Scholastic Journalism 2012 Abstracts

Faculty

Friend or foe? Media advisory boards the norm at four-year schools; Most advisers give high marks for priorities, performance • Lei Xie, Fairfield University; James Simon • This exploratory study seeks to determine how often Media Advisory Boards exist and what factors correlate with a school having such a board. This study, based on a national survey of members of the College Media Advisers organization (N = 157), is designed to provide baseline data on such questions as how boards differ in title and size, what characteristics of a school help explain differences in the composition of a board, and what are the most common functions of a board.

Framing “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS”: A content analysis of local newspapers’ coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision in Morse v. Frederick • Karla Kennedy, University of Oregon • This study examines the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in the student speech case, Morse v. Frederick (2007) also known as “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Newspaper articles were content analyzed utilizing framing theory. Results indicated that the media framed the case to be more about illegal drug usage than student free speech.

The State of Scholastic Journalism in South Dakota: A Microcosm of Changes Across the Country • Chuck Baldwin; Lyle Olson, South Dakota State University • For more than 35 years, problems facing the student press have been dissected so that the primary issues are clear: funding, curriculum pressures, teacher/adviser training, censorship, minority involvement. A 1996 survey found that scholastic journalism in South Dakota is no different from the rest of the country. But since then, financial pressures have increased, curriculum changes have been mandated, in part, by the No Child Left Behind Act, and technology has changed the journalism landscape.

Scholastic Journalism Teacher Use of Digital Devices and Social Networking Tools • Bruce Plopper, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Anne Fleming Conaway • Given adolescents’ ever-increasing use of digital devices, and calls from governmental officials to incorporate more technology into classroom activities, a survey of scholastic journalism advisers in a poor, largely rural state was conducted to determine how they used digital communication devices in their teaching. Results showed lack of funding, lack of teacher experience, and lack of administrative permission suppressed use of several devices, while student-owned devices were used for a variety of journalism-related purposes.

High School Student Publications As Public Relations Tools: What Historical References Say About Such Use/Misuse • Bruce Konkle, University of South Caorlina • Today’s high school publication advisers and staffers primarily prefer to think of student newspapers and yearbooks as journalistic endeavors, not public relations tools covering only positive aspects of a school.

Creating Collegiate Media Opportunities in the Classroom Using Social Media: A Case Study of Experiential Learning • Cindy Royal, Texas State University • Classroom experiential learning projects can extend the benefits of student media to more participants. Social media tools offer efficient and cost effective ways to engage students that allow them to publish their work, promote events and to enhance their professional networks. A case study of one such project is performed to assess the ability to create engaging and productive experiences within journalism curricula.

Educating for Freedom & Responsibility: Lessons from the First Amendment Schools Project • Cynthia Mitchell, Central Washington University • This paper is a case study of the First Amendment Schools project, the most comprehensive and ambitious program ever undertaken to educate K-12 students in how to use and practice their First Amendment freedoms. The lessons learned include that school reform programs need to build in sustainability, provide ways to spread their lessons beyond the schools initially targeted for reform, and build in key measures of accountability.

Of Black Armbands and Pink Boobie Bracelets: Should Pink Be This Year’s Black? • Genelle Belmas, Cal State Fullerton • In 2011 and 2012, federal district courts handed down opposite decisions on the question of whether middle school students should be allowed to wear silicone bracelets emblazoned with “I ♥ Boobies!” One case is now on appeal to a federal appellate court. This paper examines the cases and the precedents and suggests that these bracelets, even though they contain a slang term that some may consider vulgar, should be protected as political or social discourse.

Student

Journalism’s Next Generation? How High School Journalists View the Future of Journalism • Joseph Dennis, University of Georgia; Amy Sindik, Univeristy of Georgia • This study of more than 150 high school journalists shows that they are a highly media literate group that has tremendous respect for traditional print media, but expresses concern over where the industry is heading. This concern is causing many students to avoid majoring in journalism. Even though many propose that journalism will be mostly consumed online and on mobile devices in five years, most students see the traditional print newspaper surviving the digital tide.

Negotiating Identity and High School Journalism: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Class & Sexuality • Eddie Madison, University of Oregon • The United States is experiencing several dramatic shifts in culture and demography. Nearly 36% of the nation’s population self-identify as minorities; women are now the majority in the workforce; and an increasing number of states are acknowledging same-sex relationships –– yet inequities persist. Against a backdrop of contradictions, members of America’s increasingly diverse student population strive to assert their identities and chart their futures. This qualitative study focuses on Palo Alto High School, which is widely.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Public Relations 2012 Abstracts

Open Papers

Trust me, trust me not: An experimental analysis of the effect of transparency on trust and behavioral intentions in organizations • Giselle A. Auger, Duquesne University • Since the early 1990s calls for increased transparency have risen in all sectors of society. Seen as a solution to lapses of organizational ethics and misdeeds, transparency can help to restore trust, curtail employee dissatisfaction, and diminish reputational risk or damage (Bandsuch et al., 2008; Rawlins, 2009).  Research has identified transparency as a two part construct highlighting either an organization’s reputation for transparency or its efforts to communicate transparently (Auger, 2010; Rawlins, 2009).

Political Public Relations and the Promotion of Participatory, Transparent Government through Social Media • Elizabeth Avery, & Melissa Graham, University of Tennessee • Using data collected from over 450 local government officials from municipalities across the United States, this study examines the impact that various community features have on local government social media use.  It specifically addresses citizen expectations and how social media are being used as a public relations function to promote participatory and transparent government.  Results indicated that citizen expectations and perceived social media effectiveness by government officials was a strong predictor of social media use.

Empowered & Engaged: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Social Media Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations • Tessa Breneman, Alexis Abel, & Frauke Hachtmann, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • Although nonprofits see value and potential in social media, many have not yet mastered social media and harnessed its full potential. This phenomenological study sought to discover what the best social media strategies and tactics are for effectively engaging existing and potential donors, volunteers, and stakeholders, according to social media nonprofit professionals. Six themes emerged, including the following: listen to know and understand your audience; and focus on engagement and not fundraising.

Defining And Measuring Organization-Public Dialogue • Heewon Cha, Ewah Womans University, Sung-Un Yang, Indiana University at Bloomington; Minjeong Kang, Ball State University • The purpose of this research was to define and measure the quality of dialogue between an organization and its publics. Reviewing the literature from multiple disciplines, the researchers identified mutuality and openness in explicating dialogue in the context of organization-public relationships. To develop the scale of organization-public dialogue, this study used multiple methods, including in-depth interviews with experts, professional audit, and a survey. This research found the proposed two-factor model had tenable measurement reliability.

Speaking Out:  An Exploratory Analysis of Public Relations Professionals  And their Willingness to Self-Censor • Vincent Filak, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh & Melissa Dodd, University of Miami • Research using the Willingness to Self-Censor (WTSC) scale has shown the desire to withhold one’s opinion is an internal, as opposed to situational trait. This exploratory examination of public relations practitioners and educators (n=121) revealed that participants who scored higher on the WTSC scale were less likely to express their opinions on managing a crisis in a direct environment. These findings held even when controlling for key demographic variables and varying the opinion climate from hostile to friendly.

Navigating Anger in Happy Valley: Using Facebook for crisis response and image repair in the wake of the Sandusky scandal • Melanie Formentin, Denise Bortree, Julia Daisy Fraustino, Pennsylvania State University • Social media are important channels of communication during a crisis. This study examined the use of Facebook as a crisis management tool for Penn State University during the first month of the Sandusky scandal. A content analysis of all 129 posts made by the university during that time period and 2060 comments to the posts suggested that audience reaction to crisis information varies based on crisis response strategy, sources cited, and topics shared.

What Do Blog Readers Think? A Survey to Assess Ghost Blogging and Commenting • Tiffany Gallicano, Yoon Cho, & Thomas Bivins, University of Oregon • In a survey of practitioners, most respondents expressed approval of ghost blogging, provided that the stated author provides the content ideas and gives content approval (Doe, 2012). To investigate the ethics of ghost blogging and ghost commenting and the permissibility of these practices from readers’ perspectives, we conducted surveys with three groups. The groups included 507 readers of corporate blogs, 510 readers of politicians’ blogs, and 501 readers of nonprofit blogs.

Exploring Complex Organizational Communities: Identity as Emergent Perceptions, Boundaries, and Relationships • Dawn Gilpin, & Nina Miller, Arizona State University • Increasing numbers of scholars have been approaching organizations as complex systems. The present study extends this framework to view some organizations as complex communities, or multilevel aggregations of members with a relatively stable core and fluid boundaries, emergent through interactions between individuals, groups, and organizations.

Whistleblowing in public relations: Ethical dilemma or role responsibility • Cary Greenwood, Middle Tennessee State University • This paper responds to the call for a research agenda to address whistleblowing in public relations. Using resource dependence perspective, public relations role theory, and relationship management theory, this study surveys public relations executives in the Fortune 1000 corporations to identify their knowledge of wrongdoing, their reporting of wrongdoing, and their relationships with their employers.

On Publicity: Ivy Lee’s 1924 Address to the American Association of Teachers of Journalism • Kirk Hallahan, and Stephen Cory Robinson, Colorado State University • The presentation at one of AEJMC’s earliest conventions was a historically important event where the pioneer public relations practitioner articulated most fully his views about publicity. Lee’s remarks and the lively Q&A that followed were AEJMC’s first major discussion of public relations. This review examines Lee’s views about the nature of publicity; objectivity, facticity and disclosure; publicity versus advertising; the market-driven nature of news; the deluge of publicity materials and editors’ responsibilities; and publicists’ professional ethics.

Company executive vs. customer testimonial:  Examining credibility of quoted spokespersons in business-to-business communication • Pauline Howes, Kennesaw State University, & Lynne Sallot, University of Georgia • Through the framework of source credibility, this study examines the impact of quoting a company executive versus a customer testimonial in a business communication context.  A 2 x 7 full factorial experiment (N= 514) showed partial support for enhanced perceived credibility of information conveyed by a customer testimonial compared to a company spokesperson in independent and controlled media formats online.

Analyzing the Relationships among Website Interactivity and Organization Impression, Trust and Purchase intention for a Product Recall Crisis • Jooyun Hwang & Spiro Kiousis, University of Florida • Though there has been an array of research on crisis communication, relatively little attention has been paid to the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of public perceptions of web site interactivity as a communication channel during a crisis. In order to fill the gap in scholarship, this study examined the effect of different levels of web site interactivity to address a crisis response on respondents’ organization impression, trust, and purchase intention.

Examining the Relationship between International Public Relations Efforts, Media Coverage, Country Reputation and Performance using Agenda Building & Agenda Setting • Rajul Jain & Lawrence Winner, University of Florida • Using first and second level agenda building and agenda setting as the theoretical framework, this study examines the bottom-line impact of public relations efforts by operationalizing and quantifying the relationship between international public relations efforts, U.S. news media coverage of countries, country reputation, and indicators of economic performance. The study analyzed public relations messages and media coverage of the top 30 countries ranked by Anholt’s Nations Brands Index in 2009.

Enacting Best Practices in Risk Communication: Analysis of an Expert Panel • Melissa Janoske, Brooke Liu, Stephanie Madden, University of Maryland • A two-day workshop and follow-up interviews with risk communication practitioners and researchers were conducted to expand understanding and enactment of risk communication best practices, the obstacles to enacting them, and the gaps in knowledge that could aid in improving upon these best practices. Key findings include the importance of avoiding the myth of preparedness messages instilling public fear, methods for identifying and building key community relationships and partnerships, and suggestions for translating academic research.

Social campaigns help our image, right?: Using the situational theory to explore  effects on attitudes toward a brand and its issues • Elizabeth Johnson-Young, North Carolina State University, & Robert Magee, Virginia Tech • Using the situational theory of publics as a guide, the effects of Dove’s online campaign videos on attitudes toward the campaign issues and Dove’s brand are examined. Participants viewed one of four campaign videos with a different regulatory frame and were asked to respond to several scales that measured their levels of involvement with the issues, collective efficacy, concern for the issues, and attitudes toward Dove as the brand.

Usage and Effectiveness of Facebook for Organizational Crisis Management • Eyun-Jung Ki & Elmie Nekmat, University of Alabama • Through the lens of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and interactivity, this study examined the Facebook usage of Fortune 500 companies and the effectiveness with which these companies employed this platform for crisis management. Findings indicated that ‘justification’ and ‘full apology’ were the most commonly used crisis response strategies. The results also show that companies inappropriately match their responses to crisis situations.

“Because the Subaltern Cannot Speak”: An Introduction to the Culture-Centered Approach to Public Relations • Induk Kim, Northern Illinois • This study begins with the contention that current public relations scholarship, including the literature on activist public relations, is not fully equipped with a theoretical foundation to study public relations efforts organized in subaltern spaces. The study introduces the culture-centered approach as a theoretical framework to address this gap in literature and presents a case study of South Korean peasants’ anti-FTA activism to illustrate how the culture-centered approach can be adopted in public relations research.

Relational expectancy, expectancy violations, and post-crisis communication: BP oil spill Crisis • Sora Kim, University of Florida • Adopting the 2010 BP oil spill crisis, this study empirically tests (a) expectancy violation theory’s applicability into the setting of organization-public relationships and explores (b) the effectiveness of post-crisis communication strategies in the post-crisis stage. The findings suggest consumers’ relational satisfaction and predictive and prescriptive expectancies are significant predictors determining their responses toward the organization in the post-crisis stage.

Predictors of organizations’ crisis communication approaches: Full versus limited disclosure • Sora Kim & Emma Wertz, University of Florida • This study investigates the public relations (full disclosure) versus legal (limited disclosure) approaches that may be used by organizations during a preventable crisis, including factors that may predict decisions related to information disclosure. Both tangible and intangible aspects of an organization were explored. The results revealed that degree of crisis preparation, public relations influences, and crisis perception as an opportunity were significant predictors that determine full versus limited disclosure.

Exploring the Role of Senate Majority Leader Political Public Relations Efforts: Comparing Agenda-Building Effectiveness across Information Subsidies • Spiro Kiousis, Ji Young Kim, Ashley Carnifax & Sarabdeep Kochhar, University of Florida • Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study explored the role of the Senate Majority Leader in shaping the salience of issues and issue attributes in news media coverage and policymaking in 2011. A total of 358 public relations messages, 164 newspaper articles, and 83 policy making documents were analyzed. Significant correlations were found supporting agenda-building linkages at both levels among Senate Majority Leader communications, media coverage, and congressional policymaking activities.

Corporate social responsibility communication on the Internet: A content analysis of Fortune 100 companies • Seul Lee, Eunju Kang, Mary Ann Ferguson, University of Florida • The main goals of this quantitative content analysis were to better understand CSR message presentation on corporate websites and the current state of CSR subjects. This study investigated which CSR issues were prominently presented on The Fortune 100 companies’ websites according to ISO 26000 guidelines. The content of websites was also analyzed to see how it presented CSR information.

Uncertainty Reduction Strategies via Twitter: The 2011 Wildfire Threat to Los Alamos National Laboratory • Nicole Merrifield & Michael Palenchar, University of Tennessee • This study applies Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) uncertainty reduction theory as a theoretical framework to describe how participatory publics use Twitter to reduce uncertainty during a crisis. Using the 2011 Las Conchas Wildfire as the event of study, this study adapted Berger’s (1987) three information-seeking typologies—passive, active and interactive—and used a content analysis to examine messages posted to Twitter during the eight-day, mandatory evacuation of 12,000 Los Alamos residents in the summer of 2011.

Theorizing the Global-Local Paradox: Comparative Research on Information Subsidies’ Localization by U.S.-based Multinational Corporations • Juan-Carlos Molleda, Sarabdeep Kochhar & Christopher Wilson, University of Florida • Informed from a multidisciplinary perspective, this study theorizes localization by exploring the extent of local-focus of information subsidies by U.S.-based Multinational Corporations. A total of 150 MNC subsidiary online newsrooms in China, India, and United Kingdom were analyzed in the subsidiary location using quantitative content analysis. The sample was drawn from the 2011 Forbes 500 List.

A Study on Exploring Antecedents of Relationship Dissolution in Organization-Public Relationships • Bitt Moon, Syracuse University & Sung-Un Yang, Indiana University at Bloomington • The purpose of this study was to explore antecedents of relationship dissolution in the context of organization-public relationships. Particularly, the researchers focused on antecedents to lead the relationship termination. A survey with 1,111 respondents was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. The results suggested that distrust and dissatisfaction had significant effects on relationships either directly or indirectly. Furthermore, our findings indicated that there were differential impact of dissatisfaction and distrust on the relationship termination.

Locating image management in public relations research: A content analysis of image-related studies published in the last two decades, 1991-2011 • Elmie Nekmat, Karla Gower & Lan Ye, University of Alabama • This study reviews the status of image management research in public relations and extrapolates important trends for future research and theory-building. A content analysis of research published in public relations (n=90), organization and business studies (n=122), and communication (n=49) from 1991 to 2011 was conducted. Findings reveal an increasing trend of image-related research in public relations. However, no specific image management public relations theories or concepts were utilized in the studies.

“We’re Not the Only One with the Crisis”: Exploring Situational Variables in an Extension of Situational Crisis Communication Theory • Hyun Jee Oh, Nanyang Technological University & Hyojung Park, San Diego State University • This study examined how crisis consistency and consensus in product-harm crises affect post-crisis outcomes, such as crisis responsibility attribution, corporate reputation, and behavioral intentions. An experiment revealed that lower crisis consensus led to more responsibility attribution to the organization, while higher crisis consistency increased anger, trust, perceived reputation, purchase intention, and negative word-of-mouth intention toward the organization. In this attribution process, anger was an effective mediator between consistency and other post-crisis outcomes.

Keeping It Real: Exploring the Roles of Conversational Human Voice and Source Credibility in Crisis Communication via Social Media • Hyojung Park, San Diego State University & Glen Cameron, University of Missouri • This study examined the effects of conversational human voice and source on crisis communication outcomes, using a 2 (tone of voice: human/organizational) _ 2 (source: public relations executive/private citizen) _ 2 (crisis response: defensive/accommodative) mixed experimental design. Results of path analysis and ANOVA indicate that first-person voice and personal narratives increased perceptions of social presence and interactivity in online communication. These perceptions subsequently resulted in positive post-crisis outcomes, such as reputation and behavioral intentions.

Hegemony, self-disciplining, and stigma among public relations professionals: Exploring Foucault’s concept of bio-power • Katie Place, Saint Louis University & Jennifer Vardeman-Winter, University of Houston • This qualitative study of 20 public relations practitioners examines power in public relations through the lens of bio-power – the control and management of human life through regulatory and discursive forces (Foucault, 1978; Macey, 2009; Vogelaar, 2007). Results suggest that bio-power exists as a) hegemonic knowledges of “brokering information,” “shaping public opinion,” “adding value,” and “pleasing people;” b) disciplining forces of a workaholic culture and self-censorship, and c) stigmas illustrating public relations as “spin” or “fluff.”

Developers’ Views about Public Meetings in the Context Public Relations Theory • Geah Pressgrove & John Besley, University of South Carolina • This study uses qualitative interviews (n = 25) to explore the mental models that real estate developers hold for public meetings, including their goals for such engagement and their views about participants. Developers were the focus because past research has failed to address views about engagement from the private-sector perspective and developers are often involved in public meetings.

Explicating and Investigating Stewardship Strategies on Nonprofit Website • Geah Pressgrove, Brooke Weberling & Erik Collins, University of South Carolina • Stewardship has been called the critical fifth step in the public relations process nonprofit organizations employ to develop relationships with various publics (Kelly, 2001). The purposes of this study are to explicate the meanings of the four stewardship strategies (responsibility, reporting, reciprocity and relationship nurturing) and, employing a quantitative content analysis of nonprofit websites, to further understand how top nonprofits deploy these strategies online. Findings indicate differences based on organization type and web page.

Beyond Reactive Public Relations:  How a Delphi Study of New Technology Informs Professional Practice • Adam Saffer, Michael Kent, Pop Rebeca, University of Oklahoma • This Delphi study assembled a panel of communication scholars and experts to identify trends and issues of online communication technologies. Since the current research has narrowly focused on specific tools, the broader issues of social media and technology have been overlooked. The findings from the study support the power of social media and suggest a mobile future for public relations practice. The essay provides recommendations for practitioners.

What Contributes to Public Relations Professionals’ Own Conflict: Life Affecting Work • Hongmei Shen, San Diego State University & Hua Jiang, Towson University • Based a national random sample (N = 820) of PRSA members, we studied three types of family responsibilities and salaries of professionals as stressors of their life-work conflict experiences. Results found the three types of life-work conflict subject to varied impact of family responsibilities while levels of behavior-based life-work conflict dependent on practitioners’ salary level. The story of life-work conflict is not as simple as a choice between “career vs. life.”

Seeking an Updated Understanding of the Public Relations – Journalist Relationship in the Age of Social Media • Dustin Supa, Boston University & Lynn Zoch, Radford University • Understanding how to effectively practice media relations is of utmost importance to public relations practitioners.  Part of that practice is an understanding of the relationship between journalists and public relations practitioners, and another part is deciding what to present to the media in terms of newsworthiness. Using survey research, this study found great agreement about newsworthiness, but a significant difference in how the two professions view each other.

Predicting Digital and Social Media Adoption Based on Organizational and Practitioner Characteristics • Kjerstin Thorson, Burghardt Tenderich, Jerry Swerling, Niku Ward & Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, University of Southern California • This paper draws on a survey of senior-level public relations and communications practitioners to provide a new empirical look at the adoption of digital and social practices across a diverse set of organizations and to model adoption as a function of practitioner attitudes and organizational variables. We also offer a test of the relationship between digital/social media use and perceived value of the PR function in the organization.

Motivations and Antecedents of Public Engagement on Corporate Social Networking Sites • Sunny Wan-Hsiu Tsai & Rita Linjuan Men, University of Miami • Corporate pages on social networking sites (SNSs) have become the key platform where online stakeholders interact with companies. This study explored the motivations and antecedents that drive publics’ engagement with corporate SNS pages. A conceptual model explicating the effects of social relationship factors on public-organization engagement on SNSs was tested through an on-line survey of 280 Facebook users across various age groups.

Public Relations and Public Diplomacy:  A Divided Past, a Shared Future • Antoaneta Vanc & Kathy Fitzpatrick, Quinnipiac University • This paper assesses the status and scope of public diplomacy research by public relations scholars, revealing substantial theoretical and practical links between the two fields. The results indicate growing interest among public relations scholars in public diplomacy and tremendous potential for public relations to contribute to the intellectual and practical development of public diplomacy as a critical resource for protecting and advancing national and global interests.

Considering familial, sociopolitical, technological, and other factors in a cultural approach to risk communication • Jennifer Vardeman-Winter, University of Houston • Culture is an essential but difficult context within which to situate risk campaigns. This study employed a cultural study with 39 teen girls to learn what personal, familial, education, sociopolitical, and technological/media factors influence their decision-making about the Gardasil vaccine. Findings suggest that girls largely make risk decisions based on their social identities as expressions of their culture. Propositions are made about how to re-consider risk communication using cultural studies.

From Awareness to Advocacy: Understanding Nonprofit Communication, Participation, and Support • Brooke Weberling, University of South Carolina • This paper explores public support for nonprofit organizations by studying a specific fundraising event, Relay For Life, benefiting the American Cancer Society. Using an online survey of undergraduates (N=514), this research employs the situational theory of publics and the theory of reasoned action to explore communication and participation behaviors related to the health issue and organization. Multiple analyses show how the variables combine to represent a continuum that might help explain nonprofit support.

The influence of Confucianism on the Legitimacy of Chinese Organizations • Shuo Yao & John Brummette, Radford University, & Luo Yi, Montclair State University • The literature on organizational legitimacy makes the argument that organizations must adhere to the value-driven standards inherent in the cultures in which they operate.  Using a quantitative content analysis of Chinese Fortune 500 companies’ websites, this study examines the strategic legitimation efforts of Chinese organizations.  Twenty-nine value clusters were identified in the analysis, some of which strongly demonstrate the influence of Confucianism on Chinese organizations (e.g., harmony, national-interests oriented, and self-regulation).

Student Papers

Crisis Attribution in News Articles: A Study of the Effect of Labeling on Corporate Reputation • Alyssa Appelman & Michelle Asmara, Pennsylvania State University • This experiment explores the relationship between labeling of a corporate crisis and corporate reputation. Participants read a news article about a corporate crisis and answered questions about perceived organizational responsibility, intent, locus, negative impression of the organization, degree of trust in the organization, and corporate reputation. The results do not show a relationship between labeling and corporate reputation. Explanations, directions for future research, and implications for public relations practitioners are explored.

Are Public Radio Stations Creating Opportunities for Dialogue on Their Web Sites? • Joshua Bentley, University of Oklahoma • Public radio stations serve their communities and rely on those communities for financial support. Both academic and practitioner literature has recognized the importance of relationship building in effective fundraising. One tool for building relationships is an organization’s Web site. This study applied Kent and Taylor’s (1998) five principles of dialogic Web design to the Web sites of 200 public radio stations. A content analysis revealed that public radio site score high on two of the five dialogic principles. However, there is room for radio stations to improve their sites. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Winning Hearts and Building Community:  An Analysis of Basic Rights Oregon’s “Love. Commitment. Marriage.” Campaign • Erica Ciszek, University of Oregon • This case study of Basic Rights Oregon, a state-based LGBT advocacy organization, considers the strategies and tactics employed by a local advocacy organization within the context of the national marriage debate. This research demonstrates how an advocacy organization, through political public relations, uses multiple media platforms to communicate particular emotionally and socially framed messages in hopes of gathering public support for political policies.

How to minimize corporate social responsibility (CSR) cynicism in younger generations: Exploring trickle effects of social partnerships • Daewook Kim, Texas Tech University • This study was primarily aimed at exploring trickle effects of social partnerships on CSR cynicism in younger generations. Overall, the results of this study indicated that CSR cynicism was differently associated with attitude toward CSR campaign and perceived CSR efficacy, according to types of social partnerships. In addition, attitude toward CSR campaign and perceived CSR efficacy was differently associated with either communal relationships or organizational identification, according to social partnership conditions.

Social Media as a Relationship Strategy: Twitter’s Impact on Enhancing Brand Loyalty • Zongchao Li, University of Miami • This study examined the relationship strategies on Twitter as represented by U.S. retail corporations. A content analysis was conducted comparing the tweets of two groups of retailers — a brand loyalty leader group and a Fortune 500 group. Findings indicate the brand loyalty retailers used Twitter more in a two-way communication manner, while the Fortune 500 group were more one-way oriented. Two relationship maintenance strategies, positivity and assurance, were found significantly different between the groups.

A Fight for Legitimacy:  A Case Study of the 2011 Education Union Crisis • Paquette, Michael, University of Maryland • This case study furthers the understanding of the post-crisis/learning phase of a crisis by examining the Wisconsin Education Association Council’s response to a legitimacy crisis in February 2011.  Using the theoretical frameworks of reflective management and the discourse of renewal, the study found that the education union demonstrated organizational learning through: increased engagement with stakeholders, an organic response to the crisis, and rearticulating its core values.

CSR-crisis relevance on the public’s blame attributions • Hanna Park • This study examined the main effects and interaction effects of type of crisis (victim or preventable crisis), severity of damage (minor or severe crisis), and CSR-crisis relevance (relevant CSR, irrelevant CSR, or no CSR) on the public’s blame attributions and its perceptions of attitude, trust, reputation, and supportive behavior intention toward a company. A total of 360 general consumers were recruited for an online experiment based on a fictitious company brand.

Strategic Partnership with Nonprofits in Practicing CSR: The Mediating Role of Perceived Altruism and Organizational Identification on Supportive CSR Outcomes • Hyejoon Rim & Jaejin Lee, University of Florida • To provide insight for a company determining ideal nonprofit partners, this study investigates how prior company reputation, nonprofit brand familiarity, and fit between the company and nonprofit influence supportive CSR outcomes. The study also examines the critical mediation role of perceived altruism and public-organizational identification in such associations. The results show the significant direct effects of company reputation, nonprofit familiarity, and cause-brand fit on supportive CSR outcomes.

The Role of the Organization in Networked Social Capital: A Political Public Relations Model of Social Capital Building • Adam Saffer, University of Oklahoma • Social capital is an emerging buzzword in many social science disciplines and the field of public relations (Ihlen, 2005) that explains the significance of social relations in our communication. The emerging literature of political public relations has yet to consider the concept of social capital. This essay introduces social capital to political public relations scholarship and builds a theoretical model that explains how organizations use their relationships with publics to achieve political objectives through mediated channels.

E-mobilization and empowered health activism: How social media changes the mutuality between Korean health activism and its external counterparts • KyuJin Shim, Syracuse University • This case study explores how the Korea Leukemia Patient Group (KLPG) uses social media in its internal communication strategy and how that empowers its relationship with external counterparts. The findings of this study indicate that the local health NGO’s communication strategy is changing in response to the increased effectiveness and impact of social media. With the use of social media like Twitter, the KLPG can construct an issue-based advocacy group quickly and effectively.

Identifying Social Media Influencers: Using Network Mapping to Track Information Flows in Online Interest-Based Publics • Kathleen Stansberry, University of Oregon • This research examines the use of online network analysis methods to identify and map the communication patterns of influencers in interest-based publics. Using the network analysis program IssueCrawler, this paper maps the link pattern among members of the online young adult cancer community. The results of this study show that online network analysis can be a highly effective tool to identify influencers and provide valuable information for public relations practitioners working with online publics.

Examining the Effect of Organizations’ Interpersonal Approach in Social Networking Sites • Kang Hoon Sung, University of Florida • People use social networking sites mainly for interpersonal communication. Thus, corporate communication focusing on promotional activities might create negative sentiments toward the company on those platforms. This experimental study examined the effect of organizations’ interpersonal approaches (e.g., non-promotional messages, interaction) in social networking sites using real and fictitious companies. The results revealed that people evaluated a company more positively when the company was highly interactive with customers.

A Comparative Content Analysis of Fortune 1000 Corporate Communication Strategy on Facebook and Twitter • Weiting Tao & Christopher Wilson, University of Florida • This quantitative content analysis of corporate Facebook and Twitter sites examined: 1) the extent to which Fortune 1000 corporations used Facebook and Twitter to communicate with stakeholders; 2) the communication strategies these corporations adopted for Facebook and Twitter; and 3) the consistency of communication strategies used on both social media sites. The results have practical application for leveraging multiple social media platforms and theoretical implications for the use of social media for public relations.

Corporate Web Site Communication with Investors: The Relationship among Employee Size, Profitability, and Web Site Communication • Nur Uysal, University of Oklahoma • This study examined S&P 500 petro-chemical corporations’ use of Web sites to communicate with investors—shareholders, potential investors, and analysts. The findings of a Web site content analysis suggested that Web site public relations efforts facilitate dialogic communication with investors. Using data from Compustat and CRSP datasets, a pair-wise correlation analysis and a multiple regression analysis revealed that companies with more employees and larger profits tended to provide more dialogic features on their Web sites.

Measuring BP Media Relations Outcomes Post Spill: An Illustration of How Public Relations’ Effects May Be Overestimated • Brendan Watson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • A survey examined whether journalists’ (N=126) assessments of BP media relations predict public relations outcomes following the BP oil spill. The study found that the BP-journalist relationship predicted journalists’ attitudes toward the industry’s degree of corporate responsibility. Current research methods advanced in the professional and scholarly public relations literature, however, overestimated this relationship. The importance in public relations research of using multivariate models to control for variables outside of the organization-public relationship is discussed.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Newspaper and Online News 2012 Abstracts

Faculty

Social Media Editors in The Newsroom: A Survey of Roles and Functions • Tim Currie, U. of King’s College • Social media editors are now common in large news organizations. Different from website editors, these journalists focus on creating conversations with the audience. Their place in the newsroom, however, is developing. This paper surveyed 13 social media editors at Canadian news organizations to determine their roles and functions. It concludes that social media editors were challenging the traditional gate-keeping function of news editors by representing audience interests in the newsroom.

Gatekeeping in East Africa: Organizational Structure and Reporter Gender as Potential Influences on Newspaper Content • Steve Collins, University of Central Florida; Tim Brown, University of Central Florida • This content analysis examined two Ugandan newspapers, one owned by the government and the other seen as “the opposition paper.” The results suggest that the independent newspaper includes more voices while the government paper offers more mobilizing information. However, both are thinly sourced and under represent women. The paper also considers the potential influence of reporter gender on content.

Argument quality in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting • David Herrera, University of Missouri • Journalists strive to inform citizens about the way the world is, was, and will be. A test of whether journalists inform citizens is whether the journalists’ reasons and evidence support their conclusions. This paper applies tools from argumentation, informal logic, and critical thinking to conduct such a test on Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting. It finds that the stories frequently presented insufficient evidence for their conclusions, while struggling to justify important assumptions and appeals to authority.

The State of the Weekly Newspaper Industry • Stephen Lacy, Michigan State University; Daniel Riffe, University of North Carolina; David Coulson; Robin Blom, Michigan State University • This study found that the community weekly newspaper industry has changed during the past dozen years. Between 1997 and 2009, the weekly industry became dramatically more suburban and urban as the percentage of weeklies in rural areas declined. The proportion of weeklies that were group owned increased by about half. Roughly two-thirds of the weeklies had websites in 2009, but only about 6% allowed visitors to directly upload articles, and about 6% had paywalls.

Journalists, Technologists, and the Normalization Hypothesis: A Two-Part Case Study of News Innovation Contest Submissions • Seth Lewis, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities; Rodrigo Zamith, University of Minnesota; Nikki Usher; Todd Kominak, George Washington University • This paper examines how journalists and technologists are re-imagining the intersection of news and technology through a qualitative study of 234 idea submissions to a popular news innovation contest. We consider these submissions in light of three distinct concepts: interactivity, the public sphere, and normalization. We find in these submissions a break from the normalization hypothesis—a vision of journalism adapting to technology, rather than technology being configured to suit the legacy patterns of journalism.

Old Dogs, New Tricks: Online News Uses New Tools but Attracts the Same Eyeballs • Kelly Kaufhold, Texas Tech University • Longitudinal analysis of Pew data found that most migration of news consumers online was actually due to existing, older news consumers. Young adults are the most likely to be online; their elders, the most likely to consume news online. The oldest Americans, those over 50, are still the most likely to still follow news in print newspapers and on TV – but are also half-again more likely to follow news online as are adults under 30.

The Online Innovations of Legacy News Media: A Content Analysis of Large-Market Newspaper and Broadcast Station Websites • Amy Schmitz Weiss, San Diego State University; Tim Wulfemeyer, San Diego State University • The state of the digital news media landscape is in a moment of transition as well as opportunity. According to the State of the News Media Report (2012), digital news consumption is rising and the ways news consumers are getting news and information ranges across various media types (broadcast, print, web) and platforms (mobile, web, print). Despite the new players entering the market ranging from Huffington Post to Patch, legacy media (newspapers, local television stations and news radio stations) still have opportunities to innovate and capture new audiences through their digital platform, the website.

Courting Coverage: A Content Analysis of the News Reporting of Supreme Court of Texas Cases • Kenneth Pybus, Abilene Christian University • Although the Supreme Court of Texas is the state’s highest civil judicial body and the final arbiter of Texas law, average Texans may know little about this governmental body. This study researches the reporting of four major Texas newspapers. An analysis of these news stories yields data on political references, topic popularity and subject matter. Texas newspapers generally cover a Supreme Court of Texas decision only if that decision has a significant impact on their broader audiences. It devotes ample resources to those stories, but scant resources and provides limited coverage to the vast number of cases, most of which derive interest from niche audiences.

Newspaper Journalists Evaluate the State of the Watchdog Function • Marsha Ducey, The College at Brockport (SUNY) • This study examined the state of the watchdog function at daily newspapers in the United States following the elimination of thousands of journalism jobs and massive changes in the industry. The watchdog function is the ideal that the press should hold those in power, particularly government officials, accountable for their actions. Five hundred journalists from the Top 100 circulation daily newspapers were invited to take an internet survey.

The Impact of Local Newspaper’s Community Capital Perception on Subscription/Readership and Advertising Effects • Gi Woong Yun; David Morin, Bowling Green State University; Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University; Mark Flynn, Bowling Green State University; SangHee Park; Xiao Hu, Bowling Green State University • With the advent of the Internet, once prosperous local papers are now faced with closure as the number of subscriptions decreases and advertising revenue continues to wane. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the perception of a newspaper’s role in the community, conceptualized as community capital, influences subscription and readership of the newspaper and willingness to visit local retailers putting their ads in the newspaper. Results suggested that the higher community capital a newspaper has, the higher its subscription/readership.

Media Credibility and Journalistic Role Consumptions: Views on Citizen and Professional Journalists among Citizen Contributors • Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky; Seungahn Nah • This study identifies citizen journalists’ role conceptions regarding their news contributing activities and their perceptions of professional journalists’ roles. Specifically, media credibility (mainstream and citizen) was assessed to identify predictors of roles. Analyses reveal citizen journalists perceive their roles to be somewhat distinct from professionals. Citizen media credibility predicted all citizen journalists’ roles. Mainstream media credibility predicted the disseminator and interpreter roles for professional journalists but negatively predicted certain citizen journalistic roles (i.e., interpreter, mobilizer).

Social Responsibility Theory and the Digital Nonprofits: Should the Government Aid Online News Startups? • Rebecca Nee, San Diego State University • As the size and scope of metropolitan daily newspapers shrink in the digital age, some veteran journalists are picking up the mantle of socially responsible journalism by establishing nonprofit news sites. Their economic sustainability is tenuous, however. The purpose of this study is to determine how leaders of these civic journalism startups view the government’s role in their survival. Findings show they are not open to direct government subsidies, but are attempting to diversify their revenue sources.

Newspaper Clubs Emerge From Bohemia: Nineteenth Century Press Clubs in Chicago Stop Short of an Interest in Professionalization • Stephen Banning, Bradley University • It has been suggested that professionalization was being attempted in the nineteenth century by newspaper clubs and associations. For instance, the Missouri Press Association has been shown to have had a strong interest in the professionalization of journalism. However, the extent of this interest throughout the breadth of newspaper groups in the nineteenth century has not been previously investigated. There is evidence of a strong bohemian influence in nineteenth century Chicago newspaper clubs.

Sequence of Internet News Browsing: Platform, Content, Presentation and Interface Usage • Lingzi Zhang, National University of Singapore • Discussions on Internet news use have centered on whether the medium allows audiences to have more control in news consumption. This study explores the evolution of platform attendance, content exposure, presentation elements and interface usage over the time of an Internet news browsing session. Responding to the criticism of self-report method, screen video is utilized to extract direct and detailed information about what a user encounters in real-time news browsing.

What Is News? Audiences may have their own ideas • Cory Armstrong, University of Florida; Melinda McAdams, University of Florida; Jason Cain, University of Florida • This study examines what young adults consider to be news, comparing that with traditional news values as espoused by journalists and taught in journalism schools. Employing an online survey, we compared those views with the participants’ assessment of whether 42 headlines are “news.” Findings indicated that traditional values of prominence, impact and controversy were important to participants, but that timeliness and proximity were less so. Opinion also emerged as a value.

Anatomy of a Train Accident: Case Study of News Diffusion Via the Weibo Micro-blogging Service in China • Narayanan Iyer; Yanfang Wu • Micro-blogging applications such as Twitter and Weibo (extensively used in China) have become a key social media tool for information dissemination and networking within the context of social movements. Researchers have examined the role and use of micro-blogging during times of crises arising out of political conflict as well as natural disasters. This paper uses the case study approach to analyze the most retweeted messages sent immediately after the July 23 railway accident in Wenzhou, China.

Newspaper-Owning Corporate Cultures and the Industry-Wide News Slant • Frederick Schiff, University of Houston; David Llanos, University of Houston • This study compares eight theories of news content, using a random stratified sample of 114 newspapers and 6,090 stories. The paper describes 12 newspaper-owning groups as having distinctive ways of treating stories, giving them more or less prominence depending on content characteristics embedded in the stories. The existence of exceptional or distinctive coverage by a few newspaper groups demonstrates the patterns in the rest of the newspaper industry, which we describe an industry-wide “news slant.”

A comparison of news media avoidances among young adults across media • Amy Zerba, University of Florida; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida; Hyejoon Rim, University of Florida • The study explores a pivotal step in the Uses and Gratifications process — news media avoidances. News media avoidances are the active choice of choosing not to use a medium. The survey findings showed how print newspaper avoidances are similar to nonuses of traditional media (TV, magazines, radio), but differ for news sites. The findings show avoidance of a medium can impact use of another medium. The study describes nonusers of a medium compared to users.

When Journalism Met the Internet: Old Media and New Media Greet the Online Public • Mike Dillon, Duquesne University • American news organizations have long been criticized for not more effectively anticipating, appreciating and exploiting the Internet as it became a fact of daily life in the mid-1990s. Conventional wisdom holds that a lack of planning stymied the development of journalism on the Web and cast doubt on the viability of traditional public service journalism and its enduring values of accuracy, fairness, advocacy, etc. The diminishment of these values, in turn, endangered democracy itself.

A Wave of Sources: An Examination of Sources used in U. S. and Japanese Newspaper Coverage of the Tsunami in Japan • Maria Fontenot, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Catherine Luther, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Ioana Coman • This paper examined the use of sources in two major U. S. newspapers and two major Japanese newspapers in their coverage of the March 11, 2011 tsunami that struck Japan. Results revealed that both the U.S. and Japanese newspapers did not use social media outlets as sources of information. Furthermore, the combined papers from both nations tended to rely equally on non-official and official sources. Differences, however, were observed between newspapers within each nation.

Online News Coverage and Political Knowledge: The Case of the 2010 Health Care Reform Legislation • Kevin Wang, Butler University • This study explores the relationship between online news coverage and political knowledge in the contemporary media environment. Using the health care reform legislation as the backdrop, content analysis was performed on 1,268 stories from 10 online news outlets over a one-month period in 2010, and a survey was conducted with 330 participants to investigate the audience members’ media consumption pattern and their perception of the health care reform issue. Theoretical contribution and implications for future research are discussed.

The press versus the public: What is “good journalism?” • Homero Gil de Zuniga, University of Texas – Austin; Amber Hinsley, Saint Louis University • For several decades, citizens have reported that they trust some news outlets over others largely because they perceive the industry to be biased in its coverage. Research on journalists and their audience has long indicated journalists have a more positive perception of their work than does the public. Even in today’s hyper-digital media landscape, public perception on credibility and believability continue to decline and journalists don’t know how the public rates some of their core professional tasks.

Today’s Main Feature: Disappearing Feature Sections in the Age of Feature Writing • Bret Schulte, University of Arkansas • Research has shown that feature-style writing has gained ground on the inverted pyramid. Through content analysis of feature pages and feature sections in seven major newspapers, this research shows that the state of play for feature writing is far more complicated, with newspapers engaging in increasingly divergent strategies for their back pages.

Framing of the Egyptian Revolution in the Op-Ed sections of the International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal • Guy J Golan, Syracuse University • The Op-Ed section of the newspaper is unique in that it allows experts to articulate their opinions regarding salient issues without editorial interference. The current study builds upon previous research on the Op-Ed through the analysis of the Op-Ed articles that were published in two European newspapers during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. The content analysis focused on the identity of the Op-Ed contributors, their use of sources and their selection of frames as highlighted in their opinion articles.

Conversational Journalism in Practice: A Case Study of The Seattle Times’ 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Breaking News Reporting • Doreen Marchionni, Pacific Lutheran University • This case study built on recent experimental research that sought to measure journalism-as-a-conversation, or co-created news between citizens and journalists, by overlaying it on The Seattle Times’ 2010 Pulitzer-Prize-winning coverage of the slayings of four sheriff’s deputies. Findings suggest the growing power of Web tools that engage online audiences in breaking news and beyond, but also the need for more humanizing efforts, including short, personalized videos of journalists discussing their craft.

Hostility toward Sport Commentators in the Online Arena: A Reexamination of Disposition Effects Hypothesis • Po-Lin Pan, Arkansas State University • Very few studies examined the effects of sport commentary on readers’ attitudes toward sport commentators. Approaching disposition effects hypothesis in the context of online readership, the study aimed at examining the effects of the positive/negative sport commentaries and the win/loss of readers’ favorite team on online readers’ hostility toward online sport commentators. A two (the win of the favorite team versus the loss of the favorite team) by two (the positive commentaries versus the negative commentaries) within-subjects repeated measures experiment with emotional responses as one covariate was designed to examine readers’ hostility toward online sport commentators.

Age, Ethnicity, and the Exemplification of Hunger • William Kinnally, University of Central Florida; Ryan Burkett, University of Central Florida; Curry Chandler; Brenton Burkett • This study applies exemplification theory to examine the ways in which editorial intentions behind the design of a news article about hunger in the Orlando Sentinel corresponded to readers’ judgments about the ages and ethnicities of the people receiving emergency hunger services. A sample of 335 college students was randomly assigned to read one of three news articles.

Analyzing Online Coverage of a Possible Cancer Risk From Cell Phones • Ronald Yaros, University of Maryland; Elia Powers, University of Maryland-College Park • This content analysis considers articles from newspapers and online news outlets reporting the World Health Organization’s change in the risk category of brain cancer associated with cell phone use to “possible.” Articles were coded for their portrayed risk assessment, use of sources, and explanation of complex information. Results indicated that nearly 20% of the stories used incorrect terms to describe the risk category.

Student

Social media and the evolution of journalists’ routines • Brian Moritz • With social media platforms growing in popularity, it’s important to look at how they are being used by journalists. This qualitative study examines how social media is becoming a part of journalists’ work routines. Seventeen reporters working at newspapers were during the winter of 2010-2011. This data suggest that reporters are using social media to break news, keep tabs on their beats, share links to their stories and communicate with sources and readers.

How student journalists seek information and evaluate online sources during the newsgathering process • Julia Tylor, Arizona State University • A thorough understanding of how to evaluate website credibility is a crucial tool for journalists. This study examines how journalism students conduct the online newsgathering process and seeks to understand the decisions they make involving credibility assessment. The findings that resulted from a content analysis and interviews suggest that while journalism students exhibit some level of understanding about the importance of verification, they rely strongly on search engines and trust the credibility of search-engine results.

The adoption of smartphones and tablet computers among American journalists: A national survey • Logan Molyneux, University of Texas at Austin • This national survey of working journalists examined the extent to which they have adopted smartphones and tablet computers in their work and how that adoption has changed their routines and practices. Results show that most journalists have smartphones and feel they have improved the quality of their work. Journalists with smartphones are freed from their desks and gather more multimedia information than those without smartphones. Tablets have been adopted to a lesser extent.

Justice and journalism at the Supreme Court: Newspaper coverage of ideology within the Roberts Court • Elizabeth Woolery, UNC-Chapel Hill • This study examined how five newspapers discussed judicial ideologies in their coverage of First Amendment decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in its 2006, ’07, and ’08 terms. Findings indicate that journalists did cover the Supreme Court as an ideologically fueled institution cases with 5-4 decisions. This study builds on previous research and provides a more up-to-date, comprehensive and qualitative look at the issue of news coverage of the Supreme Court.

A Newspaper Strategy for Challenging Access Barriers at Shopping Malls • Jim DeBrosse, Ohio University • In recent years, the growing shift toward private control of the public sphere – from downtowns to malls, from neighborhoods to gated communities, from public records to private contracts — has occupied media and legal scholars who are rightly worried about the eroding foundations of the country’s democratic institutions. This paper will focus more narrowly on how the shift to privately-owned gathering spaces in malls and shopping centers has impacted working reporters.

Herding Reader Comments Into Print: Gatekeeping Across Media Platforms • Kathleen McElroy, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined newspaper features that highlight online reader comments and found that through selection, organization, and editing of comments, journalists juggle the spontaneity of online conversation with such print standards as logic, civility, and readability. A content analysis of printed comments, as well as interviews with journalists who choose them, reveals a gatekeeping process shaping this hybrid site of public discourse, which is similar to but distinct from letters to the editor.

A study of college students’ attitudes toward a paid news content system • Yoonmo Sang, University of Texas at Austin • This study investigated college students’ attitudes toward a paid news content system. It sought to identify factors that may predict such attitudes. To deepen our understanding of news copyright issues, I also analyzed responses to open-ended questions and identified patterns in such responses. Among the predictor variables, perceiving news as a commodity was the only significant predictor of college students’ attitudes toward a paid news model.

Multimedia journalism fever: An examination of the spread of adoption of digital reporting techniques • Matthew Haught, University of South Carolina; Jack Karlis, University of South Carolina • Since the rise of the Internet age, newspapers and television news operations have migrated their content from their traditional platforms to online distribution. Convergence spread through the newsroom starting with a small group and then spreading to others, as explained by the diffusion of innovation theory. Using network analysis research methods, this paper explores how multimedia practices diffuse through a social network in a newspaper newsroom.

The Viewing Room: How Journalists Prepare for and Respond to Witnessing Executions • Kenna Griffin, University of Oklahoma • This series of interviews with journalists who witnessed executions in 2010 explains how they emotionally prepared for and responded to the traumatic events. Findings show that newsroom managers do not offer journalists emotional assistance. However, the journalists were aware formal counseling services existed and chose not to use them. Instead, journalists relied on their professionalism as a barrier, denying trauma symptoms. The research supports the need for training within news organizations about job-related trauma.

Will Social Media “Save” Newspapers? Examining the Effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter as News Platforms • Alice Ju, University of Texas at Austin; Sun Ho Jeong, University of Texas at Austin; H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin • In response to the popularity of social media, most newspapers are distributing content through Facebook and Twitter. Yet, the role of social media in these newspapers’ overall business models remains unclear. Analyzing the top 66 U.S. newspapers’ social media presence, this study empirically examines the effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter as news platforms.

Creating Frames, Contextualizing Frames: Elite versus Non-Elite Press Coverage of the 2008 Recession • Josephine Lukito, State University of New York at Geneseo; Atsushi Tajima, State University of New York at Geneseo • This paper analyzes newspapers coverage of the 2008 recession in the United States, through the New York Times as an elite press and USA Today as a non-elite press. Economics is a technically complex social-science. Thus, the press must present economic stories comprehensively. While the elite press maintains complexity, the non-elite press simplifies stories. In addition, the former consistently covers events prior to the latter. This time lag considerably characterizes how each constructs its stories.

The Natural Framing of Military Conflict News: The 2008 Russian Invasion of Georgia in Resonance, Izvestia and The New York Times • Robert McKeever, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Ekaterina Basilaia, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University; Donald Shaw, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Historically, news organizations located in the heart of conflict zones have been an important player in informing the public and shaping its understanding on particular issues. This study utilized quantitative content analysis to examine how Georgian, Russian, and American media framed the 2008 war in Georgia. By examining coverage in Izvestia and Resonance as well as The New York Times – this paper elucidates cross-national differences in the frames emphasized by media during conflict coverage.

When the War on Drugs is Fought on the Field: Exploring Newspaper Coverage of Drug and Alcohol Deviance of College Athletes from 1970 to 2010 • Natalie Brown, University of Alabama; Shuhua Zhou, University of Alabama • This study is the first to use deviance theory to examine newspaper coverage of drug and alcohol arrests of college athletes and how that coverage has changed over time. This paper analyzed 121 newspaper articles published from 1970 to 2010. This “War on Drugs” that dominated headlines over the past forty years represent the perfect combination of characteristics that maximized newsworthiness: deviance, social issues, and sport.

The Sporting News: A Study on Sports Teams and the News that Writes about Them • Ben Miller • This study examined the relationships between source credibility, reputation, athletic identity and self-efficacy. One hundred and thirty-five participants read an article about the Louisiana State University (LSU) football’s 2010 victory over the University of Alabama from one of four different online news sources. The sources represented perspectives of national (ESPN.com), local (2theadvocate.com), school-produced (LSUsports.net), and opponent (BamaOnLine.com) sources. The participants were then asked questions about their LSU athletic identity and self-efficacy after viewing one of the four conditions.

New media, old sources: An examination of source diversity of online news in China • Na Liu, City University of Hong Kong; Fen Lin • This study develops a two-dimensional source diversity of online news, containing both typological diversity and geographical diversity. Typological source can indicate the influence of new media technologies on the types of media; while geographical diversity can further offer deep economic and media power relationship behind news production on the Internet. A content analysis of most user-searched news on Baidu.com during 112 days shows that new media technologies didn’t bring substantial changes to the old news sources production in China.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication 2012 Abstracts

Faculty

The DC Snipers and Shifting Signifiers of Otherness: Newspaper Coverage of John Allan Muhammad and John Lee Malvo • Angie Chuang, American University School of Communication; Robin Chin Roemer • Studies of news coverage of Other identity in the form of blacks, Muslims, and immigrants have found that such signifiers are often overemphasized and represented as motive of crime or terrorism. A mixed method data analysis of newspaper coverage of the DC Snipers, arrested for a 2002 shooting spree that killed ten people, shows that the suspects’ layered identities and unusual crime challenged historic representational patterns.

Newspaper Coverage of the 25th Anniversary of the King Holiday • Carla Kimbrough, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • Anniversaries hold special meaning; they give us a time to reflect, to celebrate, to mourn, to remember. Holidays often offer the public a chance to do all of that. This paper analyzes qualitatively how newspapers covered the 25th anniversary of the national holiday named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. King has become one of the country’s most celebrated citizens and the only one to be honored with a national holiday who was not a U.S. president (Haines).

Opposite but Equal: Examining the Protest Paradigm through the Hegemonic Lens • Josh Grimm, Texas Tech University • This study explores how Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were in the New York Times and Washington Post. Drawing on concepts of hegemony and racism, a textual analysis was conducted to examine coverage of each man. Through this framing, Malcolm X was labeled as a deviant while Martin Luther King, Jr., was embraced as a righteous leader. These characterizations reinforced hegemonic power structures while challenging the established “protest paradigm.”

Natives in the News: How the Rapid City Journal Covered Native Americans on Page 1A • Savannah Tranchell; Mary Arnold, South Dakota State University • A content analysis of the 2010 Rapid City Journal’s front page, the paper examines how often the Journal runs stories about Native American and tribal issues and which topics are covered. The findings offer a snapshot of the Journal’s reporting on Native issues and highlights patterns in coverage. The study concludes that, in the name of quality journalism, media outlets like the Journal must maximize coverage of the community rather than doing what is easy and readily accessible.

Hispanics’ uses and gratifications in the three-screen media environment • Kenton Wilkinson, Texas Tech University; Anthony Galvez, Rhode Island College; Todd Chambers, Texas Tech University • This paper applies uses and gratifications theory to assess how Hispanics residing in and around a midsized southwestern U.S. city utilize “three screens:” television, Internet and mobile phones. Focus groups and a survey (n=204) were used to compare younger and older users and those with differing levels of acculturation. The results indicate that mobile phones are a crucial contemporary technology, and that academic researchers should be paying close attention to promotion and use of the three screens.

Illegal or Undocumented? Alien or Immigrant? An Examination of Terms used by the News Media, 2000-2010 • Thomas J. Hrach, University of Memphis • This study examined the terms news organizations used to describe people living in the United States illegally for the period from 2000 to 2010 and whether the Hispanic or Latino population of a region was a determining factor. It utilized a database that searched 3,863 titles from news organizations during the 11-year period for nine regions of the country and a statistical analysis. It found that “illegal immigrant” was the dominant term, and its use increased despite pressure from immigrant advocates to discontinue its use.

On-Air Diversity: Comparing Television Network Affiliates’ Ethnic Representation • Amy Jo Coffey • A national sample of the on-air talent (N=1513 reporters, N=2094 anchors) at television network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) was content analyzed to compare the ethnic diversity of their on-air personnel. Grounded in representation and strategic competition theory, results indicated that the network affiliates had highly similar representation levels between them, however Hispanics were the most underrepresented group overall. Representation levels were also found to be highly similar to national population levels, offering some encouraging news for diverse hiring.

“Where Do I Belong, from Laguna Beach to Jersey Shore?”: Portrayal of Minority Youths on MTV Reality Shows • Sung-Yeon Park, School of Media & Communication, Bowling Green State University; Korea University, Seoul, ROK (Visiting professor); Mark Flynn, Bowling Green State University; Alexandru Stana; David Morin, Bowling Green State University; Gi Woong Yun • MTV Reality shows popular among young audiences were analyzed. All minority groups, except mixed-race women and gay men, were underrepresented. No ethnic/racial difference was found in plot centrality, popularity, and being hated. In romantic involvement, however, intergroup differences emerged: mixed-race women were more likely to be in a committed relationship, in an interracial relationship, and a target of romantic desire whereas Latinos and Blacks were less likely to be represented in all three aspects of the romantic involvement.

Does Language Matter? The Effects of News in Spanish vs. English on Voting by U.S. Latinos • Barry Hollander, University of Georgia • As the Latino population in the U.S. continues to grow, along with this population’s political impact, it is important to understand how the news media are used in terms of integration into the nation’s social and political culture. This study uses national survey data to examine the role the language of the news – in Spanish or English – may play in political participation.

Latino Online Newspapers vs. Mainstream Online Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis of News Coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform • Masudul Biswas, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania • This study analyzes the news coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform in a comparative context between Latino online newspapers and mainstream online newspapers by using the theoretical framework of media framing.

Choctaw and Cherokee Nations: How Freedom of Expression Isn’t “Just a White Man’s Idea” • Kevin Kemper, University of Arizona School of Journalism • Freedom of expression isn’t “just a white man’s idea.” This theoretical essay engages with laws by and affecting the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations in Oklahoma to see whether individual liberties like free expression and its subsets of free press and speech can be reconciled with the sovereignty of those tribes. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, argues that those who put the needs of society over the rights of the individual are promoting totalitarianism.

Writing the Wrong: Can Counter-Stereotypes Offset Negative Media Messages about African-Americans • Lanier Holt, Indiana University • A plethora of studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information – those that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e., non-crime-related) are most effective in abating racial stereotypes. This study’s findings suggest fear of crime is becoming more a human, fear, not just a racial one. Recommendations for media are also briefly discussed.

Student Papers

“What if Michael Vick Were White?”: Analyzing Framing, Narrative, and Race In Media Coverage of Michael Vick • Bryan Carr, University of Oklahoma • Literature shows that athletics and the media that cover them have long been intertwined with issues pertaining to race and ethnicity. This relationship was particularly prevalent in media coverage of the Michael Vick dogfighting case, with many authors questioning whether Vick would have received different treatment if he had not been African-American.

User-Generated Racism: An Analysis of Stereotypes of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians in YouTube Videos • Lei Guo, University of Texas at Austin; Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines representations of African Americans, Latinos and Asians in YouTube videos, exploring whether YouTube serves as a type of alternative media where the status quo is contested. Results show most videos analyzed perpetuated racial stereotypes. Further, videos that included stereotypes, most of which contained user-produced content, were more popular. We argue citizens use YouTube to perpetuate the same stereotypes found in mainstream media, rather than use it as an alternative counter-public sphere.

Ghost in the House: Remembering Champion Jack Johnson • Carrie Isard, Temple University • Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, lived a life full of public triumph and private tribulations, and in the time since his death, his memory has emerged as a complex and contradictory story.  Using a collective memory theoretical framework, this paper conducts a narrative analysis of four Jack Johnson memory texts: Hollywood film The Great White Hope (1970); Big Fights, Inc. documentary Jack Johnson (1970); Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness (2005) and Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson two-part graphic novel (2009, 2011) to examine how Johnson has been remembered in shifting historical, political and social contexts.

Perception and Use of Ethnic Online Communities as a Health Information Source among Recent Immigrants in the United States • Junga Kim, University of Florida • This study investigated the role of ethnic online communities as a health information source for Korean Americans, applying the uses and dependency model as a theoretical framework. A survey was conducted to examine use and evaluation of online communities and physicians as diabetes-related information source among Korean Americans with different levels of acculturation.

Celebrated Images of Blackness: A Content Analysis of Oscar Award Winning Films of the 20th Century • Roslyn Satchel, Louisiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication • Religious liberty is essential to democracy.  Democracy, and civility between religious groups, however, are in jeopardy due to the ways in which media conglomerates use religion—Christianity, in particular—as a political force for creating xenophobia against cultural minorities.  This paper examines 10 films with the highest viewership of all time for framing bias and system justification in use of “the native” stereotype as described by Stuart Hall (1981).

Stereotypes in Blockbusters: An examination of Asian Characters in Top Box Office American Films (2000-2009) • Jia-Wei Tu, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong; Xing Liu • This study is an up-to-date investigation on how Asians are portrayed in American films. Top 10 American gross income films of each year from 2000 to 2009 were analyzed. Asian characters in the 100 films were examined from four dimensions: images, romantic relationships, costumes and accents. The findings have demonstrated that Asians are not completely annihilated but symbolic trivialized; the Asian stereotypes still exist in the top box office films.

Fine and Punishment:  James Harrison, NFL fines and USA Today’s construction of black masculinity • Molly Yanity, Ohio University • Research points to a structural problem of overt and inferential racism that is prevalent in American society and finds its way en masse to the sports pages. While violence in sports draws larger audiences to arenas and stadiums, the “Bad Black Man” seems to be the scapegoat when that institutionally-promoted violence results serious health risks. During the 2010 National Football League season, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison was represented as the “Bad Black Men.”

Framing Immigration: An Analysis of Newswire and Regional Newspaper Coverage of Immigration in the U.S. • Rodrigo Zamith, University of Minnesota • This study seeks to analyze and compare the coverage of the issue of immigration in the United States by newswire services and regional newspapers in cities near the southern border. Drawing from framing theory, the author adopts a mixed-method approach consisting of an interpretive analysis and a computer-aided analysis. The findings reveal important similarities and differences in the framing of the issue and in the depiction of immigrants, with serious social and political implications.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics 2012 Abstracts

Faculty

Not dead yet: Newspaper company annual reports show chains still profitable • Marc Edge, University of the South Pacific • The death of newspapers was widely predicted at the height of the 2008-09 economic crisis. An examination of financial reports for the fourteen major publicly-traded newspaper companies in North America from 2006 through 2011, however, shows that all were profitable. While advertising revenue dropped 55 percent from 2006 to 2011 in the U.S., only one company posted less than the Fortune 500 average of 4.7 percent profits in any of the six years under study.

Patterns of European Inter-Media Competition for Advertising Before and After Online Advertising • Dan Shaver, Jonkoping International Business School; Mary Alice Shaver, Jonkoping International Business School • This study examines the distribution of advertising revenues across media in 21 European countries before the advent of online advertising (1993-1997) and after the introduction of online advertising (2003-2007). It identifies competition levels between media outlets in the pre-Internet period and the post-Internet period. It finds that, broadly, the pre-Internet European media markets could be classified into three categories based on inter-media competition and that, due to a variety of factors, the markets had converged.

Organization ecology and emerging media: A case study • Wilson Lowrey • This study adopts an ecological approach adapted from the sociology of organizations to help explain news media change, as well as media decision-makers’ tendency to stay the course. According to this approach, once securing a financial foothold, media tend toward the similar, the safe and the routine. Burgeoning collectives of look-alike media – “populations” – signal legitimacy, grow stable relationships with other institutions, and reduce uncertainty.

Collapse of the Newspaper Industry: Goodwill, Leverage and Bankruptcy • John Soloski, University of Georgia • The paper examines financial factors that magnified the collapse of the newspaper industry in the mid-2000s when advertising revenues plummeted. The paper shows how goodwill and leverage magnified the collapse and hastened the bankruptcy of a number of newspaper companies. The paper also tests a model for predicting bankruptcy of newspaper companies.

Interactive Audiences on Internet Video Websites: Audience Valuation in the New Media Era • Yan Yang • This project investigates people’s use of interactive features on Internet video websites. It compares interactive and non-interactive audiences in terms of traditional audience valuation criteria (demographics, media consumption) and new criteria (online engagement level, Internet word of mouth value). Based on results from a national consumer panel survey (N=200) among broadband users, interactive audiences are younger, more male-skewing, have higher income levels, are more likely to be in the 18-49 age group.

Mobile OS Competition and Early Diffusion of Smartphones in Global Mobile Telecommunication Markets • Sangwon Lee, Central Michigan University; Seonmi Lee, KT; Justin Brown • Value creation through convergence between different media technologies is key driver of growth in the telecommunications industry. Within the wireless domain, successful diffusion of converged broadband devices like smartphones are essential, with such devices accounting for an increase in new revenues as well as consumer dependence to regularly multitask and communicate throughout the day. Despite a growing body of literature on mobile deployment, there are nevertheless very few empirical studies about the influential factors of smartphone diffusion.

Winning the Popularity Contest: Assessing Independent Record Company Performance in the Digital Download Market • Heather Polinsky, Central Michigan University • Digital distribution has been lauded as the panacea for independent musicians and independent record companies by allowing direct competition with the major record companies. By examining iTunes and Amazon digital download charts, this study finds major record company recordings continue to be more popular with digital download consumers. Consumers favor older recordings from major record companies. There is moderate evidence that independent recording company albums are just as popular with Amazon digital download consumers.

The Potential Effect of VOD on the Windowing Process of Theatrical Movies • Byeng-Hee Chang, Sungkyunkwan University; Sang-Hyun Nam, Sungkyunkwan University; Joo-Youn Park, Hankook University of Foreign Studies • The present study analyzed the potential effect of VODs as new distribution channels on the windowing process by including both IPTV and Internet VOD into the hypothetical windowing process. Using attributions of holdback period, sequential order and movie price for distribution channels, the present study was able to combine a total of 48 hypothetical windowing scenarios and used them in order to answer the two research questions posed.

Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Study of How Digitally Native News Nonprofits Are Innovating Journalism Practices Online • Rebecca Nee, San Diego State University • As traditional media struggle to adapt their practices to the new media environment, a digitally native nonprofit news model has emerged. Framed by management theories of creative destruction and disruptive innovation, this study identifies how leaders of these sites view technology as an opportunity to reshape journalism practices online.

Linking Economics to Communication Research: Exploring the Third-Person Effect on News Consumers’ Intention to Pay • H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin; Angela M. Lee, University of Texas at Austin; Avery Holton, University of Texas – Austin • Tracing third-person effect research to its psychological origins, this study explores whether the self-other perspective affects consumer behavior in a critical area currently facing the news industry—paying intent of news consumers. A survey of 767 Internet users indicated people perceive others as more likely to pay for news in print, Web, and app formats. The results provide a linkage between communication and economics research and offer a better understanding of the way consumers evaluate multiplatform news products.

Student

Creating lobbying strategies in a competitive environment: An insider’s perspective • Amy Sindik, University of Georgia • This study examines the way organizations in the broadcast and wireless industries formulate lobbying strategies, and if the formulation of lobbying strategies is impacted by the competition between the industries on policy issues.

Smartphone: Utilitarian Product or Hedonic Product? Different Dimension of Adoption Factor and Purchasing Intention • Hyunsang Son; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • By employing real U.S. consumer, this study develops structural model to investigate consumers’ different motivations for adopting smart phone. The results of this study indicated that consumers’ purchasing intention or actual purchasing behavior related to smartphones were positively predicted by communication facilitation and perceived utility of mobile phone and negatively linked with perceived expense and reassuring dimensions.

An Empirical Study of National Self-sufficiency in Broadcast Television Programming • Xuexin Xu; Wayne Fu; Joseph Straubhaar • This study investigates individual countries’ self-sufficiency in broadcast television programming, a universal and overarching policy aim entrusted in national or domestic broadcast service. It traces and predicts the airtime shares of domestic and American programs, using longitudinal data taken at decade-long intervals during 1962-2001 for 20 countries or territories worldwide.

Too Much, Too Little, or Just About Right? Measuring Concentration of Media Ownership, 1976-2009 • Tom Vizcarrondo, Louisiana State University • Researchers have recently begun approaching media ownership concentration studies by viewing the entire media industry holistically, as opposed to measuring concentration within a specific medium. I expand on this approach by measuring concentration over 34 years. I conclude that the industry has consistently been “unconcentrated” and that the period studied is characterized by three distinct trends—an initial period of declining concentration, a period of relatively stable levels, and a current period of rising concentration.

What’s on (Digital) TV? Multicast Programming, the Public Interest Standard, and the Scarcity Rationale • David Kordus • With the transition to digital broadcast television and the ability to multicast, the space for free television content has expanded manyfold, offering new possibilities for diversity in voices and content and for serving the public interest. With a content analysis of multicast substreams in a random sample of television markets across the country, I take a unique look at just what this new broadcasting space contains and find few hours of local or news programming.

Privacy Capital: Social Media Users Perceptions and Exchange of Their Privacy Online • Jason Cain, University of Florida • This study surveyed a sample of college students at a large university to examine perceptions of privacy, control and vulnerability of personal information shared social networking sites, and any positive outcomes received for sharing this information. Previous models that operationalize how privacy concern is constructed and expectancy-value theory were used as a basis for this research. The data supported that respondents exchanged information to obtain positive. Results for control were mixed and contradictory for vulnerability.

Building a Relationship on Twitter: A Content Analysis of University Twitter Accounts • Brandi Watkins, The University of Alabama; Regina Lewis, The University of Alabama • The current study examines how universities use social media to communicate with external audiences using a relationship marketing approach. A content analysis of university Twitter accounts was conducted to determine the level of interaction among universities and their followers. Using the five levels of relationship building, this analysis revealed that universities tend to engage in more reactive level relationship building than any other level.

The New Non-Profits: A Financial Examination • Magda Konieczna, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Sue Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • As traditional news organizations suffer, many people have suggested alternative business models to supplement a shrinking mainstream journalism. This study presents a first, largely descriptive picture of the financial state of the burgeoning field of non-profit journalism. Many journalistic non-profits operate on a shoestring, hoping to strike upon the magical revenue formula that leads to sustainability.

Media fragmentation and coexistence of market information regimes: Simultaneous use of two television ratings systems in India • Harsh Taneja • Competition between two audience measurement systems is common in media markets. Yet we know little about how market participants utilize information from competing systems. This study examines the Indian television market where executives use information available from two competing ratings services.

Free Culture, Human Capital and Economic Growth • Xiaoqun Zhang, Bowling Green State University • This paper proposes an endogenous growth model which emphasizes the role of free access to the knowledge in the economic growth. The solution of the model indicates that the production efficiency of knowledge, the converting efficiency from knowledge products into human capital, and the externality of knowledge products, have impacts on the economic growth rate. Thus, the government intervention, such as the subsidy to the knowledge producers, will have positive effects on the economic growth.

Corporations as indispensable entities to the media: how interlocking board of directors influence media coverage • Jun Ho Lee, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Michael Bednar, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign • In this paper, we question the objectivity of media reports on corporations intertwined with the media. Specifically, we examined how interlocking directorates may influence media coverage of corporations and then explored how the effect of firm performance on the media coverage of the performance can be moderated by the interlocking boards.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Media Ethics 2012 Abstracts

Open Papers

How Social Cognition Can Be Used in Journalism Training to Reinforce Ethical Standards of Practice • Sue Ellen Christian, Western Michigan University • Errors and biases in human cognition in part explain the need for professional standards and ethical codes in journalism. Reciprocally, these standards and codes can help deter some common cognitive distortions. This article argues that incorporating an interdisciplinary approach to teaching standards of practice can enrich journalism training and education by exploring the origins of thinking habits that require corrective action on the part of journalists.

Anthropological Realism for Global Ethics • Clifford Christians, University of Illinois • Anthropological realism is an important tool in constructing a global media ethics.  Realism and anti-realism are debated philosophically without resolution. Believing that a global ethics requires realism, none of the mainstream theories of realism provide a proper foundation for universals.  Anthropological realism acknowledges the role of human interpretation in ethics more explicitly than do epistemological or metaphyhsical theories.”

Consumers’ Ethical Evaluation of Greenwashing Ads • Harsha Gangadharbatla; Kim Sheehan • The current exploratory study examines consumers’ evaluation of the ethicality of greenwashing practices in advertising. Subjects were shown an ad with “green” messages and asked to rate it on a greenwashing index scale. Findings suggest that the higher the level of perceived greenwashing in an ad, the lower the ethical evaluation of the ad. Consumers’ ethical evaluation in turn determined their attitude toward the ad and brand, which in turn influenced their purchase intentions.

Idea Plagiarism: Journalism’s Ultimate Heist • Norman Lewis, University of Florida • A national survey (n = 953) and interviews with eight journalists reveal widespread acceptance of idea plagiarism. About three-fourths of survey respondents said ideas did not require attribution, a belief more likely to be held by those in competitive markets and by broadcasters. Concealing the sources of ideas misleads the public about the origins of news and sometimes results in withholding information, violations of journalism’s public-service norms and truth-telling mission.

Ethics in the digital age: A comparison of moving images and photographs on moral reasoning • Aimee Meader, University of Texas at Austin; Lewis Knight, University of Texas at Austin; Renita Coleman, University of Texas – Austin; Lee Wilkins, School of Journalism/University of Missouri • The purpose of this study is to see if visual information such as the moving images found on television and the Internet have the same ability to improve moral judgment as still photographs. Results indicate that moving images degrade moral reasoning because viewers experience cognitive overload.  We suggest that altering the journalistic product in ways that minimize overload may encourage reasoning at higher ethical levels.

The Moral Psychology of Journalism Exemplars • Patrick Lee Plaisance, Colorado State University; Elizabeth Skewes, University of Colorado; Joanna Larez, Colorado State University • Drawing on moral psychology research and moral exemplar literature, this pilot study of selected journalism exemplars examines life-story narratives, moral reasoning skills, personality traits and ethical ideologies, point to an emergent profile of exemplary journalists in which personality traits and idealism are linked with concerns of justice, harm and professional autonomy. Thematic patterns in exemplar narratives also appear to emphasize notions of moral courage, humility and the ideological and professional implications of pivotal life experiences.

“Spike the football”:  Truth-telling, the press and the Bin Laden photos • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • This paper looks at press interpretations of the role of images – specifically, images of national enemies in death – in constructing various duties of media truth-telling. Discourse about the need, or duty, to publish photos of the Nazi leaders hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 provides a context for examining discourse surrounding a similar decision that the White House faced after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

Covering White ‘Just-Us’:  What did journalists ‘really’ say about Ipperwash? • Romayne Fullerton, Western Ontario University; Maggie Patterson, Duquesne Unviersity; Ginny Whitehouse, Eastern Kentucky University • The Canadian courts appeared to fail the Chippewa Stoney Band following the Ipperwash Provincial Park land dispute that left one member dead, but journalists also failed in ethical responsibilities and effectively killed the tribe’s identity through coverage that alternated between being one-sided and comparatively non-existent. Covering two sides in a trial is insufficient to fulfill the journalistic obligation to fairness when the reporting ignores cultural assumptions built on a White worldview.

Will write for food. The ethics of collaboration: Justice as reciprocity and capabilities • Lee Wilkins, School of Journalism/University of Missouri • Journalism’s search for a new business model has raised a number of issues among them the impact of specific choices on the ability to “do” journalism. This paper examines the ethics of financial collaboration, based on the concepts of reciprocity, capabilities and promise keeping. These concepts, in turn, inform a particular conceptualization of justice and connect justice to the goals of professional work.

‘Mind the CSR Communication Gap’: The Role of Authenticity in the Communication of CSR • Christopher Wilson, University of Florida; Weiting Tao, University of Florida; Sarabdeep Kochhar; Mary Ann Ferguson, University of Flordia • Scholars have noted a lack of research about public relations communication strategies for CSR initiatives even though communication is an integral part of the public relations function. This was the first study to explore the relationship between CSR communication, authenticity, and public relations communication strategy, offering a new approach for future studies about effective CSR communication.

Comparing Chinese and U.S. Journalism Students  on their Perceptions of the Roles and Ethics of Journalism • Jin Yang, University of Memphis; David Arant, University of Memphis • This study compares how American and Chinese journalism students perceive the difficulties of ethical dilemmas faced by journalists and the importance of various journalistic roles. Chinese students perceive greater difficulty in resolving conflicts of interests while American students find greater difficulty in upholding community standards. They are more in agreement on the importance of journalists’ adversarial and populist mobilizer roles but less in agreement on journalists’ interpretive and disseminator roles.

Journalistic Ethics at the Border: How El Paso Times Journalists Balance Reporting the News and Protecting their Sources • El Paso Times journalists routinely face ethical dilemmas as they cover difficult stories amid all of the violence in neighboring Ciudad Juarez. This ethnographic study, which utilizes participant-observation and in-depth interviews, examines how journalists deal with tough ethical choices. It reveals how reporters and editors at the El Paso Times consider the needs of the public and the ramifications of their stories. The journalists strive to be accurate and fair while protecting their sources and themselves. They weigh the importance of each story with its potential for risk.

Journalists’ Engagement with Facebook: A Theoretical Analysis • Journalists are among the many audiences using social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, to actively connect with networked communities. With social media interactions come a host of ethical concerns for the journalist, ranging from separating personal and professional online networks to understanding the informationally porous nature of online spaces.

Carol Burnett Award Papers

Journalism enhanced by argumentation, informal logic, and critical thinking • David Herrera, University of Missouri • This paper introduces some ideas from the fields of argumentation, informal logic, and critical thinking, and argues that those ideas can stimulate the practice and study of journalism. It first offers a general case for why the four fields can agreeable mingle. It then shows how argumentation, informal logic, and critical thinking are relevant to discussions about journalistic objectivity, about how journalists can build trust with their audiences online by building relationships, and other topics.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society 2012 Abstracts

#OCCUPYNEWS: Participatory media, networked movements and change in the media agenda • Jeremy Littau, Lehigh University; Ashley Sciora, Lehigh University • This study examines the extent to which Occupy Wall Street protesters were able to change the media narrative by using income inequality as a lens on coverage over a 180-day period. There was an increase in coverage about the topic in the months following the first protest, with substantial increases in U.S. media. Via agenda-building, we argue OWS changed the media agenda but had less success getting coverage to examine policy, solutions, and consequences.

“Pulling the Plug on Grandma”:  Obama’s Health Care Pitch, Media Coverage & Public Opinion • Shahira Fahmy, The University of Arizona; Christopher McKinley, Montclair State University; Christine Filer, U of Arizona; Paul Wright • This study examined the agenda building process, in which interpretive frames activate and spread from the top level through the news media to the public, in the context of Obama’s health care reform. The authors examined media coverage and public opinion polls from the President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 to the date the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” was signed into law in 2010.

“The Pictures in Our Heads”: How Typical News Versus Comedy News Might Influence the Transfer of Issue Attributes from the Media’s Agenda to the Public’s Agenda • Jennifer Kowalewski • Scholars showed how typical news influence public opinion formation by focusing on attributes of issues.  But as more people turn to alternative programs, this experimental study investigated how typical news versus alternative programming, comedy news, influenced second-level agenda setting.  The results indicated people who received typical news cited attributes of the issues more, so although comedy news could influence the salience of attributes, typical news programs did so more successfully.

All Things Considered: Trust in NPR • Emily Pfetzer • This paper examines trust in NPR, as it relates to political attitudes.

Another Path to Participation? Digital Literacy, Motivation and Participation: South Korean Case • Sungsoo Bang, University of Texas at Austin • This paper examines the prevalence of content creation and sharing of South Korea, to find whether new opportunities offered by digital media to disseminate one’s creations are distributed equally among users or not. Especially, this research examines particular segment of the population from national data, adults aged over 18, to capture more detailed Internet use and its social consequence within adult group.

Attribution, Credibility, and Conspiracy: Source Attribution and the Credibility of Online Conspiracy Theory Media • Jessica Mahone, University of Florida • The openness of the Internet has given alternative political and social movements greater opportunity to disseminate messages to the mass audience than ever before. Using an online survey experiment with 120 participants, this study explores the effects of four levels of source attribution on the perceived credibility of online conspiracy theory media. Findings suggest that attribution has little effect on credibility, but the content of conspiracy theory messages may influence the credibility of attributed sources.

Beyond Uses and Gratifications: How Context Affects Communicative Decision-making in the Texting Generation • A.J. “Alex” Avila, University of Texas at Austin • Communication scholars in the 21st Century often employ a Uses and Gratifications approach to researching digital communication technology. While widely applicable, U&G is limited in terms of predicting which technology media digital natives are likely to adopt given specific contexts.

Body Talk: Gay Men’s Body Image Commentary on Queerty.com • Joseph Schwartz, Northeastern University; Josh Grimm, Texas Tech University • In this study, we conducted a content analysis of photographic images of men published on the gay male-oriented blog Queerty.com. We also analyzed the user-generated comments that accompanied these images. We found that most images were very thin and very muscular. Additionally, we found that users tended to endorse these images. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Bonding friends, bridging families: How parents share and seek support on Facebook • Bob Britten, West Virginia University; Jessica Troilo, West Virginia University • At the moment, Facebook is the world’s most popular social network, but do users consider it a valid source for parenting advice? This research investigates how individuals’ parenting assets and perceived congruence with Facebook friends’ values relates to the parenting behaviors they employ in that social network. Using a five-part scale developed for this study, we find that both high-congruence and high-asset parents tended to have greater concerns in their perceived advice outcomes and friend group reinforcement.

Building Community among NPR Listeners • Joseph Kasko, University of South Carolina • The radio industry has experienced a great number of changes over the past decade. Traditional radio audiences have waned, as new technology is providing listeners with more options than ever before, and advertising revenue has been in decline. For example ad revenue, the main source of income for terrestrial broadcasters, dropped by 18 percent from 2008 to 2009 (Pew 2010) for traditional radio, as there is now competition for ad dollars from new platforms, including satellite and Internet radio.

Changing Standards for Offensive Language: Gate Widens at The New Yorker • Duane Stoltzfus • This content analysis examines offensive language published in The New Yorker, looking for signs that, as elsewhere in the media, it too has favored free expression over restraint. No one will accuse The New Yorker of prudery. The magazine appears to be doing just what its editor, David Remnick, recommended that The New York Times do: loosen up. In the past decade, the magazine has welcomed the F-word and other taboo terms to its pages.

Children’s Consumption of Fast-Paced Television as a Predictor of Their Vigilance • James McCollum, Lipscomb University • This investigation examined the relationship that pacing and other television viewing characteristics have with children’s vigilance.

Commemorating 9/11 NFL-Style: Insights into America’s Culture of Militarism • Mia Fischer • This paper argues that the NFL’s commemoration ceremonies on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 feed into the expansion of the military-industrial-complex and are largely a spectacle of a culture of militarism, pervaded by militaristic messages functioning to (re)assert national identity through excessive displays of patriotism. Employing a critical discourse analysis exposes the patriarchal, hegemonic portrayals of masculinity and discloses the empty jingoism that saturates these commemorations with its detrimental impact on public discourse.

Comparing Agenda-Setting Roles of Newspaper Columnists and Editorials in Kenya • Kioko Ireri, School of Journalism Indiana University-Bloomington • This research compares the agenda-setting roles of newspaper columnists and editorials in Kenya. It examines whether three newspaper columnists and editorials set the agenda on issues of national importance in 2008 and 2009. This was done by investigating whether there were any associations between issues given prominence in the opinion columns and editorials and what Kenyans, through public opinion polls, considered as the “most important problem” facing the country. The agendas of the columnists and editorials were also compared and investigated.

Confronting Contradictory Media Messages about Body Image and Nutrition:  Implications for Public Health • Maria Len-Rios, University of Missouri – School of Journalism; Kelsey Davis; Alison Gammon; Charnissia Smith; Swearingen Ann; Burgoyne Suzanne, University of Missouri – Columbia • This study uses grounded theory to examine how college-aged women process contradictory media messages about body image and nutrition. Five focus groups (N=35) comprising college-age women, college-age men, and mothers of college-age women show that body image is not closely associated with nutritional intake but is related to engaging in restrictive diets, irregular sleep, over-exercising. Four in-depth interviews with nutritional counselors point to time and the food environment as obstacles to making healthful choices.

Cross-cultural frame analysis of obesity: Comparative cause and solution framing of obesity in individualistic culture and collective culture • Jin Sook Im, University of Florida • This study illustrated cultural differences in the way that newspapers portray obesity, associated with narrative style (episodic and thematic), framing of cause, framing of solution, gender and age. It was noteworthy to compare an individualistic culture (U.S.) and a collectivist culture (South Korea) when they cover obesity.

Cultivating a Dream of Happily Ever After • Minchul Kim, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Youn-Gon Kang, Chung-Ang University • This paper examined influence of genre-specific cultivation on adolescents’ beliefs about romantic relationships. To understand its underlying process, identification with character and perceived relevance are considered to be a mediator and moderator respectively. A total number of 329 female adolescents participated. Using moderated-mediation analysis, we find that genre-specific television viewing cultivates beliefs about idealized romantic relationship. Moreover, this relationship is mediated by identification, and its indirect effect is contingent of the level of perceived relevance.

Disaster in Haiti: Critical Themes in News Coverage of the 2010 Relief Effort • Jared LaGroue; Michael Murrie, Pepperdine University • In 2010, Al Jazeera English reported criticisms of the U.S. military presence in Haiti.  The U.S. State Department denounced this coverage as “unfair” and “unbalanced”. This content analysis was conducted to determine the frequency of critical frames in U.S. media coverage of the U.S. military’s response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake and to compare critical themes with those present in Al Jazeera’s coverage.  Findings indicate that the U.S. media dominantly presented military actions without criticism.

Do traditional news outlets matter in the Twitterverse? Agenda-setting and the two-step flow on top microblogs • Jennifer Greer, University of Alabama; Justin Blankenship, University of Alabama; Yan Yang • This study examined top Twitter feeds’ reliance on established news sources for information shared in posts. News outlets and journalists were the most heavily relied upon outside source for content; however, this was mainly driven by practices of the news organizations and journalists themselves. Reliance on news providers was most common for political and economic topics. Results indicate traditional news providers still play an agenda-setting role in this environment, perhaps through the two-step flow of communication.

Does Podcast influence on Twitter and Mainstream media? Intermedia Agenda setting effects in Podcast, Twitter, and mainstream media during 2011 Seoul mayoral by-election • Jin Sook Im, University of Florida; Jihye Kim, University of Florida; Jung Min Park • The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the podcast on mainstream media such as television news and major newspapers and on Twitter during the 2011 Seoul mayoral election. This paper will explore the intermedia agenda setting among podcasts, television news, newspapers, and Twitter. That is, the aim of the paper is to explore whether the podcast influences the agenda of mainstream media and Twitter or whether mainstream media influences the agenda of Twitter.

Emerging public sphere online in China: One public health Crisis, two different voices • Fangfang Gao, Zhejiang University • To understand the emerging public sphere in the Chinese society, based on the agenda setting theory, this content analysis of newspaper, online forum, and blog coverage of the tainted milk formula scandals from 2008 to 2011 examined the differences between the old and new media platforms, analyzing the discrepancies between public discourse in new media and government discourse in traditional mainstream media. The implications of the findings were discussed.

Explaining the decline of media trust from political characteristics: How ideology exerts differential influences on partisans • Yang Liu, City University of Hong Kong • Public trust with mass media has declined dramatically and constantly since 1970s based on the time-series data from General Social Survey 1975-2010. Since mass media in America has long been accused of liberal bias, this paper first examines the role of ideology and partisanship in influencing media trust. Republicans are less confident with mass media than Democrats. Conservatives show less confidence than Liberals.

Explicating the Concept of Journalist: How Scholars, Legal Experts and the Industry Define Who Is and Who Isn’t • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia; Jonathan Peters, U of Missouri Columbia • This paper explicates the concept of journalist by exploring the scholarly, legal and industry domains. For the scholarly domain, we reviewed studies defining journalists. For the legal domain, we reviewed cases and statutes defining journalists. And for the industry domain, we reviewed membership criteria of journalism organizations. We did not intend to devise a normative definition. We intended to explore the dimensions used by others, and to use them to explicate the concept of journalist.

Exploring Message Meaning: A Qualitative Media Literacy Study of College Freshmen • Seth Ashley, Boise State University; Grace Lyden; Devon Fasbinder, University of Missouri • Critical media literacy demands understanding of the deeper meanings of media messages. Using a grounded theory approach, this study analyzed responses by first-year college students with no formal media literacy education to three types of video messages: an advertisement, a public relations message and a news report. Students did not exhibit nuanced understandings of message purpose or sender in any of three types of messages, and had particular difficulty distinguishing public relations and news messages.

Exploring Self-Stability and Dispositional Media Use Motives as a Predictor of Flow and Media Addiction: the Internet, a Mobile Phone and a Video Game • Hyoungkoo Khang; Jung Kyu Kim • This study aimed to explore psychological characteristics of an individual as an antecedent of media flow and addiction, with three prominent media activities, the Internet, video game and mobile phone use. In particular, the study identified two psychological factors, self-stability and dispositional media use motives, which were used to examine their direct or indirect influence on the flow and addiction for the respective medium.

Exploring Youth, New Media Alcohol Marketing and Associated Behaviors • Eric Hoffman, Washington State University; Erica Weintraub Austin, Washington State University; Bruce Pinkleton, Washington State University; Ming Lei, Washington State University • This exploratory study was conducted to determine how youth are consuming new media, interacting with alcohol brands on new media and their associated alcohol beliefs and behaviors. Data show that a pattern of use exists for social media involving alcohol marketing among young adults that is distinct from the use of social media more generally.  Data also indicate that there is an association between exposure to alcohol marketing and young adults’ drinking behaviors.

Facilitating the Egyptian Uprising: A Case Study of Facebook and Egypt’s April 6th Youth Movement • Brian J. Bowe, Michigan State University; Mariam Alkazemi, University of Florida; Robin Blom, Michigan State University • It has been suggested that social media offer important organizing tools for activists in countries where free expression is curtailed and news outlets are handcuffed by government censorship. The 2011 revolution in Egypt offers an opportunity to examine the extent to which social media fulfill the role that free journalism plays in more democratic societies.

Fighting to be Heard: The Homeless Grapevine’s Battle to Provide and Protect the Freedom of Speech for Cleveland’s Homeless Citizens • Lena Chapin, Ohio University • The Homeless Grapevine was an advocacy newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio that published news, issues and opinions surrounding homelessness from 1993-2009. Through fifteen years of reporting The Grapevine fought to bring awareness to the unaware and justice to the impoverished by providing an outlet for the homeless to express themselves. This study provides a brief history of the Grapevine and its struggles and successes with providing an outlet for that voice.

Gates Wide Open: A Systematic Review of Gatekeeping Research • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Missouri • News construction is a saturated area of research and yet the status of gatekeeping as a theory is far from established. First, a simple search for articles that used gatekeeping theory yields a small number compared to framing and agenda-setting studies. Second, even among the limited number of articles that cited gatekeeping there is disagreement on what it is about. In this paper we highlight the trends and issues involved in gatekeeping research.

Individual and Structural Biases in Journalists’ Coverage of the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill • Brendan Watson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study examines individual-level decision-making and structural biases in Gulf Coast journalists’ coverage of the 2010 BP oil spill. Previous studies have largely concluded that there is not consistent evidence of significant bias in journalists’ coverage, but these studies use aggregate level data that fail to sufficiently link individual journalists’ beliefs and their coverage. This study matches individual journalists’ survey responses with a content analysis of their coverage of the oil spill, along with community-level data.

Influences of Anxiety and Medium on News-based Rumor Transmission • Brian Weeks, The Ohio State University • News organizations often devote significant coverage to public rumors but to date the effects of these stories have been mostly unexplored.  This study experimentally (N=90) examines the influences of anxiety and medium on transmission of rumors reported in the news. Consistent with predictions, results indicate that exposure to television coverage of a rumor story, relative to newspaper coverage, generated greater rumor-related anxiety that subsequently increased participants’ intentions to share the story with others.

International News Attention and Civic Engagement: Disasters and Donations in the Digital Age • Jason Martin, DePaul University • International news is relatively understudied in the realm of media effects, and most of that research has been limited to general measures of news use and potential outcomes instead of empirical data from actual events. This study addressed those research problems by demonstrating the positive effects of attention to an international news event on civic engagement with that same event.

Internet Access Effects in Low and High-Income Rural Residents in Middle America • Adam Maksl, University of Missouri; Esther Thorson, University of Missouri-Columbia; Alecia Swasy, University of Missouri • This study tests income as a predictor of media use and communication behavior among those in the rural Midwest. Among the rural poor, we test the moderating effect of having broadband Internet access on these outcomes. Using two surveys of residents (N1=691; N2=704) in the rural Midwest, we found that the rich and poor differ little regarding these behaviors and that there seem to be nearly no positive effect of having the Internet among the poor.

Interpreting the Nation’s Toughest Immigration Law:  How The Arizona Republic’s Editorials Framed SB 1070 • Carolyn Nielsen, Western Washington University • The debate over Arizona’s SB 1070, the most punitive immigration policy in U.S. history, offered The Arizona Republic’s editorial board many angles from which to shape readers’ understanding of a complex issue. This study found that editorials in the state’s newspaper of record, while opposing the bill, framed the issue first as a political contest and then as a financial debacle, but devoted scant attention to accusations that the bill encouraged racial profiling of Latinos.

Law & Order, CSI, and NCIS: The Association between Exposure to Crime Drama Franchises, Rape Myth Acceptance and Sexual Consent Negotiation Behaviors among College Students • Stacey Hust; Emily Marett, Mississippi State University; Ming Lei, Washington State University; Chunbo Ren, Washington State University; Weina Ran, Washington State University • Previous research has identified that exposure to the crime drama genre lowers rape myth acceptance and increases sexual assault prevention behaviors like bystander intervention. However, recent content analyses have revealed marked differences in the portrayal of sexual violence within individual crime drama programs. Using a survey of 314 college freshman, this study explores the influence of exposure to the three most popular crime drama franchises: Law & Order, CSI, and NCIS.

Media Exposure and Fashion Involvement in the China: A Model of Analysis • Mona Sun, Hong Kong Baptist University; Steve Guo, Hong Kong Baptist University • This study investigates the relationship between media exposure and fashion involvement in Chinese society with a conceptual model of analysis that incorporates aspects of lifestyle, materialistic value, and peer pressure. Analyses of data from an online survey of 485 respondents indicate that fashion involvement is a function of fashion magazine reading and fashion website browsing, achievement lifestyle, perception of success, and peer influence. Lifestyle factors moderate the tie between media exposure and fashion involvement.

Media Stereotypes & the Stigmatization of Mental Illness: The Role of Adjoining and Adjacent Primes • Scott Parrott, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Francesca Carpentier • The general public often endorses negative stereotypes about people with mental illness, perceiving them as violent, unstable, and socially undesirable. The stigma attached to mental illness carries negative consequences, including discrimination in housing, employment, and social settings. The media may influence audience perceptions of people with mental illness. However, the mechanisms by which the effects occur remain unexamined.

Mobilizing or Reinforcing Engagement with Politics?  Impact of Media Voice and Political Talk on Political Engagement of Teens • Eunjin Kim, Missouri School of Journalism; Esther Thorson, University of Missouri-Columbia; Yulia Medvedeva; Margaret Duffy, Missouri School of Journalism • This study examined whether media use and interpersonal communication stimulate adolescents’ engagement with politics or reinforce existing political engagement. Additionally, this study tested if interpersonal communication mediates the effect of media use on adolescents’ political engagement. The results showed that media use and interpersonal communication had a significant direct effect on political engagement. Media use had an indirect effect on political engagement through interpersonal communication.

Modeling Television Viewing: Integrating Motivational and Situational Predictors • Harsh Taneja; Vijay Vishwanathan • This study aims to identify the factors that explain time spent with television content in the contemporary media environment. An integrated framework of television use incorporating both structural and individual determinants is tested on cross platform media use data obtained by following 495 people throughout the day. The findings indicate that even in this high choice media environment, situational factors such as patterns of availability and viewing group moderate the role of individual traits and needs in explaining exposure to content.

Neither Here nor There: The Consumption of U.S. Media Among Pre-adolescent Girls in Ecuador • Guillermo Avila-Saavedra, Salem State University • Through interview research, this paper examines the role of U.S. media consumption in the identity negotiations of pre-adolescent girls in Ecuador. The analysis applies notions of Girls’ Studies and Postcolonial Media Analysis. The informants’ insight reveals two main areas of influence: national identity and gender identity. The study argues that the dominance of U.S. media among this group of upper-middle class informants makes Ecuadorian national identity a highly fragile construct.

News Narratives, Issues Attitudes, and Audience Responses • Fuyuan Shen; Lee Ahern, Penn State; Michelle Baker • This paper examined the impact of narrative news in framing issues. To do that, we conducted a 2 x2 between-subjects experiment whereby news articles on the issue of gas drilling was manipulated by frames (economic gains vs. environmental costs) and news formats (narrative vs. factual news reports ). After reading the news articles, participants reported their issue attitudes, cognitive responses, empathy, and transportation. Results indicated both frames and report formats had significant impact on the dependent variables.

Obamacare in the news: The consequences of national news attention and political knowledge on attitudinal ambivalence towards healthcare policy • Jay Hmielowski, Yale University; Michael Beam, Washington State University; Myiah Hutchens, Texas Tech University • Recently, the concept of ambivalence attracted the attention of scholars across the social sciences (e.g., psychology, political science, and communication). This study contributes to this literature by examining the relationship between national news attention, factual knowledge, and structural knowledge on ambivalent attitudes towards the “Obamacare” policy debate in the US.

Online Deliberation of the Scientific Evidence for Breastfeeding: A Mixed-Method Analysis Using the Integrative Model for Behavioral Prediction • Maria Len-Rios, University of Missouri – School of Journalism; Manu Bhandari, University of Missouri; Yulia Medvedeva • This mixed-methods study analyzes online comments generated by two widely read articles (The Atlantic, n = 326; NYTimes.com, n = 596) challenging the science behind U.S. government breastfeeding recommendations. The analysis focuses on commenter evaluation of scientific evidence, and concepts from Fishbein’s (2009) integrative model (IM) of behavioral prediction. Results demonstrate commenters discussed personal experience more than medical benefits. Regarding the IM, descriptive norms were commented on less often than self-efficacy and environmental barriers.

Parents’ Influence Biases on Children, Their Own and Others • Jacqueline Eckstein, University of Oklahoma; Patrick Meirick, University of Oklahoma • We examine parental third- and first-person perceptions among a demographically diverse sample of American parents and find that parents judge their kids, compared to other children, to be less influenced by violent television advertisements and more influenced by PSAs to stop cyber-bullying. A perception that the comparison group was predisposed toward the behavior targeted in the message helped explain influence biases. Further, perceived effects predicted willingness to restrict and/or expand message access.

Partisans and Controversial News Online: Comparing Perceptions of Bias and Credibility in News From Blogs Versus Mainstream Media • Mihee Kim, University of Maryland; Ronald Yaros, University of Maryland • Based on the theory of hostile media effect (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper,1985), we investigate how partisans (n = 132) assess coverage of controversial news from either a blog or mainstream news source online.  A 2 (partisanship) x 2 (source) x 2 (news valence) factorial experimental design is employed.  Results suggest that perceived reach of a blog appears to also generate a similar hostile media effect as a mainstream news source.

Posed and Poised: The Physical Positioning and Engagement of Models in Advertisements • Sara Roedl, Southern Illinois University • Past research shows that the women featured in advertisements and magazines differ in appearance from most American women and tend to be portrayed as powerless.  Framing describes how body position and technical aspects of photographs can deemphasize the importance of female models.  This study examines the physical position of models and the technical characteristics of the photographs in advertisements to determine how these characteristics portray women.

Predictors of Simultaneous Media Use: The Impact of Motivations, Personality, and Environment • Shanshan Lou; Roger Cooper, Ohio University • In this media convergence world, audience’s media consuming behavior is becoming more complicated than ever before. Previous research has confirmed that simultaneous media use has become the new trend of media usage pattern. However, scholars’ understanding of this audience behavior is limited. This study collected data through both survey and diary to examine different predictors of this media use pattern. Results suggested that instrumental motivation, ritualistic motivation, and group viewing are significant predictor of audience simultaneous media use.

Routinizing a new technology in the newsroom: Twitter as a news source in mainstream media • Soo Jung Moon, University of West Georgia; Patrick Hadley, University of West Georgia • This study examined how news organizations employed Twitter as a news source, based on information subsidy and gatekeeping perspectives. Content analysis of 2010-2011 news stories from seven major media entities demonstrated that journalists maintained conventional newsroom routines in handling this new communication platform. Even when using Twitter as sources, journalists relied primarily on Twitter accounts of official sources. The popularity of a particular Twitter account, as indicated by the number of followers, did not contribute to attracting more attention from journalists.

Seeing the World Through a Filter: How College Students Place Trust in Others • Elia Powers, University of Maryland-College Park; Michael Koliska, University of Maryland • This mixed methods study investigates how college students access news, evaluate news sources, determine credibility and perceive news media outlets in the digital age. Our survey of 135 undergraduate students at a large mid-Atlantic state university and interviews with 20 respondents did not reveal a worrisome sense of cynicism about the American press. Students were largely trusting of the press – in particular established news outlets.

Sharing content among local news stations: A study of the local news pool • Kate West, University of Georgia • In an effort to save time and money, competing television news stations within a single market are sharing resources such as video and interviews.  This study examines how this sharing process is utilized and if stations should find a more efficient means to gather shared content under this new convergence model.

Sports Commentary: Comparing Male and Female Announcers During Women’s NCAA Tournament Games • Katrina Overby, Indiana University; John McGuire, Oklahoma State University • This study examined the differences between male and female play-by-play and color announcers during women’s NCAA tournament games and focused on the tone of the attributes in the commentary between male and female announcers. Male announcers made a higher proportion of positive comments about female athlete’s athletic abilities and team efforts while female announcers made a higher proportion of positive comments about female athlete’s mental abilities. This study advances research on this topic.

Spreading the news: Social news sharing practices among young adults • Kjerstin Thorson, University of Southern California • This paper offers an initial investigation of social news curation practices among young adults. It presents findings from fifteen in-depth interviews with young people (18-30) who share news and political content via social networking sites along with a secondary analysis of survey data.

Studying the effects of online user and expert reviews on participant elaboration of contract documents • Yukari Takata • This experimental study examines how recommendations by experts or laypeople and their level of consensus influence how carefully people process information.  Participants were randomly assigned one of seven online contract documents that had been highlighted by past readers –similar to user recommendation systems such as Diigo.com or Amazon Kindle’s Popular Phrase application. The highlights were attributed to either experts or laypeople and their level of consensus was low (1-3 people), medium (10-30), or high (100-300).

Television Viewing and the Belief in the American Dream • Laras Sekarasih, University of Massachusetts Amherst • Utilizing cultivation as a theoretical framework and nationally representative sample from the General Social Survey as data source, this study examined the association between television viewing and individuals’ belief in the American Dream. Controlling for demographic variables, television viewing by itself did not predict individuals’ belief in the American Dream. The interaction between television viewing and gender was found to be significant, where more television viewing predicted lesser belief in the American Dream among males.

Terror management and civic engagement: An experimental investigation of mortality salience on civic engagement intentions • Jennifer Green; Patrick Merle • Themes of death flood the media. Mortality salience has been shown to increase monetary donations and interest in social causes. Terror management theory may help explain this relationship by positing that mortality salience nonconsciously motivates people to embrace their cultural worldviews (e.g., engaging in volunteerism or politics). Therefore, mortality salience may encourage people to participate in civic engagement behaviors. Moreover, collectivistic, relative to individualistic self-construals have been shown to motivate people to serve others and meet group needs.

The Birthers and Obama: An Analysis of News Media Exposure and Motivated Reasoning • Barry Hollander, University of Georgia • Political rumors and myths swirled about Barack Obama as soon as he began seeking the U.S. presidency.  Among the most persistent of myths was that Obama was born outside the U.S.  Using the theory of motivated reasoning as a framework, this study examines national survey data to confirm the role political predispositions, and in this case racism, play in such misperceptions.  News media use, generally thought to increase political knowledge, did little to moderate belief in the myth.

The Impact of News Text, News Frames and Individual Schemata on News Comprehension • Guang YANG, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University; Steve Guo, Hong Kong Baptist University • This study explicates the news comprehension construct by examining three of its key components: news memory, news knowledge, and news understanding. We treat them as conceptually distinct but operationally related entities and trace their antecedents to framing devices in news texts. Three experiments were conducted. Results show that education, rather than narrative structure of news texts, played an important role in influencing news memory.

The Internet-a Tool for Accessing Sex Related Information: How do Young Adults Use it? • Alice Tunaru, The University of Alabama; Yorgo Pasadeos, The University of Alabama • The current study examined how young adults are using the Internet as a tool to access sex health information and answers to other sex related topics. Results showed that young adults engage in information searching behaviors that focus on source credibility and variety of sources found. Moreover, the current study found that personality factors such as judgment, self-consciousness, adventurousness, and prudence play a role in young adults’ information seeking behavior.

The Knowledge Gap vs. the Belief Gap and Abstinence-only Sex Education • Douglas Hindman, Murrow College of Communication; Changmin Yan, Washington State University • The knowledge gap hypothesis predicts widening knowledge disparities among socioeconomic status (SES) groups. The belief gap hypothesis extends the knowledge gap hypothesis to account for knowledge and beliefs about politically contested issues upon which the scientific community is in consensus. This analysis of three national surveys shows belief gaps developed between liberals and conservatives regarding abstinence-only sex education; SES-based knowledge gaps did not widen. The findings partially support both belief gap and knowledge gap hypotheses.

The Relationship among Media Exposure, Possibility of Event Occurrence, Third-Person Effect and Behavioral Intentions • Xduong Liu, Macau University of Science and Technology; Ven-hwei Lo, Chinese U of Hong Kong • This paper examines the influence of perceived possibility of event occurrence on third-person perception concerning exposure to media coverage of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic and on protective behaviors. Survey results show that people’s concern about the likelihood of the disease spreading in the local community positively predicts perceived media effects on self and on others, but its impact on self-evaluation of media effect is more salient, and thus negatively influences third-person perception.

The Relationship of Critical thinking Toward Alcohol Ads With Perceptions of Message Trustworthiness and Fairness • Erica Weintraub Austin, Washington State University; Lok Pokhrel, Washington State University • A survey of college students (N=472) finds that critical thinking toward alcohol ads is negatively associated with perceptions of fairness, but less consistently associated with trustworthiness, beyond relationships explained by general orientations toward cognition and affect.  We suggest the results demonstrate the potential for increased media literacy education about alcohol marketing strategies to help audience members to approach alcohol marketing messages more skeptically, regardless of personality characteristics that already may motivate thoughtful consideration of information.

The Role of Motivation and Offline Social Trust in Explaining College Student’s Self-disclosure on SNSs • Weiwei Zhang; Peiyi Huang • Links among demographics, motivation for using SNSs, offline social trust and self-disclosure on SNSs were investigated. Results from a sample of 640 Chinese college students showed there was an instrumental orientation of SNSs use among Chinese college students. As expected, motivation and offline social trust were found to play more important roles in predicting levels of self-disclosure than demographics. The findings suggested certain motivation to communication influenced certain outcome of communication behavior such as self-disclosure.

The Two Internet Freedoms: Framing Victimhood for Political Gain • Benjamin W. Cramer, Institute for Information Policy, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University • This paper will argue that the American political establishment has two vastly different definitions of Internet freedom that lead to contradictory policies in which Third World protesters receive more support for their Internet access than American citizens. For people in countries in which the United States has strategic interests in regime change, Internet freedom has been equated with the fight for political liberty, because free citizens should face no restrictions on Internet usage from any party.

The Unintended Consequences of “Moderate Mitt:” The Ideologies of Mitt Romney & Second-level Agenda Setting • Christopher Vargo, UNC – Chapel Hill; Jaime Arguello, UNC – Chapel Hill • This second-level agenda-setting study suggests that Newt Gingrich’s vocal outbursts on Mitt Romney’s liberalism and moderateness, which were subsequently covered by newspapers, may have not only cost Gingrich votes in the 2012 GOP race but also encouraged moderate, liberal and independent voters to support Romney. This study retrieved newspaper stories from Twitter and performed a content analysis. Combined with Gallup poll data that segmented voters by demographic and ideology, the researchers found sufficient support.

Turn a Blind Eye If You Care: Seeking Political Information Online and Implications for Attitudes • Westerwick Axel; Steven Kleinman; Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick • The Internet is often linked to a new era of political diversity and selectivity. A two-session online field study examined impacts of attitude consistency, attitude importance, and source credibility on selective exposure to political messages and subsequent attitude accessibility. The first session assessed attitudes and their accessibility. In the second session, participants browsed online search results that featured attitude-consistent and attitude-discrepant messages associated with either sources of high or low credibility; selective reading was tracked.

Turnoff everything: The challenges and consequences of going on a complete and extended media fast • Lauren Bratslavsky, University of Oregon; Harsha Gangadharbatla; Darshan Sawantdesai • This study draws on uses and gratifications and media dependency to examine media consumption, particularly in media-dependent millennials. Essays written by college students about their experiences during a 48-hour complete media fast are analyzed for patterns that support and extend our understanding of uses and gratifications and media dependency theory. Findings suggest that these traditional theories are supported but can be extended to include emerging themes and issues.

Walk in two worlds: The impact of social media consumption on Chinese immigrants and sojourners’ acculturation to the American culture • Cong Li; Yu Liu • Social media appear to play a more important role in people’s daily life nowadays. In this study, we focused on how social media consumption influenced Chinese immigrants and sojourners’ acculturation to the American culture.

What About Afghanistan? Examining Newspaper Coverage About the War in Afghanistan • Michel Haigh, Penn State University • More than 1,100 articles were examined discussing the war in Afghanistan for a ten-year period. Results indicate articles about the war in Afghanistan had a negative tone and depicted the U.S. military in a negative way. The stories were framed thematically. There were significant differences in print coverage when examining 2001 – 2010. The tone of coverage and depiction of the U. S. military became more negative over time. Frames also varied greatly by year.

What Are We Saying About Sex?  A Content Analysis of Sex Articles in Men’s and Women’s Health Magazine • Kimberly Walker, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis • As Former Surgeon General David Satcher warned, the nation’s sexual health is suffering because it is not being constructively discussed.  According to Satcher, discussion should not be limited to topics of individual dysfunction, but be inclusive of the broad range of sexual topics, including positive ones, and their impact on society.

When Advertisements Make Someone Look Bad (or Better) • Minchul Kim, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • This study explores effects of advertisement on news interpretation. Applying excitation transfer theory and exemplification theory, this study investigates effects of negative images in advertisement on attribution. The results of a web-based experiment show that indirect effects of exemplars are intensified when advertisement using negative images is presented together. Emotional reactions through attribution were also increased according to the nature of images in advertisements. Implications and suggestions for a future study were discussed.

When Does Multitasking Facilitate Information Processing?: Effects of Internet-Based Multitasking on Information Seeking and Knowledge Gain • Se-Hoon Jeong; Yoori Hwang • This study examines whether internet-based multitasking facilitates knowledge gain by allowing users to seek additional information online. The results based on survey data indicate that TV-internet multitasking increased knowledge, whereas TV-print media multitasking reduced it. In addition, online information seeking mediated the learning effects of internet-based multitasking. The results based on experimental data confirm the effects of internet-based multitasking on knowledge gain. The theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.

Why Kids Become Mobs? An Empirical Analysis of Youth Flash Mobs and Social Media • Hyunjin Seo, University of Kansas; Brian Houston; Alexandra Inglish, University of Kansas • This research examined how teens’ use of social media and psychological variables are related to their intention to participate in flash mobs, a growing cultural phenomenon in the United States and other countries. Based on a survey of teens in a major city in the Midwest, this study found a positive correlation between teens’ social self-efficacy and their intention to participate in a flash mob in the future.

Why Share in the Social Media Sphere: An Integration of Uses and Gratification and Theory of Reasoned Action • Chang-Dae Ham; Joonghwa Lee, Middle Tennessee State University • Given the idea that sharing behavior is critical in understanding the role and influence of social media, the present study  explores why people share the contents on social media by developing four dimensions of sharing motivation: self-definition by others, social conversation, convenience, and self-management. Among the identified dimensions, “convenience” and “social conversation” had significant positive impacts on attitudes toward sharing behavior.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Magazine 2012 Abstracts

Faculty
The Normalization of Cosmetic Surgery in Women’s Magazines, 1960 – 1989 • Shu-Yueh Lee, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh; Naeemah Clark, Elon University • This historical discourse examined how women’s magazines contribute to the normalization of cosmetic surgery from the 1960s to the 1980s. The dominant ideology over three decades is that cosmetic surgery is effective and safe for every woman wanting personal, financial, or romantic success. Ironically, any opposing messages also may normalize these procedures as well.

Audience reactions to consumer magazines: A test of the effects of commercial frame and sources • James Cole, University of Alabama; Jennifer Greer, University of Alabama • This study examined audiences’ reactions to consumer magazines based on frame (commercial or editorial) and source used (corporate or peer customer). Information from magazines with the most commercial cues was seen as least credible, and source and frame cues had weak effects on brand attitude. For readers with low product involvement, corporate sources led to increased credibility and brand attitudes. Moderately involved readers, in contrast, responded best to a peer customer source.

‘More trouble than the good Lord ever intended’: Representations of Interracial Marriage in U.S. News Magazines • Catherine Luther, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Jodi Rightler-McDaniels, University of Tennessee, Knoxville • This study critically examines, through discourse analysis, news stories regarding Black/White interracial marriage in the broad-reach magazines of Newsweek and Time, and in the African-American targeted magazines of Ebony and JET. Findings showed that in their attempts to dissect the reasons for the existence and increase of interracial marriages, stories primarily conveyed negative undertones. Under the framework of Critical Race Theory, the rejection of intimate Black/White relationships can be viewed as indicators of subtle racism.

“Defining Celebrity and Driving Conversation”: Celebrities on the Cover of People Magazine (2000-2010) • Jon Arakaki, SUNY College at Oneonta; Bill Cassidy • This study is based on the pervasiveness of celebrity culture—it addresses the production of fame and celebrity, and provides a content analysis of one media product and one time period: the cover of People magazine for the first decade of the 21st century. According to this national publication, who would its readers be most interested in reading about at that point in time? Who was deemed worthy of attention?

Comparing Health Messages in Magazines: Journalistic Elements and Their Connection to Health Literacy and Numeracy • Maria Len-Rios, University of Missouri – School of Journalism; Amanda Hinnant, University of Missouri • This content analysis of Cosmopolitan and Latina magazines (N = 289) examines health news stories read by millions of young U.S. women. Findings show that the health stories were replete with technical language, and alternative explanations are provided only 40% of the time. Nearly three-fifths of stories in both magazines contained numbers, yet provided few figurative illustrations. Latina appeared to acknowledge existing health disparities between the target audiences, including more stories about diabetes and obesity.

Empirical Research in Women’s Magazine Health Content • Shelly Rodgers; Amanda Hinnant, University of Missouri; Alecia Swasy, University of Missouri; Roma Subramanian • This research is the first to offer a snapshot of how empirical research materializes in women’s magazines, examining elements of completeness, complexity, sourcing, and behavioral mobilization. The present study content analyzed empirical research cited in women’s health and lifestyle magazines over 13 months for a total sample of 575. Results show a complex combination of empirical details and sourcing patterns with a reliance on medical personnel over researchers, and little explanation of limitations and risk.

Student

Female Bodies on Display: Attitudes Regarding Female Athlete Photos in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue and ESPN: The Magazine’s Body Issue • Rachael R. Smallwood, University of Alabama; Natalie Brown, University of Alabama; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama • This study quantified perceptions of female athlete pictorials in sports magazines, specifically examining presumed sexuality and athleticism. Respondents were shown twelve pictures of female athletes, six from Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit and six more from ESPN: The Magazine’s Body Issue. Results from the 221 respondents indicated that while SI pictures were more likely to receive high ratings for femininity and sexuality and ESPN pictures yielded higher scores for athleticism and muscularity, many factors were positively correlated.

A Balancing Act: The Rhetorical Vision of Champion Magazine • Ashley Furrow, Ohio University • This paper examines the rhetorical strategies employed by Champion magazine, the membership publication of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), in its quest to accomplish its mission and goals. Utilizing the critical method of fantasy theme analysis and symbolic convergence theory in the study of the text and photographs, it will explore whether a shared rhetorical community has been established within Champion magazine as well as identify four fantasy types found in the magazine’s pages.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white: Breast cancer messages in young women’s magazines • Sarah Henize, Bowling Green State University • Breast cancer is both prominent and fatal in the U.S. It is important for researchers to better understand the communicative mechanisms by which the popular media may affect readers’ perceptions and behaviors related to the disease. Two groups of women of particular interest are those who are young and/or black, who either still have a great opportunity for prevention or are at a higher risk for developing and dying from the disease.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Law and Policy 2012 Abstracts

The Closing of the Ether: Communication Policy and the Public Interest in the U.S. and Great Britain, 1921-1926 • Seth Ashley, Boise State University • The function of a nation’s media system depends on its structure. But how do systems come to be structured in different ways? Through a comparative historical institutional analysis of the origins of broadcast media systems in the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century, this study examines reasons that private, commercial interests dominated the U.S. system while Britain granted a monopoly to the publicly funded, noncommercial BBC.

Tracking, Technology, and Tweens: Better Regulation to Protect Children’s Privacy Online • Lisa Barnard, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The FTC recently proposed changes to the COPPA Rule, to keep pace with technological development. In his book Code 2.0, Lawrence Lessig argued regulation is the sum of social norms, market forces, architecture, and the law. This paper examines transcripts from a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing and an FTC workshop to determine how each of these regulatory forces affects children’s online privacy, revealing alternative ways the FTC and Congress can better protect children’s privacy online.

The Anonymous Speech Doctrine in the Internet Era: Developments in Libel, Copyright, and Election Speech • Jason Shepard, Cal State Fullerton; Genelle Belmas, Cal State Fullerton • The Supreme Court has long protected anonymity for speakers and writers. The Internet enables anonymity for individuals who write blogs, download music, and participate in political discussion. However, this poses a challenge for plaintiffs who want to sue anonymous online speakers for libel, copyright infringement, or election speech. This paper evaluates current legal developments in these areas and makes recommendations about how the law should deal with these different but related areas of anonymous speech.

Social Science, Media Effects & The Supreme Court: Is Communication Research Relevant After Brown? • Clay Calvert, University of Florida; Matthew Bunker, University of Alabama; Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama • This paper examines the implications of the Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association for the future use of social science evidence and communication research to supply legislative facts supporting laws targeting harms allegedly caused by media artifacts.  The Brown majority set the bar for the relevance of social science evidence exceedingly high, while Justice Breyer, in contrast, adopted a much more deferential approach that embraced the evidence proffered by California.

To Defer or Not to Defer?  Deference and Its Differential Impact on First Amendment Rights in the Roberts Court • Clay Calvert, University of Florida; Justin Hayes, University of Florida • This paper examines deference as it affects First Amendment speech rights under the Roberts Court.  Using six recent decisions as analytical springboards, the paper demonstrates profound disagreements among the justices on the use of deference.  Like a spigot, deference is turned on and off by justices, and even when turned on, it can flow freely and or be reduced to a trickle.  Such malleability makes deference a critical concept on today’s Court when speech rights hang in the balance.

Past Bad Speakers, Performance Bonds & Unfree Speech • Clay Calvert, University of Florida • Using the legal woes of infomercialist Kevin Trudeau as an analytical springboard, this paper examines the First Amendment issues raised by imposing performance bonds on “past bad speakers” as conditions precedent for future speech.  Performance bonds blur the line separating prior restraints from subsequent punishments, and they represent a form of government intrusion in the marketplace of ideas – a form of interventionism, premised on financial incentivism, that ostensibly discourages dangerous or unlawful speech from re-entering speech markets.

American Un-Exceptionalism: The Case of Copyright Law’s Public Domain and Freedom of Expression • Edward Carter, Brigham Young University • The relationship between American copyright law and free speech has long been a complicated one. This research reviewed scores of Supreme Court opinions discussing the public domain. Although the Court in a January 2012 opinion said the public domain was not of constitutional significance, the reality is that Court precedents on the public domain sketch a broad role for that concept.

Public Interest . . . what Public Interest? How the Rehnquist Court Created the FOIA Privacy Exceptionalism Doctrine • Martin E. Halstuk, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University; Benjamin W. Cramer, Institute for Information Policy, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University; Michael D. Todd, University of New Hampshire • This article examines whether the Obama Administration has disclosed more records requested under the Freedom of Information Act than previous administrations, and specifically examines the uses of the FOIA privacy exemptions by federal agencies and departments.

An Analysis of FTC Cases Involving Substantiation of Health Claims in Food Advertising • Jeanne-Marie DeStefano, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The Federal Trade Commission and Food and Drug Administration share responsibility for regulating the marking of food, cosmetics, over-the-counter drugs and cosmetics. The FTC has primary responsibility for regulating truth or falsity of all advertising (other than labeling) while the FDA has primary jurisdiction over the labeling.

The Life, Death, and Revival of Implied Confidentiality • Woodrow Hartzog, Cumberland School of Law at Samford University • The concept of implied confidentiality is almost totally ignored by the law in the digital era. This article explores the curious diminishment of implied confidentiality and demonstrates that while courts regularly consider numerous factors in analyzing implied confidentiality, they have failed to organize or canonize them. This article proposes a decision-making framework to help courts consistently ascertain whether an implied obligation of confidentiality exists regardless of whether the relationship is online or offline.

The ‘High Life’ at ‘Mimi’s’: West Virginia’s Wrongful Ban of Limited Video Lottery Advertising • Matthew Haught, University of South Carolina • This paper explores the case of West Virginia Association of Club Owners and Fraternal Services [WVACOFS] v. John Musgrave. The author argues that the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upholding a state ban on advertising and restrictions on naming of privately operated video lottery parlors as constitutional violates the principles set out in Central Hudson Gas and Electric v. PSC and Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association, Inc. v. United States.

Getting Excited About the CALM Act: The First Amendment and Loud Commercials • Dale Herbeck, Boston College • On December 2, 2010, Congress adopted legislation designed to combat a serious problem that plagues many of the industrialized nations of the world: the menace of loud television commercials. The measure, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to apply a “recommended practice” on sound volume developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).

The Triangle of Minority Ownership, Employment and Content: A Review of Studies of Minority Ownership and Diversity • Dam Hee Kim, University of Michigan • Diversity has been a goal of U.S. communications policy. Yet, the FCC’s diversity and minority preference policies governing broadcast ownership have been challenged due to doubts concerning the assumed nexus among minority ownership, a diverse workforce and content provided to the community of owner, the triangle.

Facial Recognition vs. the Law • Robert G. Larson III, University of Minnesota • This article will explore the legal issues surrounding facial recognition technology. The author will examine the privacy concerns, implications for personal freedom, fairness and security problems, and risks of escalation arising from facial recognition technology. The article will then discuss the legal implications of facial recognition technology, delving into First and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and common law privacy torts, and will assess their success or failure as remedies for the concerns raised by this technology.

Online News Aggregators, Copyright, and the Hot News Doctrine • Robert G. Larson III, University of Minnesota • This article will assess the continued validity of legislating online news aggregation in the face of the changing media landscape. The first section will provide a foundational explanation of online news aggregation and the problems created by such practice. Section II will explore several theoretical principles that apply to online news aggregation. Legal principles of copyright law and unfair competition—including the hot news doctrine—will be explored in Section III.

Surveying the Post-Apocalyptic Landscape: Campaign-Finance Reform and Free Speech After Citizens United • Matthew Telleen, University of South Carolina; Carmen Maye, University of South Carolina; Erik Collins, University of South Carolina • This paper explores the state of campaign-finance reform since Citizens United v. FEC. In that controversial 2010 case, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that restrictions on independent campaign expenditures unconstitutionally limit the free-speech rights of “persons,” including for-profit corporations. Since that opinion, alternative approaches for campaign-finance regulation have begun to emerge. Which alternatives, if any, will prove most effective, or whether a new pathway to reform will emerge, remains to be seen.

The Evolution of Canon 35 and the Two Maverick States That Did Not Follow Suit • Michael Martinez, University of Tennessee • The American Bar Association passed Canon 35 prohibiting the taking of photographs and the broadcasting of court proceedings in 1937. All but two states, Colorado and Texas, adopted Canon 35 and the ban on electronic media coverage of trials lasted slightly more than 40 years among the rest of the states. This paper explores the implementation of Canon 35 and seeks to answer why Colorado and Texas refused to fall into lockstep with the rest.

Spam and the First Amendment Redux:  Free Speech Issues in State Regulation of Unsolicited Email • Jasmine McNealy, Syracuse University • The scourge of email spam is more than 30 years old, and yet, it does not appear to be disappearing.   In fact, spam has expanded to other ubiquitous Internet platforms including social media websites.   It seems, then, that the many state anti-spam statutes have been unsuccessful in regulating the sending of unsolicited commercial email, but, not for lack of trying.  This paper examines the First Amendment challenges to state anti-spam laws.

Who owns your friends?: PhoneDog v. Kravitz and business claims of trade secret in social media information • Jasmine McNealy, Syracuse University • Increasingly businesses are making use of social media including requiring employees to create and maintain social media profiles. What happens when an employee in charge of a social media profile leaves the company?  To whom does that profile, and the friends or followers connected to that account, belong?  This paper explores the emerging use of trade secret law by businesses claiming ownership social media profile information.

Protecting citizen journalists with actual malice • Nikhil Moro, North Texas; Deb Aikat, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The U.S. Supreme Court has reserved its view on whether constitutional privileges for institutional media created in New York Times (1964) and its progeny extend to citizen journalists, bloggers and other “nonmedia” defendants. Small-Jane defendants, including citizen journalists, have emerged as ubiquitous publishers distinct from “media” such as well-heeled news and entertainment corporations.  This paper analyzes the evolving information society in order to argue in favor of extending “actual malice” doctrinal protection to citizen journalists and other nonmedia defendants.

To Reveal or Conceal?–An ISP’s Dilemma:  Presenting a New “Anonymous Public Concern Test” for Evaluating ISP Subpoenas in Online Defamation Suits • Cayce Myers, University of Georgia • This article proposes the “Anonymous Public Concern Test” which incorporates public concern analysis in enforcing Internet Service Provider subpoenas in online defamation suits.  Current tests evaluating ISP subpoenas are either too pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant and are inconsistent with existing Supreme Court holdings concerning privacy rights and anonymous speech.  The proposed “Anonymous Public Concern Test” is the best approach in dealing with ISP subpoenas because it protects both anonymous speech while preserving online defamation plaintiffs’ rights.

Mental illness, the news media and open justice: the Australian experience • Mark Pearson, Bond University • Tribunal and court cases involving people with mental illness pit the principles of open justice against modern notions of privacy and concerns that media attention might be counter-productive to the treatment of patients. This paper canvasses differences between Australian jurisdictions and considers three case studies, including a recent landmark decision in the United Kingdom, illustrating the competing interests at stake. It maps policy needs and suggests directions for further research.

Who are the Media? The Media Exemption to Campaign Finance Law • John Remensperger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper explores the FEC’s application of the media exemption and how it balances the freedom of the press against the restrictions required by campaign finance law. Depending how the exemption is applied, there is the potential for campaign finance principles to be undermined. The Court’s decision in Citizens United to allow increased corporate expenditures in political campaigns elevates the importance of examining potential loopholes through which remaining expenditure and disclosure rules can be sidestepped.

When “Ripped from the Headlines” Means “See You in Court”:  Libel By Fiction and the Tort Law Twist on a Controversial Defamation Concept • Robert Richards, Penn State University • From the television crime-drama series “Law & Order” to the forensic franchise of “CSI,” the trend toward creative works of entertainment fiction based upon real-life circumstances and real people continues to grow. This surge, which includes the 2011 Oscar winners “The King’s Speech” and “The Social Network,” prompted the United Kingdom’s newspaper The Observer to ask:  “Is this glut of fact-based films a coincidence, or is something fundamental going on?

The Calm Before the Storm? Indecency Regulation in the 1990s • Amy Kristin Sanders, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Natalie Hopkins-Best, University of Minnesota • This article turns back the clock to the look at the history of the FCC’s regulation of indecency prior to its crackdown during the 2000s – back to the time period to which General Verrelli referred in his oral argument. First, it documents the legal precedent that allows the FCC to regulate broadcast programming.

Re-Defining Defamation: Psychological Sense of Community in the Age of the Internet • Amy Kristin Sanders, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Natalie Hopkins-Best, University of Minnesota • This article explores the relationship between community formation, freedom of expression and defamation in light of the Internet. Although the definition of community has long played a role in defamation litigation, the courts have been remiss in uniformly assessing a defamation plaintiff’s community. In the era of traditional media, courts typically relied upon geographical constraints, including where the plaintiff lived or worked.

Justices or Politicians in Robes? Using the Brandenburg Line to Examine Political Influence on Supreme Court Decisions • Jared Schroeder, University of Oklahoma • The Supreme Court’s Brandenburg test for threatening speech is traditionally viewed as the fruit of about a half a century of deliberate judicial evolution. A growing body of political science literature questions the traditional perspective. Regime theory seeks to explain the Court’s decisions by noting that justices tend to decide cases in a way that lines up with the prevailing political ideology.

Policy development under uncertain regulatory capture conditions: An insiders’ perspective • Amy Sindik, Univeristy of Georgia • This study examines policy development at the FCC as more than one dominant communications industry competes for regulatory capture.  Through interviews with lobbyists employed by broadcast and wireless organizations, the study examines the way competition for regulatory favoritism impacts policy formation and the future of capture the FCC.  The interviews suggest that no one industry fully captures the FCC and competition for regulatory favoritism has made industry-favored policy formation more difficult to accomplish.

The Real Story Behind the Nation’s First Shield Law: Maryland, 1894-1897 • Dean Smith, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • A key goal of this paper is to explore the emerging theory of “popular constitutionalism” by applying it to a singular moment in history: creation of the nation’s first statutory shield law to protect journalists from compelled disclosure of confidential sources.

Secrecy and Transparency of the Chinese Government: A Historical Perspective • Yong Tang, Western Illinois University • The year 2012 marks the fifth anniversary of the enactment of China’s national freedom of information law- Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information. The purpose of this article is to examine how both sides of government information policy-secrecy and transparency-have evolved in the long trail of the Chinese civilization.

Determinants of Broadband Competition and Service Quality in the United States • Robert LaRose, Michigan State University; Anthony Grubesic, Drexel University; Johannes M. Bauer, Michigan State University; Wenjuan Ma; Hsin-yi Sandy Tsai, Michigan State University • In February 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the first version of the National Broadband Map (NBM). Semi-annual updates are scheduled until 2016 to close gaps in earlier data collection efforts and to reflect ongoing developments in broadband markets. This initiative, implementing the goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Broadband Data Improvement Act (BDIA), provides information about broadband Internet services in the United States at an unprecedented level of detail.

True threats, fake warnings: Proscribing intimidating speech in a context of violence • Bastiaan Vanacker, Loyola University Chicago • On April 14, 2010, Comedy Central aired the 200th episode of its hit cartoon show South Park.  To mark this special occasion, the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone populated the episode with a slew of characters that appeared on the show during its 14-year-run, including religious figures such as Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad.

<< 2012 Abstracts

International Communication 2012 Abstracts

Bob Stevenson Open Paper Competition

Gatekeeping & Citizen Journalism: The use of social media during the recent uprisings in Iran, Egypt, and Libya • Sadaf Ali, Wayne State University; Shahira Fahmy, U of Arizona • This critical study focuses on major conflicts involving protests in the Middle East and North Africa: 1) The unsuccessful 2009 uprising in Iran 2) the 2011 successful Egyptian revolution; 3) and the recent successful uprising in Libya. From a theoretical perspective this research expands the study of gatekeeping theory by examining the characteristics of gatekeeping practices by citizen journalists. Overall findings suggest traditional ‘gatekeepers’ continue to maintain the status quo regarding news about conflict zones.

Agenda setting and microblog use in China • Yanfang Wu; David Atkin, University of Connecticut; Yi Mou; Carolyn Lin; Tuenyu Lau • With the proliferation of micro-blogs, micro-blogging has been quickly gaining popularity and become an effective tool of citizen journalists for the quick organization of protests, help/advice, and the sharing information from media sources.  This potential ability to disseminate information among social networks that lie outside the control of institutions such as the traditional media has had a profound impact on traditional media’s agenda setting power immediately after an accident or crisis.

El Salvador and Costa Rica: Two Central American Opposite Cases in Their State-Diaspora Relations • Vanessa Bravo, Elon University • Through a qualitative case study that includes 20 in-depth interviews with key informants, this study compares the state-diaspora relations of two Central American countries, one where the state considers the diaspora a key transnational public (El Salvador), and one where the state basically ignores the diaspora in its policies (Costa Rica).

Media Use and Political Trust in an Emerging Democracy: Setting the institutional trust agenda • Lindita Camaj, University of Houston • This study explores the role of mass media in democratization processes in Kosovo, a post-conflict transitional society in South-Eastern Europe, by examining media effects on citizens’ trust in political institutions. The results confirm general assumptions that in societies undergoing political transitions, a free and plural media system keeps the governing institutions under public opinion scrutiny while contributing to the citizens’ political learning and trust.

Moving images of revolution: Social media and the 2011 Tunisian intifada • Catherine Cassara, Bowling Green State University • It has been called a Facebook revolution, a Twitter revolution, even a Wikileaks revolution. But many factors drove the Tunisian Intifada, and first and foremost what mattered were people protesting for weeks in the streets of cities and towns in the country’s marginalized hinterlands sending cellphone videos of via Facebook to Al Jazeera, the world, and back to the TVs of their neighbor’s and to those protesters in Tunis who would drive out the president.

Mediating the African Message: Social Influences on a Ugandan Newspaper • Steve Collins, University of Central Florida • Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, the author identified numerous factors that influence news production at Uganda’s leading independent newspaper. The factors include ethnicity (of journalists and sources), a pay system that rewards quantity over quality, a reliance on sources willing to “facilitate” reporters, and a newsroom culture that promotes self-censorship. The findings have implications for Gatekeeping Theory and journalism training in developing nations.

Covering news with provincial characteristics?  Comparing health news coverage in China’s Guangdong and Henan provinces • Dong Dong; Qiuyuan Huang; Ziwei Shen; Lingyue Tang; Chenyang Wang • In this research we try to use news coverage on two health incidents as an example to illustrate how the Chinese newspapers at different levels differentiate on news construction. We will compare the contents of news stories sampled from six Chinese newspapers in order to provide empirical evidence to support a recent theoretical call on “scaling” and “rescaling” media in China.

Muslim Bloggers in Germany: An Emerging Counterpublic? • Stine Eckert; Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland College Park • The Muslim minority in Germany has been historically misrepresented and excluded from the mainstream public sphere. In response, some Muslims have turned to blogs as an alternative space to challenge the dominant public discourse through varied discursive practices. In this exploratory study, we examine these practices through interviews with Muslim bloggers. Applying Nancy Fraser’s theory of counterpublics, we posit that this group, which seeks to challenge mainstream representations and offer oppositional counterdiscourses, represents an emerging counterpublic.

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya Framing of the Israel-Palestine Conflict During War and Calm Periods • Mohamad Elmasry, The American University in Cairo; Alaa El Shamy, Ain Shams University; Peter Manning; Andrew Mills, Northwestern University; Phil Auter, University of Louisiana at Lafayette • This framing study compared Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict during the 2008/2009 Gaza conflict and one year later, during a period of calm. Findings suggest that both networks used framing mechanisms to highlight Palestinian perspectives over Israeli ones and frame Palestinians as victims of Israeli aggression. The networks regularly described Palestinian casualties and showed images of Palestinian grief, provided more voice to Palestinian sources, and personalized Palestinian deaths.

High Drama on the High Seas:  Peace vs. War Journalism Framing of the Mavi Marmara Incident • Britain Eakin, U of Arizona; Shahira Fahmy, The University of Arizona • Based on Galtung’s groundbreaking concept of peace journalism we content analyzed the extent to which the coverage of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident used war versus peace frames in online stories that ran in Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Results show differences in coverage among the three newspapers. Findings build upon existing literature to further study peace versus war journalism specifically regarding the Israeili/Plaestinian conflict. Finally limitations and future research are addressed.

Domestic, International, and Foreign News Content on ABC, CBS and NBC Television Network News from 1971 to 2007 • Katherine Bradshaw, Bowling Green State University; James Foust • The results of a content analysis show the mean story length and number of international and foreign news stories on network television news decreased steadily from 1971 on, and markedly in the 1990s. Previous content research on this topic is flawed by non-random samples and inconsistent definition of variables. This research is the first to attempt to correct those flaws. It used consistent variable definitions applied to randomly selected content and produced generalizable results.

Availability and Individual Cognitions:  Exploring How Framing Effects Vary Across Cultures • Timothy Fung; Dietram A. Scheufele • The purpose of this research is to explore the role of availability of a value construct in framing process and to delineate how the processes underlying framing effects across cultural groups for whom particular value constructs are more or less available in memory. Using the values of filial piety, independence and elderly care policy as the case study, we conducted two experiments to examine monocultural individuals’ responses to cultural value framing.

Communication Styles: Their Role in Understanding Autism in Korea and the United States • Myna German, Delaware State University; Keonhee Kim • Relying on a contemporary interpretation of hybridity of communication styles in the classroom, this study takes a cross-cultural look at educators in selected inclusive education classrooms in the United States and South Korea. It examines how educators interpret and construct communication with students labeled with autism. The social requirements for, and interpretation of, communicative behaviors differ between the United States, a primarily individualist culture, South Korea, which is primarily collectivist and dominated by a high-context communication style.

How they cover the world: A comparison of news predictors for The Associated Press, The New York Times and Reuters • Beverly Horvit, University of Missouri; peter gade; Liz Lance; Youn-Joo Park, University of Missouri • Logistics variables such as characteristics of the world’s countries and their ties to the United States successfully predict which countries will receive coverage by The Associated Press, Reuters and The New York Times. Economic predictors are more important for Reuters, and U.S. ties are more important for the U.S. news organizations. The analysis is based on regression models using a content analysis of 5,301 news items, paired with a data set for 191 countries.

Manufacturing professional honor: Official journalism award as social control in China • Chin-Chuan Lee, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong; Shunming HUANG, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, China • The institution of journalism award in China is a post-Mao cultural phenomenon. This article performs an exploratory analysis of official journalism awards as a mechanism of social control. It first traces the institutional process, then explores the opportunity structure and gatekeeping practice, and finally examines effects on the journalist.

Revolutionary Medium? Portrayals of Social Media in American and Egyptian Newspapers’ Coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution • Margaret A. Fesenmaier, Virginia Tech; Luay Kaloumeh, Università della Svizzera italiana; Yuxi Zhuang, Virginia Tech; James Ivory, Virginia Tech • To examine whether widespread speculation in the U.S. press about the role of social media in the 2011 Egyptian revolution was consistent with Egyptian coverage, a content analysis compared portrayals of social media and protestors in articles (n = 300) from major Egyptian and U.S. newspapers.  U.S. articles mentioned social media and described social media as contributing to the revolution more frequently than Egyptian articles.  Portrayals of protestors were similar between U.S. and Egyptian newspapers.

Cultural Imperialism Revisited: Empirical Determination of the Role of Superstructures on Internet Searches of International Issues • Mia Kamal; Yongick Jeong • By content-analyzing public searches on international issues, this research conducted two studies to empirically determine the role of superstructures on overall cultural imperialism, cultural imperialism by U.S. and that by other nations. The results indicate that Internet searches for international political, entertainment, education, and non-contact sports issues were significantly influenced by each country’s distinct superstructure. This study also found a different pattern in searching U.S. issues from non-U.S. issues.

Internet Addiction among Young People in China: Internet Connectedness, Online Gaming, and Academic Performance Decrement • Qiaolei Jiang, Nanyang Technological University • Internet addiction has become a prominent issue in China, especially among the young. This study is among the first few focusing on the Internet-dependent young people in China. Based on data collected in one of the earliest and largest Internet addiction clinics in Mainland China, this study investigated the interrelationships between Internet connectedness, online gaming, Internet addiction symptoms, and academic performance decrement. The findings showed that Internet connectedness and online gaming are positively associated with Internet addiction symptoms.

Online Social Networking Profiles and Self-presentation of Indian Youths • Peddiboyina Vijaya Lakshmi, Sri Padmavati  Mahila Visvavidyalayam; Sagar Atre, Ohio University, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism; Yusuf Kalyango, Ohio University • This central aim of this study is to determine whether online social interactions, online postings and self-presentations in profiles of Indian teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18 years conform to the previously well-guarded culture and traditional norms of India. It is based on the analysis of user profiles on ten social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, Ibibo, Perfspot, Google+, LinkedIn, Bharatstudent and Twitter.

‘My Little Girl’: The Ethics of News Coverage of an Intersex South African Athlete • Rick Kenney, Florida Gulf Coast University; Kimiko Akita, University of Central Florida • South African sprinter Caster Semenya’s victory in the 2009 track World Championships set off a firestorm of controversy over whether she was a woman—by sex, not gender. Competitors claimed she was a man, and the sports’ governing body conducted sex-verification tests on Semenya without her knowledge.

Gender Digital Divide? Facebook Uses and Gratifications Among Kuwaiti College Students • Anastasia Kononova, American University of Kuwait; Saleem Alhabash, Michigan State University • A cross sectional survey (N = 169) of Kuwaiti college students explored the uses and gratifications of Facebook as a function of gender. Results showed that respondents, in general, were mostly motivated to use Facebook for social connectivity and posting and following status updates. Results also showed that a greater proportion of male respondents reported having a Facebook account compared to their female counterparts.

Creation of transnational media culture in a digital diaspora space: Analysis of media sharing web board of an online community of female Korean im/migrants in the U.S. • EunKyung Lee, Rutgers University • This study explores an online community (www.MissyUSA.com) formed among female Korean im/migrants in the U.S. as an example of a digital diasporic space in the new media age. Employing multiple research methods including in-depth interviews, textual analysis, and grounded theory this study examined the media culture on a media sharing web board of the online community.

Effects of Real and Fictional Presidential Debates on the Perceived Importance of Issues • Jeongsub Lim • This study investigates how real and fictional presidential debates influence individuals’ perception of the importance of issues by considering the following three main independent variables: need for orientation, emotional arousal, and the credibility of real and fictional presidential candidates. The results of a controlled experiment using a sample of students indicate that older participants who had a need for orientation toward key issues and believed real presidential candidates were more likely to be concerned about the issues discussed by the candidates.

Educating Globally Aware Journalists: What Is It, Why Does It Matter and How Do We Prepare Our Students • Scott Winter, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; R. Bruce Mitchell, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Nancy Mitchell, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • This paper investigates how we prepare students to be globally aware journalists – what it is, why it matters and how educators can foster such learning. Using a case study approach, the authors argue that helping students achieve global competency requires a complex set of outcomes accomplished by multiple media experiences attained domestically and/or abroad, and that the best intercultural learning situations feature cultural mentors who help students reflect on their experiences.

A Framing Analysis of U.S. News Coverage of Diplomatic Relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela • Victor Oliveira Bonomi, Arkansas State University; Po-Lin Pan, Arkansas State University • This study explored U.S. news coverage of the diplomatic relationship between the United States of America and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in three U.S. newspapers—the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor. Using media framing theory, this content analysis was conducted over two distinct periods that represented the first hundred days of the first and second presidential periods of Hugo Chavez.

The Press-Enabled Rise of Two Two-Term Presidents: Brazil’s Popular Lula and the US’s Unpopular Bush • Tania Rosas-Moreno, Loyola University Maryland • This qualitative content analysis compares how two democratic countries’ newspapers of record first mythogolized their winning presidential candidates, resulting in two two-term presidents: unpopular Bush and unprecedently popular Lula. The New York Times and Folha de São Paulo candidate mythogolizations occurred within seven myth categories: ideal, experience, leadership, favored, fear, folksy and campaign practicalities. In brief, cross-cultural comparisons analyzing the relationships among national media practices during presidential elections provide insight into journalistic practices.

Examining Traditional and New Media Credibility in Pakistan • KyuJin Shim, Syracuse University; Anita Day, University of South Florida; Guy J Golan, Syracuse University; Sung-Un Yang, Indiana University at Bloomington • Based on a random survey sample, the current study examined audience assessments of different media platforms in Pakistan. Results provide empirical support for a significant relationship between such demographic variables as age, gender, religiosity and ethnicity and overall assessments of either traditional or new media credibility. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that reliance on traditional media was positively associated with assessments of traditional media credibility while reliance on new media was positively associated with assessments of new media credibility.

Framing Tibet:  A Comparative Study of U.S. and Chinese Newspapers, 2008-2011 • Xiangyi Shou, Iowa State University; Gang (Kevin) Han, Greenlee School/Iowa State University; Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State University • The Chinese take-over of Tibet has become an irritant in the relationship between the U.S. and China. This study identifies the visibility of news frames in the coverage of this issue by the elite newspapers of the two countries from 2008 to 2011. Results show that human rights was the most prominent frame in New York Times while attribution of responsibility and human interest were most observed in the People’s Daily.

A Cross-National Comparison of Russian and U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Iran’s Nuclear Program • Diana Sokolova; Carol Schwalbe, School of Journalism, University of Arizona • A content analysis of 318 articles revealed differences in the textual and visual framing of Iran’s nuclear program in two U.S. newspapers and two Russian newspapers during the presidency of George W. Bush (2002-2009). Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times presented Iran as an enemy and a threat to U.S. security, thus reflecting the Bush administration’s fear that Iran was building an atomic bomb.

Early Global Media in the Indian Ocean Rim: The Telegraph and Colonial Britain • Sujatha Sosale, The University of Iowa • In this paper, through an initial analysis of archival data, I trace some political and economic questions and challenges faced by colonial Britain in networking the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) through the telegraph. In the process, I hope to demonstrate that a communication medium contributed to the definition of the IOR as a geographical entity, much of which constitutes the global South today.

Race and Masculinity: A comparison of Asian and Western Models in Men’s Lifestyle Magazine Advertisements • Ping Shaw; Yue Tan • This study examines how men of different races are displayed in terms of masculinity types and product types by analyzing the content of 636 ads collected from the three most popular men’s lifestyle magazines in Taiwan, China, and the United States between 2008 and 2010. Each country was found to have multiple types of masculinities displayed by male models from different racial groups.

Uni-Dimensional Framing of a Multi-Dimensional Organization: Newspaper Frames of Hizbullah • Rebekah Husted; Maureen Taylor, University of Oklahoma; Peter Gade • This article examines how four newspapers framed Hizbullah in its roles as a multidimensional political, humanitarian and terrorist organization. The terrorist frames did not decrease even when the organization became a leader in the Lebanese government. The findings suggest that three-quarters of the articles used some kind of terrorism frame to refer to Hizbullah and 42% of the articles linked it to other terrorist organizations such as Hamas.

Resisting or Reinforcing Western Stereotypes? Queen Rania of Jordan on YouTube • Melissa Wall, California State University-Northridge • This paper explores our understanding of participatory media uses by non-Westerners, particularly Middle Easterners, through a critical discourse analysis of Queen Rania of Jordan’s YouTube channel and its proclaimed mission to combat stereotypes of Muslims and the Middle East. Postcolonial theory is employed to assess the ways in which her videos can provide a means of creating different discourses about Islam and the Middle East and, at the same time, reinforce Western norms and values as well as Middle Eastern elites’ legitimacy and credibility.

Foreign News as Marketable Power Display: Reporting Foreign Disasters by the Chinese Local Media • Haiyan Wang; Francis L. F. Lee, 3303376; Yue Wang • As Western media are cutting back expenditures on foreign news reporting, news organizations in China – both national and local ones – have been investing more resources into international news in recent years. This article provides a critical assessment of foreign news reporting in local Chinese media. Focusing on the Southern city of Guangzhou and using the March 2011 Japanese earthquake as an entry point, this article analyzes the motivations behind and the practices of foreign news reporting at two major Guangzhou newspapers.

Green Sells – Effects of Green Visuals in Advertising on Chinese Consumers’ Brand Perception • Fei Xue, University of Southern Mississippi • The current study examined the effects of green visuals in advertising on Chinese consumers’ perception of the brand’s eco-friendliness, attitude-toward-the-ad, brand attitude and purchase intention, and the possible moderation role of product involvement. Results showed green visuals were the determining factor in consumers’ perception of the brand’s eco-friendliness, but if no visual information was available, the use of verbal environmental claims could generate more positive perception of the brand’s eco-friendliness.

Media Salience and Framing: Sources as a New Dimension of the Frame-Changing Model as Applied to Coverage of the Saddam Hussein Trial • Jin Yang, University of Memphis; Padmini Patwardhan • This study conceptualized a new sources dimension in Chyi and McCombs’ original frame- changing model of time and space to track the appearance, peak, and decline of a news event on the media agenda. With three continua of time, space and sources, the study found that the Saddam Hussein trial was consistently covered in the present tense, oriented toward individuals and alternated between government sources and individual sources.

Nepalese Journalists After the Interim Constitution in 2007: A Survey of Their Profile, Work Condition, and Job Perception • Deepak Neupane; Lily Zeng, Arkansas State University • Media professionals in Nepal have been facing a wide range of threats in recent decades as a result of the political turmoil. In 2007, an interim constitution was finally introduced, which states that the freedom of news and communication is protected in Nepal. This study examines the condition of journalists through a survey of practicing Nepalese journalists from all five regions of this mountainous country.

Audience Speaks Out: Minkaohan Uyghur Response To The Representation Of Uyghurs In Chinese State Media • Liang Zheng • This paper examines media and Chinese ethnic minorities in the context of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who reside in China’s far west Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Based on eighteen in-depth interviews conducted with Minkaohan Uyghurs, a sub-group among Uyghurs who were educated in Mandarin schools, where the primary language of instruction is Mandarin Chinese. This paper focuses on Uyghur audiences’ response to the representation of Uyghurs in China’s state media.

Public Trust: A Comprehensive Investigation on Perceived Media Credibility in China • Hongzhong Zhang, Beijing Normal University; Shuhua Zhou, University of Alabama; Bin Shen • The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive investigation on perceived media credibility in China. In order to assess people’s attitudes toward six media channels (television, newspapers, radio, magazines, websites and mobile devices), a series of surveys were conducted to a random sample of 5,807 residents in ten cities in China: Beijing, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan.

Markham Student Papers

Press censorship of the Indian Emergency of 1975-1977: The response of the underground movement • Sagar Atre, Ohio University, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism • The Indian Emergency of 1975-77 was the first and only time in the history of Indian democracy when press freedom and civil liberties were suspended. This study predominantly outlines the nature of the press censorship, and the response of the underground press. Through a well-connected network of underground volunteers, this nationwide movement established a parallel system to disseminate news and information about the happenings in government and elsewhere in India through letters, bulletins and pamphlets.

Social Media, the Arab Revolution, and Media Frames: A Cross-national Study of Western and Arab Newspapers • Fatima Alsalem, Indiana University; Jihyang Choi, Indiana University; Shuo Tang, Indiana University • The present study compares how social media and the Internet were framed by major Western and pan-Arabic newspapers in their coverage of the Tunisia and Egypt revolutions. In exploring both views from the Outsiders and the Insiders, the study aims to answer the question of whether cultural differences affect media frames, the global public sphere and the flow of international news.

Why do direct quotations matter in South Korean newspaper headlines? • Jiyoung Han, University of Minnesota • Journalism scholars have argued that South Korean newspapers take advantage of quotations-embedded headlines to editorialize the news. As an exemplar of good journalism, they have referred to The New York Times, which never uses direct quotations in its headline. However, as opposed to their claim, The New York Times places direct quotations in its headlines with single quotation marks.

Kenyan Journalists: A Study of Demographics, Job Satisfaction, News Values and Perceived Autonomy • Kioko Ireri, Indiana University-Bloomington • This study strived to examine the situation of Kenyan journalism in the 21st century. A total of 96 Kenyan journalists were surveyed so as to understand their demographic backgrounds, job satisfaction, working conditions, and the use of technology. Their perceptions on journalistic ethics, journalistic freedoms, and forces which influence their work were also explored. Results show that 69.7% of those surveyed were satisfied with their jobs, with income being the main predictor of job satisfaction.

News From Tripoli, Benghazi, Brega and Misrata: How Al-Jazeera and BBC Online News Framed The Libyan Revolution • Kioko Ireri, School of Journalism Indiana University-Bloomington • The purpose of this research, which focuses on the framing of the 2011 Libyan Revolution on Al-Jazeera and BBC online news, is fourfold. First, it examines the use of the human interest frame on BBC and Al-Jazeera English news sites before and after the adoption of Resolution 1973, which paved the way for military intervention in the Libyan crisis.

Where are NGOs in the Global Network Society? An Analysis of Organizational Networking Patterns for Freedom of Expression • Sun Ho Jeong, University of Texas at Austin • The multidimensional nature of globalization, including its effects on politics, economy, society, culture and media, brought notable changes in the international system in many respects. Noting the importance of international cooperation among different forms of institutions, this study attempted to further understand and explain the notion of emerging global civil society by analyzing organizational networking patterns among governmental, inter-governmental, non-governmental, and media organizations focusing on the issue of freedom of expression.

Frames and Fronteras: U.S.-Mexico Migration/Immigration News Coverage on Both Sides of the Border • Christian Kelleher, University of Texas at Austin • Much literature has examined news media framing of migration/immigration issues in the United States, and some in Mexico, but very little has explored the cross-border context. Through a comparative content analysis of common generic and issue-specific news media frames, this study finds that the Mexican press presents more coverage and more positive coverage of migration/immigration than the U.S., and that Mexican framing is universalist compared to the U.S. particularist framing of the issue.

Putting Community First: Mainstreaming CSR for Community Building in India and China • Sarabdeep Kochhar • Community building is studied as the multidimensional process that leads to sustainable improvements in the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole. The study looks at the role organizations play in developing countries as an integral function of inter-connectedness between organizations and community as a whole. A total of 100 Indian and Chinese organizations were analyzed for the available CSR information and initiatives using quantitative content analysis.

Amount of coverage, framing, and dramatization in news articles about natural disasters: a content analytical study of the difference in coverage of developed and developing countries • Katharina Lang • This study examined amount of coverage and framing of articles about natural disasters in developing and developed countries. This study found differences in framing of the disasters, with articles about earthquakes in developing countries being more frequently framed with poverty and inefficiency, whereas natural disasters in developed countries included a larger number of frames of tragedy, wealth, and efficiency. Furthermore, articles about natural disasters in developing countries were more often dramatized.

Serving the Party or the Market:  Front Page Photos in People’s Daily and Its Commercial Offspring • Zhaoxi Liu, University of Iowa • Through a content analysis of front-page photos of the People’s Daily and its market-oriented offspring, the Shi Chang Bao, this study found that, throughout more than two decades, while the People’s Daily constantly focused on top political leaders, the Shi Chang Bao focused on consumer activities. Such a contrast illuminates a unique character of China’s press system: its need both to remain as the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, and to cater to the market.

The Framing of European Debt Crisis in the Chinese Press: Rethinking Global Risk and Cosmopolitanism • Zhifei Mao, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study examined how Chinese media framed the European debt crisis to see whether a state with a strong tradition of nationalism allowed any room for cosmopolitanism when facing international and global risks. It content analyzed 256 news articles from two important Chinese newspapers and found the responsibility frame and economic consequences frame were dominantly used and closely related to cosmopolitanism. Orientations of newspapers and the national interests may also influence the construction of cosmopolitanism.

Military Affairs in Korean News as Media Spectacle: A case study of ROKS Choenan and Yeonpyeong Island Events • Soo-Kwang Oh, University of Maryland • The study applied the theory of media spectacle on a case study of South Korean media coverage of two recent events: 1) The sinking of ROKS Choenan and 2) the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island by the North Korean Army. The framing analysis approach was used to understand whether such coverage can be called a spectacle as defined in the study. The cases were looked at three different contexts: historical, cultural, and technological.

Framing news across borders:  Newspaper coverage of the U.S. immigration debate in U.S. and Mexico from 2004 to 2007 • Paola Pascual-Ferra, University of Miami • Framing analysis compared news coverage of the U.S. immigration debate in U.S. and Mexican newspapers from 2004 to 2007. Patterns of attention, main actors, key frames, and key narratives were identified. Frames used by Mexican news media and state actors supported migration and encouraged political participation of Mexican communities in the U.S. Implications are discussed along with future research directions, including what role, if any, news media across the border play in encouraging U.S. immigration.

Life is Elsewhere: The Use and Effects of the Homeland Media among the Digital Sojourners • Jie Qin; Jie Gao • Given that temporary migrations boom and the global reach of Internet facilitates the continuous use of homeland media, the purpose of the research is to aims to answer what patterns of media use (homeland, ethnic, and host media) do the digital sojourners have, and explore the relationship between the media use patterns, immigration perception, and immigration intention. We found that the global reach of the Internet has facilitated the path dependence in media use.

Power Distance and Trust in News Media: A Comparative Study of America and China • Ivanka Radovic, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Rachel Rui • This study examined the relationship between power distance and trust in news media in China and America using a sample of 620 participants. The findings showed that the two countries are getting closer on the power distance index, and that the relationship between power distance and trust in media is opposite to one found in the literature. The results are interpreted in light of possible changing trends among Chinese youth and differences in measurement methods.

Youth Digital Cultures in Small Town and Rural Gujarat • Manisha Shelat; Cathy DeShano • The paper examines youth digital cultures in rural/ small town Gujarat, India and brings forth a perspective from Global South in understanding the Net generation. We examine how the location and dominant discourses intersect with digital technologies and re-configure aspects of daily lives, such as study, leisure, and friendship; how youth negotiate their interactions with digital media as one aspect of their larger lifeworlds; and how these negotiations influence cultural practices within structural environments.

What’s the bandwidth for democracy?  Deconstructing Internet penetration and citizen attitudes about governance • Elizabeth Stoycheff • Empirical studies that closely examine the democratizing potential of the Internet remain underdeveloped.  This paper examines how both individual Internet use, when coupled with national Internet penetration, promotes pro-democratic attitudes in citizens in 34 developing countries.  Results indicate individual Internet use, as well as the diffusion of Internet hardware and bandwidth, are important for democratic development.

Displacing the Displacement Hypothesis? Does the Internet Really Displace Traditional Media? • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia • Using national surveys in the Philippines in 2003 (n = 76,100) and 2008 (n = 60,817), this study revisits the media displacement hypothesis. It looks at the proportions of media use devoted to traditional media (newspaper, magazine, movies, radio and television) and to the internet. The proportions devoted to newspaper, magazine and radio use decreased while internet increased. But those for movie-going and television also increased.

The Image of the Nation-Brand of the Country of Georgia as Presented by Major American Newspapers between January 1 and July 1, 2010 • Giorgi Topouria, Missouri • Using content analysis of coverage of country of Georgia by major US newspapers in the specified period, this study develops an approach to measurement and analysis of one of the perspectives of nation-brand image and sets ground for further more comprehensive study of nation brand image and relationships between its various perspectives. The study identifies weaknesses of the Georgian nation-brand, suggests ways for improvement and outlines directions for future research.

Not just a pretty face:  Changing K-pop idol imagery from 2005 to 2012 • Quan Xie, Ohio University; Mark Walters, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study explored the shifting media images that Korean pop music (K-pop) idol groups employed from 2005 to 2012.  The researchers conducted a content analysis of the universe of album covers of 20 representative K-pop groups during this period of time. Five hypotheses were proposed to answer how groups’ dominant images changed from the mid-2000s to convey attractiveness to a transnational audience. The results shine a light on Westernization, Asianization, and gender presentations.

Invisible Colleges within Chinese Communication Community: Patterns and Trends of Co-authorship in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, 2006-2011 • Mengmeng Zhao, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study examined the co-authorship in Chinese communication research community during 2006-2011. A content analysis of seven top Chinese communication journals selected from CSSCI, SSCI and TSSCI sources was conducted to compare collaboration patterns and co-authorship trends in three “sub-communities” including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Analysis was based on various dimensions including authors’ gender, academic rank, discipline, affiliation and geographical location, providing a comprehensive picture of “invisible colleges” (Crane, 1972) in Chinese communication scholarship.

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