that the FBI had investigated news organizations in addition to individual journalists; the run-up to the Vietnam War, in which the Gazette was cited as one of the first in the nation to challenge the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as a rationale for military action, and his long association with West Virginia U.S. Senator John Rockefeller, which eventually forced him to choose between friendship and independence. Overall, this study found and the author argues two essential elements for the concept of press independence: the ability to make decisions and a loyalty to ideals that reach beyond business or personal concerns.

A History of the Watchdog Metaphor in Journalism • Tim Vos, University of Missouri; Christopher Matthews • This cultural history of the watchdog-journalism metaphor in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries uses rhetorical and metaphorical analysis to examine how journalists themselves articulated the public service function of journalism in terms of the watchdog metaphor. The study shows how the metaphor evolved alongside cultural changes, from personal relationships with dogs to the political reforms of the Progressive era. The study illustrates how the cultural capital of journalism is rhetorically constructed.

<<2013 Abstracts

Graduate Student 2013 Abstracts

The Role of Differing Host Styles in Fox News’ Prime-Time Coverage of Health Care Reform in August 2009 • Mitchell Bard • Much research has looked at individual Fox News programs to ascertain how the network operates in a variety of contexts, but nearly no attention has been paid to the role of individual hosts. The host plays an important role in branding news programs and thus directly affects a network’s credibility. This study examines how the three Fox News prime-time hosts employed differing approaches to furthering the network’s themes opposing health care reform in August 2009.

Engaging Information: How Targeting Creates More Comments but Less Likes on Facebook • Jan Boehmer, Michigan State University • In the present study, I investigate the effects of targeted Facebook posts on audience engagement. Conducting a content analysis of 1536 Facebook status updates, I find that targeting is related to an increase in the amount of comments, but affects the number of likes negatively. To better understand this result, I also explore two variables that potentially affect the likelihood of a newspaper using targeted Facebook posts: Circulation and social media use in the newspaper’s print community. Based on the results, I discuss implications for the future measurement of engagement, stimulating contributions to online communities, and targeting information to specific user groups.

A Content Analysis of The Deseret News Before and After Move to Converged Newsroom • Brendon Butler, Scripps School of Journalism • At the end of August 2010, one of Utah’s two flagship newspapers announced a radical change in its business operations. The Deseret News, with a weekday circulation of nearly 80,000 subscribers, would move to an integrated newsroom, sharing editorial and production staff with its sister media outlets, KSL television and radio. To this end, 57 full-time and 28 part-time employees were fired, reducing the paper’s editorial staff by 43 percent. In total, the paper lost 85 employees. In the aftermath, the paper was criticized for a perceived reduction in coverage of local issues in communities surrounding the capital city where the paper was located. This study examines local coverage by the paper before and after the move to determine if coverage of local issues such as city council meetings declined after the move.

Did #NBCFail? Twitter and User-Generated Critiques of 2012 Olympic Coverage in a Post-Broadcast World • Daniel Sipocz, University of Southern Mississippi; Robert Byrd, The University of Southern Mississippi • The purpose of this paper was to critically examine the viewer/user critiques of NBC’s coverage through the #NBCfail hashtag, via Twitter, over the course of the Olympic fortnight. The hashtag provided viewers/users with a tool to directly address NBC and like-minded Twitters users to express their dissatisfaction with NBC’s Olympic coverage, to create their own discourse, and to demand better coverage that included more accurately capturing the diverse spirit of the games.

Textual Analysis of the Portrayals of the Roma • Sabrina Deaton, University of Central Florida • This paper examines media representations of Roma (Gypsies), a marginalized and socially disadvantaged ethnic group in the U.S. Most members of the U.S. dominant culture have had little-to-no interpersonal interaction with Roma, so much public perception of them is likely shaped by media. This case-study analysis of “Gypsy crime” articles describes how these texts stigmatize Roma through negative coverage that has the power to reify and propagate the spoiled identity of this ethnic minority.

Credibility and Recall Effects of Source Documents in News • Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin • News organizations use PDFs of source documents such as criminal complaints to supplement news coverage about those documents. Employing the heuristic-systematic processing model, this study examined how those documents affected readers’ recall and perception of credibility of the news. The results of an experiment that included 158 university student participants found little effect on recall or the perception of credibility. However, several factors influencing recall and perception of credibility were found. Implications and future research are discussed.

When Goffman, Soja and Lefebve Talk on Mobile Phones — An Interpretation from Two Perspectives: Postmodern Geography and Symbolic Interactionism • Chia-I Hou, National Taiwan University • This paper explores how different modes and patterns of human communication have emerged or are emerging with the adoption and development of mobile media. The paper considers literature in microsociology (i.e., Goffman) and cultural/postmodern geography (i.e., Lefebvre and Soja) to discuss how individuals use mobile media as means and resources to manage their social interactions. In addition, mobile media act to configure or reconfigure individual socio-geographical spaces in individuals’ everyday lives. The paper examines these two theoretical frameworks, focusing in particular on how time and space might be compressed or expanded via mobile media.

“Cushion for the Pushin’ ”: How Racial Identity Shapes the Way Black Women Interpret Obesity and Weight- Loss Messages • Christal Johnson • The purpose of this study is to take a public relations approach to determine how Black women’s racial identity shapes the way they understand obesity and weight loss messages. According to Helm (1990), racial identity, refers to “a sense of group or collective identity based on one’s perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group” (p. 3). This study combines the use of situational theory of publics, racial identity, and the centrality and private regard measures of the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI) scale to qualitatively explore how Black women understand obesity-related messages. This study extends the body of public relations literature by: (1) using a qualitative, audience-centered methodology to examine racial identity and to determine how this contributes to Black women’s meaning-making process relative to obesity and weight loss messages, and (2) introducing the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI) scale to the public relations field as a tool to examine racial identity. Traditional public relations scholarship utilizes quantitative methods that include race as a static variable for demographic-reporting reasons. However, this study, consisting of focus groups with 21 women, ages 18-60 who reside in Oklahoma, uses racial identity to help examine social factors that shape how Black women understand obesity and weight-loss messages. Results revealed five themes that emerged from the data.

Picturing the Scientists: A Content Analysis of the Scientists’ Photographs in The New York Times, 2000 to 2009 • Hwalbin Kim, University of South Carolina; Christopher Frear, University of South Carolina • By analyzing the scientists’ photographs in the weekly science section of The New York Times, this study shows how an influential newspaper visually portrayed scientists from 2000 to 2009. Using visual framing theory, this study considers how the scientists are represented and significantly finds that most scientists shown were white males. By comparing the photographs with American workforce statistics, the study concludes that the Times reinforced stereotypes rather than portrayed the diverse field.

Popular Mobile Games in Contemporary Society: As Based on Mobile Media Users • Hyungmin Kim, Temple University • With the advent of smartphones, the global mobile applications market has increased exponentially. In particular, mobile games have become extremely popular. As such, this study explores which mobile technologies have been used in mobile games, and their relation to contemporary mobile gamers’ download choices. Apple’s App Store chart was utilized to analyze the common technological and gaming design features of the contemporary mobile games that are most popular with the gamers, and also to examine similarities and differences between the most popular smartphone and tablet computer games. The results show that popular mobile games maximize players’ touch-based enjoyment (i.e., swiping, sliding or drawing). In addition, the popular games have at least two of the following features: simple rules, social interactions, and no enemies or a lack of the need to fight an enemy to accomplish a mission. Games that require careful controls, such as tilting the screen or fast and unpredictable moves, tended to be more downloaded on the iPad than on the iPhone. In terms of ranking fluctuations, the paid game charts were statistically more stable than the free game charts.

The News Media’s Framing of Labor Unions Over Time • Sadie Kliner, The George Washington University • For nearly a century, scholars have explored how news media frame labor unions in the United States. A review of this literature reveals a dominant negative frame and a methodological focus on particular outlets, strikes, case studies and private sector unions. The rise of public sector union membership and the various ways in which news media are now consumed suggest that this approach fails to account for factors critical in understanding how labor unions are framed today.

Sports Agenda in the News Media in Late Communist Poland Claudia Kozman, Indiana University • This study is a textual analysis of the sports agenda in Polish news media between 1974 and the fall of communism in 1989. Analyzing print articles and television broadcasts from a convenience sample of news media, this study identified themes consistent with literature about the relationship between politics and sport. Under communism, the Polish news media presented sport as part of the larger political context. This theme was mostly evident in the period surrounding the withdrawal of Poland from the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. Media discussions that dominated sports news stressed the ongoing ideological battle between socialism and capitalism. The news reports also mirrored the Communist Party agenda, mainly through the leaders’ speeches, official statements, and editorials. Throughout this period, Party leaders emphasized the importance of developing sport locally and internationally. The findings also point to the relative autonomy of Polish journalists who expressed their opinions with or without cues from the Party.

Communicating Beach Safety in a Big Surf Culture: Health implications of risk-free Hawaiian newspaper coverage • Amanda Miller • In 2011, drowning fatalities reached the highest rate Hawai’i has experienced since 1993 (IPAC & IPSC, 2012). A quantitative content analysis of newspaper articles published from 2009 to 2012 by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser highlights message patterns which may interfere with effective ocean drowning prevention in Hawai’i. Health implications of cultural attraction to “big surf” combined with messages of high personal responsibility, while lacking perceived risk severity, susceptibility, and contextual prevention tactics are discussed.

You Can Make This Stuff Up: Intersection Between Fiction and News in the Eighteenth Century • Jean Norman, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • In the eighteenth century, it was difficult to tell prose fiction from non-fiction. Both made claims to truthfulness, and often both, especially the newspapers, included fabrication. Using Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative acts as a guide, deep textual analysis of eighteenth century British newspapers shows the beginnings of modern journalistic standards by the end of the century: accuracy, honest, and credibility.

Sharpening the 5 W’s with Pentadic Analysis: Toward a Burkean Pedagogy • Nathan Rodriguez, University of Kansas • The digital era challenges journalism instructors to incorporate strategies that recognize a reconfigured mediascape. This essay argues a premium ought be placed upon techniques that promote awareness of language use, appreciation of complexity and an inclination toward patience. It is suggested that Kenneth Burke’s pentad, which elaborates upon the “W’s” of journalism, offers a concise yet sophisticated approach to apprehending interaction that would benefit both practitioners and students of journalism.

Virtual Image Repair – Why Twitter Enables Athletes More Effective Image Restoration than Traditional Crisis Management Techniques • Annelie Schmittel, University of Florida • This study proposes a conceptual model that illustrates why Twitter is a more effective vehicle for image restoration of professional athletes than mainstream media. Athletes involved in scandals are quick to employ traditional crisis management techniques. However, as illustrated in this study, several underlying factors contribute to a more effective form of image restoration and are better achieved through the use of Twitter. Antecedent conditions that affect the validity of the model are outlined within.

Covering Mental Illness: Challenges and Solutions • Roma Subramanian, University of Missouri, School of Journalism • U.S.-based print journalists who had won awards for stories on mental illness were interviewed to determine how reporting on mental illness can be improved. Respondents indicated that a mixture of organizational and personal factors such as editorial support, considerable journalism experience, personal exposure to mental illness, and empathy helped them produce quality stories. Also noteworthy were respondents’ opinions on suggestions in reporting guides about imitation suicides, sensitive language, and positive mental illness news.

The Roles of the Game: The influence of news consumption patterns on the role conceptions of journalism students • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study is based on a survey of 364 undergraduate journalism students and looks at how news consumption patterns influence the journalistic role conceptions that students hold. Guided by social identity theory, this study finds that students rated the interpreter role as most important. Students who prioritized the interpreter role also tend to get their news from online sources and social media. The implications of these findings on college instruction are also discussed.

The Latent Growth Curve of Alcohol Ads Exposure: Adolescents’ Media Use, Drinking Patterns, and Association with Alcohol Using Peers in Identity Development • Jared Tu, City University of Hong Kong • This study examines prospective associations between exposure to alcohol advertising and changes over time in drinking and association with alcohol-using peers. Theoretically, this study is an application of the Reinforcing Model in adolescents’ identity development. With a four-wave panel design in the Latent Growth Curve, the data showed partial support to the Reinforcing Model, suggesting that members with a given social identity select media content corresponding to the existing or developing social identity. Use of the media content, in turn, will reinforce such identities, followed by continuing selection of identity-consistent media. Alcohol advertising exposure, positively or passively selected by adolescents, serves as mediated socialization experience and bridges adolescents’ earlier, family-approved associations to later social activities with peers-centered norms such as drinking. Results identified that baseline exposure to the alcohol ads robustly predicted increasing trajectories of drinking and of associating with alcohol-using peers.

The Activist Network: How Wikipedia Used Facebook Posts and Shares to Gain Support for the SOPA/PIPA Blackout • Amanda J. Weed, Ohio University • One of Facebook’s many features is its capability to share posts among “friend” networks. This capability allows messages to be shared quickly and broadly. Each time a post is shared, it is presented to a new network of “friends”, who then have the option to share the post with their own network of friends, and so on. Successful framing has the potential to create enough support from message receivers that the message will continue to be passed on, in a snowball effect, throughout the social network. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical framework of agenda-building to examine how framed messages from Wikipedia disseminated through Facebook during the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/Protect IP Act (PIPA) Blackout campaign. This study utilized a content analysis of Facebook shares of Wikipedia posts from the sample time period January 16 through 19, 2012. This research examined three aspects of framing in Facebook shares to determine: (a) if framed messages affect the likelihood of sharing with comments among 1st level responders; (b) what types of user-generated content 1st level respondents will attach in their comments; and (c) does the 1st level share lead to significant 2nd level sharing. Results of this study may guide future use of framing levels and devices to encourage message dissemination throughout the Facebook network.

Data Privacy in the Newsroom: The Conflict between Privacy Policies and Ethics Policies • David Wolfgang, University of Missouri • This study analyzes website privacy policies used by major news corporations and attempts to understand the newsroom ethics policies as applied to protecting personal information collected about readers. The confluence of the legal and ethical questions revealed a conflicting relationship that possibly exposes news organizations that publish user information to liability while still practicing within the accepted limitations of traditional journalism ethics. Journalists tend to be indignant about the protections they afford to personal information collected on their site, unless the user is a public official using their pseudonym to discuss public issues behind a veil of secrecy. In this situation, journalists not only justify their actions under their ethics policies, but are possibly unknowingly breaching a contract made with each and every reader. In order to protect against liability, news organizations should change their newsroom practices to allow for the disclosure of user information in a very narrowly-constructed situation and amend their privacy policy to align with traditional journalism ethics as applied to privacy situations.

Health-related Reality TV on Social Media: Opportunity for Social Marketing or TV Program Promotion? • Xiaochen Zhang, University of Florida • This paper employed content analysis and thematic analysis to examine what information health-related reality TV (i.e., The Biggest Loser) viewers seek and respond to when interacting with the show’s social networking component. Analysis of posts and comments on The Biggest Loser official Facebook page showed that the most common postings were those promoting the program itself, and the most common user comments were those giving social support.

<<2013 Abstracts

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender 2013 Abstracts

Sin and Spin: The Importance of Public Relations in the Early Gay Rights Movement, 1950-1974 • Edward Alwood, Quinnipiac University • This study examines public relations strategies in the gay and lesbian rights movement from the 1950s when most homosexuals remained deeply closeted through the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s when homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of message framing and focuses on activists who spearheaded these efforts and the strategies they used to gain recognition as a social minority. Public relations played a vital role in the early stages of the gay rights movement. The study concludes that gay and lesbian activists made a concerted effort to influence public opinion using fundamental public relations strategies more than a decade before the New York riots that marked the beginning of the modern Gay Liberation Movement.

Creating A Narrative Of (Im)Possibility: Outsports.com’s Declaration of a Gay-friendly Sports World • Robert Byrd, The University of Southern Mississippi • In this essay, I argue that Outsports.com writers constructed a narrative using a rhetoric of possibility of an open and accepting environment in American professional sport. By relying on straight athletes, as sources, Outsports’ narrative insinuates that an openly gay athlete would be able to successfully navigate the unknown terrain outside the closet and actually thrive as an openly gay athlete. In this essay, I argue, however, that the narrative of possibility relies on heteronormative constructions of masculinity and gayness.

“The fact is, I’m gay”: Coming Out as a Public Figure • Molly Kalan, Syracuse University; Azeta Hatef; Christopher Fers, Syracuse University • In the summer of 2012, three public figures (Anderson Cooper, Megan Rapinoe, and Frank Ocean) from different industries publicly disclosed that they identify as non-heterosexual. This study employs textual analysis in order to discern what themes appeared across articles covering this disclosure, and what media narratives about LGBTQ figures emerged. Common themes include how public figures act as role models and also provide increased visibility to the LGBTQ community within different industries.

Campaigning from the Closet: Contexts of Messaging During the Campaign to Defeat North Carolina’s Amendment One • Laura Meadows, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Kreiss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This article presents the results of a four-month ethnographic study of the Coalition to Protect All NC Families, the campaign to defeat North Carolina’s 2012 constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. We chart the campaign’s creation and conduct, focusing on the its decision to frame the amendment in terms of its harmful consequences for children and families, which marginalized the perspectives of those wanting to argue for marriage equality.

News Attention and Demographic factors Affecting attitudes towards Legalization of Same-sex Marriage in Singapore • Chitra Panchapakesan Kumari, Nanyang Technological University; Li Li, Nanyang Technological University; Shirley Ho • This paper focuses on the impact of the level of news attention to traditional, internet, social media and demographic factors influencing individual’s attitude towards the legalization of same-sex marriage in Singapore. The results indicated that news attention to internet media had positive association whereas news attentions to traditional media or social media had no effects on the individuals’ attitudes. Also individuals’ religion affiliation and religious guidance affected individuals’ attitude towards legalization of same-sex marriage.

Double-Edged Discourse: An Analysis of the LGBT Community’s • John Sewell, The University of West Georgia • This essay introduces the concept double-edged discourse (an oppositional discourse within another, larger oppositional discourse), relating it to the occurrence of queer discourse within LGBT discourse. Employing Laclau’s logic of equivalence, the essay analyzes how the discourse instigated by the Queer Nation manifesto, “Queers Read This,” spearheaded the appropriation of queer as an empty signifier. The essay examines the historical factors leading to the emergence of queer identity from within the greater LGBT discourse, considers the move from gay assimilationist strategies of the 1960s/70s toward queer’s transgressive oppositionality in the 1990s, examines the role of the manifesto, “Queers Read This” as a motivator for the appropriation of queer as an empty signifier, explains how the term queer has been something of a rhetorical burden for the LGBT community, imagines alternative discourses that might have occurred in an AIDS-free world to further clarify how the AIDS crisis may have led to the emergence of queer discourse, and explains how the equivalential linkages enabled by queer eventually dissipated. It is argued that queer functioned at cross-purposes with itself, operating in a way that at first produced constitutive unity and then became divisive as queer discourse ran its course.

Remembering Rustin: Brother Outsider and the Politics of Intersectional Queer Memory • Adam Sharples, University of Alabama • This essay examines the public memory of gay Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin to question how African American and sexual identities are remembered through contemporary representations in film. By analyzing the documentary Brother Outsider through a critical framework of public memory, intersectionality, and queer theory this project questions how contemporary texts recuperate and circulate Rustin’s memory through mass media and what these revivalist memories signify for race and sexuality as a site of resistance.

<<2013 Abstracts

Entertainment Studies 2013 Abstracts

Identity exploration in emerging adulthood and the effects of privileged television on materialism and life goal importance • Emily Acosta Lewis, Sonoma State University • This study examined a newly proposed sub-genre of TV called privileged TV, which refers to shows that glamorize wealthy lifestyles (e.g. Gossip Girl). The main purpose of this study was to evaluate if and how privileged TV shows may influence emerging adults’ (18-29 years of age)level of materialism and life goal importance (altruistic and wealth/status goals). A survey was conducted on a college (N = 323) and non-college sample (N = 410) to investigate the relationship between privileged TV, materialism, and life goal importance and moderation by identity exploration (a key dimension of emerging adulthood). The results showed that there was a positive relationship between privileged TV and materialism. There was also a negative relationship between materialism and altruistic life goals and a positive relationship between materialism and wealth/status life goals. It was found that those who were low in identity exploration (those who had not yet begun exploring their identity or already have an established identity) needed to engage with the TV show (e.g. influence of presumed influence and peer norms etc.) in order to be affected whereas those who were high in identity exploration (those actively exploring their identity) were affected both directly and indirectly by privileged TV.

Effects of Web Content, Perceived Interactivity and Organization on Attitudes toward the Sport Website. • Taesoo Ahn, Merrimack College; Young Ik Suh; Moonki Hong; Juha Yoon; Paul Pedersen • The current study sought to identify the relationships among web contents (entertainment and informativeness), perceived interactivity, web organization, and attitude toward the sport website. Four hypotheses were presented from a conceptual model, and were tested with Structural Equation Model (SEM) analyses. The results showed that interactivity directly and indirectly influenced attitude toward the sport website, and web organization played a moderate role between perceived interactivity and attitude toward the sport website. The findings of this study suggest that sport marketers need to place more emphasis on perceived interactivity and Web organization, which significantly affect overall attitude toward the sport website. It would be particularly beneficial for sport marketers to use the interactive contents of sport websites to reach current and potential users, but it is important to note that the interactivity functions should be well-organized.

Active versus inactive video game play: Trends in ownership, use, and motivations for use • Mary Katherine Alsip, Institute for Communication and Information Research, The University of Alabama; Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama • Active video games have been a proposed solution to the growing obesity trends in the U.S. Some studies have indicated that active games are not played as often as needed to improve health outcomes, even when individuals have home access to gaming equipment. Uses and gratifications theory may help determine what motivates players to choose active vs. inactive games. A survey of 217 young adults indicates that there are significant differences in console ownership, use, and motivation to play video games based on gender and based on regular play of active vs. inactive games. Even those that have access to active gaming equipment do not appear to play active games significantly more often than inactive games, and many active equipment owners actually play inactive games more. Females and specifically female active video game players have utility and social motivations for playing video games. Males and female inactive video game players may be more motivated to use video games as a distraction and to alleviate loneliness. These findings are discussed in the context of uses and gratifications theory, and potential directions for promoting active game play are suggested.

Fanfare for the American: NBC’s Primetime Broadcast of the 2012 London Olympiad • Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; James Angelini, University of Delaware; Paul MacArthur, Utica College; Lauren Smith, Auburn University; John Vincent, University of Alabama • Analysis of NBC’s 2012 London Summer Olympic broadcast revealed significant differences between American and non-American athletes. Regarding athletic mentions, American athletes were more likely to be mentioned (55.8%) than all other athletes combined and composed 75% of the most-mentioned athletes within the broadcast. Regarding descriptions ascribed to the Olympians, American athletes were more likely to be depicted using subjective characterizations, disproportionately having their successes attributed to superior composure, commitment, intelligence, and consonance as well as having a greater level of comments pertaining to their modest/introverted nature. Conversely, non-American athletes were more likely to receive success attributions related to their superior experience and failures depicted as a lack of athletic skill—both largely objective measures. Implications on the dialogue divergences are offered at theoretical level, with heuristic impact being discussed in a variety of contexts.

Reality television depictions of mental illness and bias: Priming, media exposure, and bias development • Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama; Scott Parrott, University of Alabama • It is estimated that between 3 and 6 million people in the United States are compulsive hoarders or struggle with hoarding behavior. To most of the U.S. population, hoarders may be perceived as dirty or messy people who are too lazy to clean their homes. This stereotypical belief about the disease may remain as the general perception of hoarding unless alternative information is presented. Using the theories of priming, cultivation, and the parasocial contact hypothesis, we analyze factors that might be predictors of increased or decreased levels of bias against mental illness followed exposure to mediated representations of hoarding. Thus, the present study had two overarching objectives: 1. To assess participant attitudes toward mental illness following exposure to representation of the mental illness in the clips of Hoarders: Buried Alive; and 2. To assess participant attitudes toward mental illness when factors at the individual, social, and media level are considered. Results from the present study suggest two key findings: first, when exposed to hoarding behavior via a mediated representation of it, negative attitudes were the most prevalent for the experimental group who received no information about hoarding or about it being a mental illness. More simply, if we use exposure to mediated representations of mental illness to make assessments about others without information or knowledge, it is very possible that stereotypical attitudes and beliefs may develop or grow stronger. Second, bias against mental illness was mediated by individual, social, and media factors. These and other findings are discussed.

The Internet’s Role in Sustaining Engagement with Children’s Television • Matt Burns, University of Georgia • For decades, programming models insisted that children’s television series aired 65 episodes, re-ran for a few years, and then disappeared into the recesses of viewers’ memories. Now online video streaming allows nearly any television episode ever produced to be viewed instantly at any time, and social media outlets encourage users to share, discuss, and demand this content. With several media corporations currently riding a wave of nostalgia by reviving children’s television franchises from the 1990s, this research sought to discover how and why college students are engaging with children’s television, and if this sustained engagement can impact the ways media companies consider their programs’ life spans. This article reports the findings of an online survey (n=308) that assessed methods and motivations, as categorized by Askwith (2007), that college students reported for engaging with children’s television. Engagement with children’s television in college is common (69%), but students are unlikely to pay for content or merchandise. Traditional television broadcasts remain an essential component of a show’s longevity. Drawing from uses and gratifications theory, respondents’ motivations for viewing children’s television in adulthood revealed three unique motivation factors labeled Entertainment, Nostalgia, and “Closeted Masters.”

The Nashville Spin on Records: Recording Industry Promotion Techniques • Ashley Cockerham • The onset of a digital music age has forced the music industry to reconsider its methods of music promotion. Publicity-based promotional methods help to expand the recording industry’s shrinking profit margin. The results of this study demonstrate that a paradigm shift to exclusively public relations-rooted promotion is necessary in order to excel within a competitive music market. This study demonstrates that record labels have employed significantly more public relations promotional techniques than they have previously.

Identity and Avatar Similarity in Games: An Exploration of Flow and Enjoyment • Tanner Cooke, Pennsylvania State University • The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between video game players’ salient identity characteristics (age, sex, and body image), degrees of perceived avatar similarity, state of flow, and enjoyment of game play. An online survey with skip logic questions was conducted to understand the impact of age, sex, and body image on gamers’ perceived avatar similarity as well as the relationship between perceived similarity and a user’s state of flow and enjoyment. Using Likert style scale to measure avatar similarities, body image, flow and enjoyment, self-reporting on the survey was used to calibrate perceived gaming ability and time spent playing as gamer level and experience. While only a small sample was collected (sixty-one participants) responses were measured via general linear model and indicated a relationship between males over the age of twenty-six with higher degrees of perceived avatar similarity and their state of flow and enjoyment. This study contributes to extant literature with a preliminary, nuanced understanding of the importance of customization within avatar-based games targeted at certain demographics.

‘Nigger’: Interpretations of the Word’s Prevalence on Chappelle’s Show, Throughout Entertainment, and Everyday Life • Kyle Coward, Council for Adult and Experiential Learning • Throughout history, there have arguably been fewer words more controversial and hurtful than that of ‘nigger.’ In recent times, however, utterance of the term among various African-descended persons has become not so much the rehashing of a negative word, but rather the deconstruction of the term’s historically-perceived connotation, whereby it is reconstructed as a term signifying endearment, particularly among black persons. Employing Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) theory of social constructionism, this study looks at how ten black media consumers interpret the word ‘nigger’ as it is used within three contexts – a 2004 skit of the comedy series Chappelle’s Show, throughout entertainment, and outside of entertainment. Utilizing the grounded theory framework of Strauss and Corbin (1998) to collect data, results uncovered that while a majority of participants had similar interpretations of the word within the context of the skit, there was less agreement of the word’s usage/appropriateness in other contexts.

The Possible Prosocial and Antisocial Effects of Playing Video Games Frequently • J.J. De SImone, University of Wisconsin-Madison • With the renewed attention of video games’ role in school shootings and violent crime, it is important to explore the effects of playing video games frequently. By collecting survey data from a large sample of English-speaking people from across the globe, this study sought to explore whether playing video games frequently may have an effect on people’s prosocial and antisocial behaviors. By considering the frequency of playing popularly released video games as the primary predictor variable, this study’s data revealed that frequent game playing is related to antisocial behaviors, while less frequent playing is related to prosocial behaviors. It appears that playing video games in moderation may have a beneficial effect on individuals while frequent playing is deleterious. The data support the long-term predictions of the General Aggression Model and General Learning Model.

Pseudo newsgathering: Analyzing journalists’ use of pseudo-events on The Wire • Patrick Ferrucci, U of Missouri; Chad Painter, Eastern New Mexico University • This textual analysis examines the role of pseudo-events in the newsgathering process depicted on season five of The Wire. The researchers found that the press and sources construct “reality,” sources present “masks” to conceal “reality,” and journalists acknowledge the absurdity of pseudo-events but cover staged events as genuine news. The overriding conclusion is that fictional journalists fail citizens by constructing a false reality through a negotiation with powerful sources media savvy enough to control depictions.

Does Movie Viewing Cultivate Unrealistic Expectations about Love and Marriage? • Lauren Galloway; Erika Engstrom • The current study examines the association between consumption of media messages by way of movie viewing and genre preference and endorsement of ideals and expectations concerning romantic relationships. A survey of young adults found that viewing preference for both romantic comedies and dramas was significantly and positively correlated with idealized notions of faith that love conquers all, greater expectations for intimacy, and endorsement of the eros love style. However, participants who frequently watched romantic movies did not endorse beliefs in sexual perfection, mindreading, or disagreement disallowance. Results suggest that more mythic romantic ideals may tend to supersede other relational demands.

The Wonder of Wonderfalls: A Search for the Meaning of Life • Timothy R. Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • This paper analyzes the short-lived 2004 television series Wonderfalls from an American Studies perspective. I argue the series takes a Generation X view of spirituality, which is one not bound to a particular religion. Wonderfalls can be viewed as a dialogue about the meaning of life, as well as a criticism of religion for religion’s sake. The show represents having a meaningful, humanistic purpose in life as being more important than wealth or prominence.

Fandom as a form of media enjoyment • Alice Hall • This study investigated whether the engaged, participatory viewing mode characteristic of media fandom as conceptualized by Henry Jenkins (1992) is associated with entertainment gratifications distinctive from those evoked by programs that are viewed more casually. It compared viewers’ enjoyment television programs characterized by these two reception modes. Participants reported higher levels hedonic enjoyment and appreciation for the programs they viewed as fans as opposed to those they watched more casually, and this difference was more pronounced in relation to appreciation. Fan-oriented viewing was associated with both meaningful affect as well as with more negative emotions. Positive emotions did not differ across the two program types. Fan-oriented viewing was also associated with stronger social gratifications and character identification. Implications for research into fandom, for emerging conceptualizations of media enjoyment, and for Self Determination Theory are discussed.

Effects of Nonverbal Sensitivity and Gender on the Enjoyment of a First-Person Shooter Videogame • Younbo Jung, Nanyang Technological University; Hyun Jee Oh, Hong Kong Baptist University; Jeremy Sng; Jounghuem Kwon; Benjamin Detenber, Nanyang Technological University • In this study we investigated the effects of gender (male vs. female) and nonverbal sensitivity (high vs. low) on game experience after playing a first-person shooter videogame. The results of Experiment 1 (n = 29) confirmed that male participants enjoyed the game more than female participants. However, the results of Experiment 2 (n = 50) showed that participants with high nonverbal sensitivity experienced more positive valence and a greater level of arousal after playing the same game than people with low nonverbal sensitivity, regardless of their gender. The biological gender of the participants became non-significant, after taking into consideration of nonverbal sensitivity. The results of a mediation analysis showed that the positive affect mediated the effects of nonverbal sensitivity on the enjoyment of the videogame. Implications with respect to a new understanding of gender preference for certain genres of videogames by identifying specific gender-related skills are discussed.

Reality TV, Materialism, and Associated Consequences: An Exploration of the Influences of Enjoyment and Social Comparison on Reality TV’s Cultivation Effects • Shu-Yueh Lee, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh; Yen-Shen Chen, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan; Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee • This study applied cultivation theory to examine the effects of reality TV on materialism. At first glance reality TV appeared to be the programming most strongly associated with materialism. However, the direct effect waned after introducing enjoyment and social comparison as mediators. In particular, the results showed enjoyment fully mediated the cultivation effect of reality TV on materialism. This study demonstrated media effects not only were mediated by individual differences in demographics and personalities but also were determined by the viewing experiences.

Personifying America: Contrasting Fantasy Themes in the Japanese Animation Hetalia • Wan Chi Leung, University of South Carolina • Hetalia is a Japanese animation in which each character represents a particular nation and is named after the country it represents, with a physical appearance, personality, and behaviors based on widespread cultural stereotypes of the respective nation’s government or people. This study examines Hetalia using symbolic convergence theory to analyze the fantasy themes on the depiction of the character representing the United States and his relationships with other characters. After analyzing the animation and audience responses, pairs of contrasting setting, character and action themes were found. These contrasting themes neutralize each other to create a rhetorical community in which audience accept both positive and negative aspects of nations.

The Parasocial Contact Hypothesis Revisited: An Individual Differences Perspective • Minjie Li, Louisiana State University • Contact with mediated outgroup members can lead to changes in attitudes toward the outgroup as a whole. This belief, known as the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis, has been found to exist in a variety of forms. The present study attempted to expand theorizing in parasocial contact’s relationship with prejudice reduction of homosexuals by taking an individual differences perspective, and taking into consideration various contexts presented by entertainment narratives. We examined the Big 5 personality traits and their relationships with prejudice reduction (measured through implicit and explicit measures, and social dominance orientation). We also examined how prejudice reduction may differ depending on the focus of the narrative (i.e. politics, religion, technology). The results showed that changes in prejudicial attitudes and social dominance orientation didn’t differ as a function of type of issue focused on in the narrative. Personality traits correlated in various ways with prejudiced attitudes. Implications for theory are discussed.

People’s hero vs. Ms. Lane Crawford Populist and petit-bourgeois manifestations in Chinese popular culture • Zhengjia Liu, The University of Iowa; Xianwei Wu, University of Iowa • Super Girl, China’s first reality televisions show, produced the first two audience-voted stars in 2005 and 2006. At the time the show drew intensive attentions for its voting mechanism and democratic potentials. More than five years have passed, but neither of the two champions’ marketing strategies had met the political expectation for their democratic potentials in the previous discussions. By a closer examining of their marketing packages, we found that the two champions presented two manifestations of the contemporary popular culture in China. To understand the complexity of popular culture in a unique social context, we argue to avoid a false dichotomy paradigm of making harsh normative judgment.

How EWOM Influences Group Size of Potential Film Viewers: The Case of Chinese Online Community • Yuqian Hao, Tsinghua University; Yusi Liu, Tsinghua University • Electronic word of mouth (EWOM) is especially significant to experience-based products such as films. This study examined the EWOM effects on the group size of potential film viewers together with the moderating effect of the film’s inherent nature empirically. Using a random sample of films (1895-2011, N = 564) from the database of a popular film-review websites in China, we found although the online community members were fond of new movies and award-winners, the EWOM factors still positively affect the potential box office. The number of comments online, rather than the raters, was effective to enhance the intention to view a film. Both the positive and negative feedback percentages would significantly affect the group size of potential film viewers. Those effects were moderated by a film’s release year, location and award-winning. The findings were valuable for cross-cultural online movie marketing and reexamining the interpersonal influence in the collectivism, high-context cultures.

Music television online: Pitchfork Weekly and the ideology of consumerism • Jordan McClain; Amanda McClain, Holy Family University • Traditional music television features a nexus of advertising, celebrity, and music, supporting philosophies such as consumerism and capitalism. This study examines if similar ideals are evident as music television moves online. A discourse analysis of Pitchfork Weekly, an online music television series, finds consumerism is a primary ideology constructed throughout the program. Despite the democratic potential of the Internet, representative examples of Pitchfork Weekly expose how the program nevertheless upholds the same ideological content that has historically defined music television.

Representations of Female Scientists in The Big Bang Theory • Heather McIntosh • The Big Bang Theory offers a unique moment to explore the representations of female scientists within the situation comedy. This article begins with a brief discussion about representations of scientists in media genres, highlighting the differences created by the situation comedy. Focusing on Bernadette and Amy, this article then analyzes these characters’ representations within the contexts of representations of scientists, focusing specifically on their professional roles, their gender roles, and their intelligence. It concludes with suggesting that while on the surface some challenging and even undermining of these stereotypes do appear, those challenges remain short-lived in light of the situation comedy’s goals to entertain while reinforcing the status quo.

The Non-Normative Celebrity Body: Constructing Peter Dinklage in Entertainment Journalism • Russell Meeuf • Analyzing the descriptions and discussions of dwarf actor Peter Dinklage in contemporary, entertainment journalism, this article examines the possibilities for celebrities with non-normative bodies to challenge dominant stereotypes and stigmas concerning bodily difference. While Dinklage’s career provides an opportunity for entertainment journalism to challenge Hollywood’s bigotry concerning little people, the prominence of a dwarf actor also elicits condescending descriptions, puns, and other language that makes a spectacle of bodily difference.

Out of Harlem: A historical comparison of race in comic books • Ben Miller, Univeristy of Minesota • This study performed a comparative qualitative content analysis to examine how the initial portrayals of African American super heroes have changed from their early conception following the civil rights era to more recent times. Using hegemony as a theoretical framework, this study compared the first appearances of three heroes from 1969-72—John Stewart, the Falcon, and Luke Cage—to the first appearances of Miles Morales as the new black Spider-Man in 2011-12. The findings found clear differences between the ways the earlier heroes were presented compared to the present day character. In particular, the locations of the characters, their dealings with authorities and the visual representations were discussed. Finally, the conclusions section used previous literature on African American stereotypes and the evolution of minority portrayals to interpret the findings.

What’s Funny About That? Late Night Comedy’s Portrayal of Presidential Candidates • Tyler G. Page, Brigham Young University; Melissa Steckler; Tom Robinson, Brigham Young University • Late night comedy gets viewership in excess of three million people each night. This study explores the narratives embraced by late night comedians about the major party presidential candidates in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 United States Presidential Elections. Using a content analysis of over 1200 jokes, researchers discovered trends in the narratives promoted by comedians and the way those changed for incumbents during their re-election campaigns.

Understanding the Appeal of Reality Television (RTV) using IMSD Theory • Jeffrey Ranta, University of South Carolina • This paper explores the use of Individual Media System Dependency Theory as a way of interpreting the use of Reality Television (RTV) by television consumers. Utilizing Mechanical Turk to access responses to an online survey about RTV dependence and containing a brief examination of the role of social media in RTV program selection, the study also provides insight into the appeal of social media for enjoyment and selection of RTV programming.

Out of the Box: An Attitudinal Analysis of The Perception of LGBT Characters on US Television • James Triplett, Georgia State University; Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • The number of LGBT characters on US television is on the rise. Social Identity Theory suggests this increased visibility may lead to more social acceptance of the LGBT community in American society. Thus, this study is an attitudinal analysis of straight and non-straight television viewers regarding perceptions of LGBT characters on television. Research questions included: What attitudes do straight viewers have regarding homosexual characters on scripted television? and; What attitudes do homosexual viewers have regarding homosexual characters on scripted television? Survey methodology was utilized with questions falling into three categories: visibility, representation, and attitudes. Pearson correlations and ANOVAs were performed, using sexual orientation of participants as the grouping variable. Several findings were statistically significant. Regardless of a participant’s sexual orientation, there is general agreement that LGBT individuals are not adequately represented on television. Analysis of the optional open-ended question found that participants believed there were unrealistic representations of LGBT characters on television.

“She’s the Wittiest Person You’ll Ever Meet”: Predictors of Audience Thoughts about Media Figures • Victoria Shao; Xizi Wang; Angeline Sangalang • Scholars have attempted to understand the importance the way in which audiences connect to media characters. In this study, we analyze open-ended responses audience members make about their favorite media figures. We explore the degree to which audiences list descriptive or evaluative thoughts. Additionally, we explore whether individual differences for affect predict the types of thoughts when thinking of their favorite media figures. Finally, we discuss implications for character involvement and enjoyment.

To Be Romanian in Post-Communist Romania: Entertainment Television and Patriotism in Popular Discourse • Adina Schneeweis, Oakland University • This article uses the case study of the entertainment program Garantat 100%, broadcast on Romanian public national, international, and local channels, to describe an exceptionalist type of patriotic discourse – unique in the public sphere of democratizing Romania. The study identifies the program’s primarily educative and moralizing role, and its call for an out-of-the-ordinary, resilient living. Further, in the context of developing Romania, high rates of emigration to Western Europe and the United States, and politico-economic crises, the show illustrates the challenge in grappling with Western influences, on the one hand, and the desire to celebrate localism, on the other.

BUYERS BEWARE: Brett Favre is not in this Paper: A Textual Analysis of Online User Reviews for Madden NFL 12 • Brett Sherrick, Pennsylvania State University • The value of online user-generated content is debatable. Critical scholars argue that it reinforces hegemonic control, but Cultural Studies scholars argue that it provides an outlet for resistance of hegemonic control. This textual analysis examines online user reviews for EA Sports’ Madden NFL 12 from Amazon.com and determines that both existing Critical and Cultural Studies literature can help explain the content of the reviews, but a varied perspective is necessary to provide full explanation.

I Did it Myself!: Pinterest and the Evolution of DIY Communities • Danny Shipka, Oklahoma State University; Steven Smethers, Kansas State University • The rise of Pinterest as a social/entertainment site has transformed the Internet landscape. Though the media platform may be new, the concept is only the latest in the line of mediated DIY platforms that began with the introduction of women’s magazines in the 1830s. This paper examines how the concept of community has shifted away from geographical boundaries onto a virtual environment giving the user more control over their informational and entertainment choices.

Motivations for fan fiction participation • Jessica Smith • More than a million fan fiction stories have been posted online, and their authors and readers spend hours creating and consuming the content. A survey (N = 321) of members of fan fiction communities based on popular television shows revealed greater involvement with shows for which participants read and wrote fan fiction than with other shows they liked but didn’t follow in fan fiction. Higher levels of involvement correlated with greater degrees of parasocial interaction with participants’ favorite characters. In addition, participants found four gratifications from their membership in a fan fiction community: personal expression, entertainment, pass time, and social connection.

What Children’s Book Say About Watching Too Much Television • Tia Tyree • With such strong and negative effects connected to watching television and consistent benefits of associated with reading, parents could use books as a tool to not only obtain positive educational benefits for their children but teach them about the perils of too much television watching. This is a study of children’s literature about watching too much television. The purpose of this study was to address these issues by 1) examining what messages are placed in children’s literature about television watching, 2) identifying whether children’s literature is used as a tool against television watching, and 3) analyzing the approaches used to teach children about watching television. This research found that behavior change approaches depicted in children’s books about television viewing focused on fear as a major factor used in drawing children away from watching television; the pointless pressure to purchase products advertised; the chance to learn other activities they could do rather than to watch television and that the children’s self-realization of the destructive effects of watching television mainly occurred absent parental influence. In fact, parents and adults were largely absent from the plots or contributed to the children’s negative behavior.

<<2013 Abstracts

Electronic News 2013 Abstracts

Beyond “Death Panels”: Fox News’ Prime-Time Coverage of Health Care Reform in August 2009 • Mitchell Bard • Writers often offer the partisan bias of Fox News as its defining characteristic. But the lack of neutrality should not end the discussion. Does Fox News abide by the other traditional values of objective journalism? I answer this question by qualitatively examining Fox News prime-time programming in August 2009 related to health care reform. I find that the channel does not abide by journalistic values, instead working more closely within the traditional elements of propaganda.

Traversing the Twittersphere: Social Media Policies in International News Operations • Terry Bloom, University of Miami; Johanna Cleary, University of Florida; Michael North, University of Miami • This article examines the workflows, editorial guidelines, and managerial oversight of social media, particularly Twitter, at six different international news agencies. Through a series of in-depth interviews with news managers, social media producers and public relations officials at Al Jazeera, CNN, Globo, Telecinco, RTVE, and the U.S. government’s Office of Cuba Broadcasting, the authors examined how these policies may affect the framing of news stories.

Missing White Woman Syndrome: How Media Framing Affects Viewers’ Emotions • Lindsey Conlin, The University of Alabama; William R. Davie, Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette • Missing White Woman Syndrome relates to the idea that stories about attractive, young white females who go missing are more prevalent in the news to the exclusion of similar stories about other demographics. This study employed an experiment to test whether visual framing elements affected the emotional responses of viewers. Results showed that participants did respond more strongly to some emotions in some situations, particularly to the emotions sympathy and pity, and generally supported the ideas of framing and framing effects.

Tweets from the Horse’s Mouth: Network television news framing of 2012 presidential candidates on Twitter • Denae D’Arcy, University of Tennessee; Dzmitry Yuran, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Ioana Coman • Voters rely on the media to provide information about presidential candidates. One platform from which voters now glean this information is social media. This study considers network television news coverage of the 2012 presidential election on Twitter. Content analysis of tweets from news networks examines patterns of tone and framing. This study found that news networks gave more positive coverage to Obama than Romney and used horserace framing most often when covering the presidential candidates.

Broadcast meteorology, clashing institutional logics, and the pursuit of legitimacy • Betsy Emmons; Wilson Lowrey • Due to technological innovations both within institutional journalism and interactive communication, broadcast meteorologists are at a crossroads in the routines of their professions. This study builds on institutional logics within organizational structures in interviews with broadcast meteorologists to learn how professional duties have shifted in this new technological domain.

Journalists’ Credibility Assessments and Use of Social Media in the News-gathering Process • Tamara Gillis, Elizabethtown College; Kirsten Johnson • A survey of 421 journalists identified key factors used when evaluating credibility of social media information sources. Results show journalists consider social media sites that contain accurate information, documented expertise of the writer, and evidence of objectivity to be credible. Journalists reported their use of social media is increasing. Three-quarters of those surveyed reported that they need to maintain a Twitter account connected to their job, however traditional means of news gathering are favored.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Reporting: Examining Broadcast Network News Coverage and Indexing of a National Debate over Time • Jacob Groshek; Lanier Holt, Indiana University • The maelstrom of coverage surrounding the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) debate provides an instructive setting in which to compare television news and analyze how tones change over time along the contours of official consensus. In advancing the concept of indexing further beyond actual conflict or the threat of war and honing in on a domestic but still military issue, we examine all U.S. network news coverage on this topic for the years 2010 and 2011 (effectively 1 year before and after DADT was repealed). Findings observed here suggest relatively high levels of similarity across networks and additional independence from military operations and official consensus than have been suggested in previous research. Importantly, though, findings observed here suggest that on certain contentious but sensitive topics, conventional conceptions of indexing may not hold.

Engaging the Online Audience: Web News Appearance, Nature and Value • Diane Guerrazzi, San Jose State University; August Grant, University of South Carolina; Jeffrey Wilkinson, Houston Baptist University • As news organizations increasingly rely on the Internet for disseminating content, understanding how best to package that content rises in importance. This study attempts to isolate the qualities of effective online news reports through an experiment that tests the impact of three different online news formats upon a set of dependent variables identified in prior research. Building upon previous research, three different presentations were created for two different news stories: a text-only version, a version with the same text plus subheads and photos, and a version with the same text plus subheads and video. Results included strong relationships among perceived appearance, perceived cognitive impact, and perceived value of the story. Time spent viewing a story was strongly correlated with recall, but there was no relationship between the format of the story and the subjective evaluations or recall. Some suggestions for packaging and presenting news in online formats are presented.

Taking the “Local” out of Local TV News: Implications for an informed public • Lee Hood, Loyola University Chicago • The meaning of “local” in local TV news is not as straightforward as one might imagine. “Local” newscasts in several markets around the country emanate from hundreds of miles away. This study examines the implications of such a delivery system, using a content analysis of more than 1,000 stories to compare outsourced and local newscasts to determine if differences exist on story topics and source types, particularly in the realm of public affairs news.

Televised Objectification of Africa’s Summer Olympic Athletes: Subtle or Blatant? • Yusuf Kalyango, Ohio University, Ohio, Athens, USA • This study examines how major television networks—NBC Universal Sports in the United States, BBC Sport in the United Kingdom, and Supersport in South Africa—are perceived to objectify African athletes in the Summer Olympic Games. It tests assumptions and initiates an intellectual discussion that some African athletes and African viewers perceive irregularities in the global television sports representation of African athletes during the Summer Olympics. The analysis is based on coverage of the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China and London, United Kingdom, respectively, as gleaned from semi-structured in-depth interviews with African athletes, trainers, and viewers in six African countries as well as the United Kingdom and the United States who closely watched the Olympic coverage during the past two Summer Olympic Games.

Restoring Sanity Through Comic Relief: Parody Television Viewers and Political Outlook • Barbara Kaye, University of Tennessee – Knoxville; Tom Johnson • The Daily Show and The Colbert Report regale viewers with satirical, witty, and humorous exposes` of the political world and news coverage. But they have also been criticized for creating cynicism and political disengagement. This study found parody news viewers are more politically knowledgeable, interested, active, and self-efficacious than viewers of CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, or broadcast television news. Additionally, reliance on parody news shows does not lead to polarization or government distrust.

Motives for News Consumption and Patterns of Digital Media Use: Their Differential Relationships among Internet Users • Shin Haeng Lee • To examine online news consumers’ activity and its implications, this study analyzes data collected by the 2010 Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The findings demonstrate the relationship of online news consumers’ civic motive to their use of participatory digital media tools whereas their social and entertainment motives are associated with increased acquisition of online news. The analysis also reveals different patterns in that relationship, considering news consumers’ style of digital feature use: the relationship is contingent on the frequency of Internet use. Lastly, this paper suggests online news consumers’ divergent types of digital citizenship.

How People Read Controversial News: Findings from an Eyetracking Study Exploring the Effects of Reader Bias • Soo-Kwang Oh • This exploratory study utilizes eyetracking to examine how an individual’s bias about news topics influences their news reading behavior. As previous studies do not discuss behavioral responses as a result of perceived bias, this study investigated the influence of perceived bias on reading patterns by measuring 1) eye movements and 2) pupil size when reading online news articles containing perspectives they agree or disagree with. Findings suggest consistent trends, which call for further studies.

Autonomy and perception of work quality drive job satisfaction of TV news workers • Scott Reinardy, University of Kansas • Self-determination theory tells us that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations influence our goal-oriented behavior and determine individual satisfaction. Self-determination issues such as deadlines, breaking news, multiple-screen obligations, competition and the desire to produce quality journalism confront TV news workers each day. In this study of nearly 900 TV news workers, broadcasters who have the freedom and organizational support to conduct their work have managed to find a great deal of job satisfaction. They also say they are producing a high quality of journalism. Of the sample, 19% (n = 155) said they intended to leave broadcast journalism within five years. Those intending to leave demonstrated significantly lower levels of job satisfaction, organizational support, autonomy and work quality. The primary reasons for leaving were salary, family issues and concerns about quality journalism.

Interactive Quizzes on News Websites • Natalie Stroud; Josh Scacco; Ashley Muddiman • The use of interactive features on news websites has become increasingly popular. Drawing from a “mix-of-attributes” approach (Eveland, 2003) and literature on survey research, we propose that a multiple-choice quiz will increase engagement compared to an open-ended quiz because (a) the open-ended quiz is more interactive, (b) an open-ended quiz using a slider poll is more novel, and (c) open-ended questions require more processing time to reach a conclusion. We partner with a local news station to show that a mix of open- and closed-ended polls can increase use of the interactive features and time-on-page. Methodological and practical implications are discussed.

The Effects of “Social Watching” the 2012 Presidential Debates • Esther Thorson, University of Missouri; Joshua Hawthorne, University of Missouri; Alecia Swasy; Mitchell McKinney, University of Missouri • This paper examines the impact of watching the debates with others—whether those others are present in person or accessed through Facebook or Twitter. Theory about the impact of debate content suggests that viewers may experience negative emotions as “their” candidate is attacked, and may experience great uncertainty about issues at the same time. These negative response may occur simultaneously with the excitement of knowing one is sharing an experience of importance with millions of others. These possibilities suggest that “social watching,” whether in person or mediated, will produce a more positive response to the debate (more enjoyment, attention, interest) as well as a higher likelihood of more debates being watching and watched longer. These predictions are strongly supported with a sample of American adults in two different parts of the country.

Broadcasting’s New Scarcity Principle: a Case Study in Radio Newsroom Resource Allocation • Christopher Terry, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • This case study examines the FCC’s use of the benefits of economy of scale as a rationale to justify many mergers of broadcast radio outlets after the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. After exploring several licensing and transfer decisions where the FCC’s rationale for approving a merger relied on the premise that consolidating stations into common ownerships would allow resources to be dedicated to content production, the article reports the observations of the resources made available to a radio news operation on four presidential election over a twelve year period. The results of this participatory observation indicate that the longer a station was owned and operated by a consolidated media company, the internal news operation received less resources, produced less local news content, and began re-using material produced for other media outlets. These findings demonstrate that the FCC’s use of economy of scale as a justification for approving media mergers was a flawed policy.

Political Advertising on Social Media in the 2012 Presidential Election: Exploring the Perceptual and Behavioral Components of the Third-person Effect • Ran Wei, University of South Carolina; Guy Golan, Syracuse University • This exploratory study examines the perceived effects of political ads that appeared on social media in the 2012 presidential campaign from a third-person effect framework. Results of a survey using a probability sample of 496 college students indicated that they tend to believe that political ads on social media have a greater influence on others than on themselves. However, the more desirable they viewed such ads, the more they admitted the ads to having influenced them. Finally, third-person perception of political ads on social media was found to be a positive predictor of engagement in promotional social media behavior after the influences of demographics, social media use, and political attitudes were taken into consideration.

Subsidizing Disaster Coverage in the Digital Age: An Exploration of Hurricane Sandy • Shelley Wigley, University of Texas at Arlington; Maria Fontenot, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Ioana Coman • This study explored reporters’ use of user generated content to subsidize coverage of Hurricane Sandy. Sources cited in articles from local and national news websites were analyzed. Results revealed nearly 7% of sources came from UGC (or social media sites), that cable stations used more UGC as sources than network stations, and that reporters sourced content from Twitter significantly more often than content from other social media sources, such as Facebook and YouTube.

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