How do terrorists persuade otherwise decent citizens to join their violent causes? Guided by early mass communication research investigating propaganda’s efficacy and the model of intuitive morality and exemplars, we investigated the persuasive moral appeals employed by terrorist organizations known to be successful at recruiting others to their causes. We compiled a database of N = 873 propaganda

Abstract While fact-checking has received much attention as a tool to fight misinformation online, fact-checking efforts have yielded limited success in combating political misinformation due to partisans’ biased information processing. The efficacy of fact-checking often decreases, if not backfires, when the fact-checking messages contradict individual audiences’ political stance. To explore ways

Abstract During the 2019 Indian general election, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi launched his #MainBhiChowkidar (I am also a watchman) campaign, which can be understood as an attempt to undermine the institutionalized watchdog or monitoring system, including journalism, in democratic India. Through the lens of positioning theory, this qualitative study examines how 89 Indian journalists responded

ABSTRACT Linkage analysis, i.e. linking media exposure, content, and surveys, has been a powerful tool to assess media effects. However, the development of online communication and the advent of social media brings about many challenges for traditional linkage designs. In this paper, we explain the three steps of linkage designs for online communication effects and the usage of computational approaches

ABSTRACT Disadvantage and privilege work together to uphold systems of inequality. Nevertheless, racial inequality is often described as Black disadvantage, while White privilege remains less visible. This one-sided framing in public discourse may result in equally one-sided understandings of and policies aimed at reducing inequality. In the present research, we examined the use of and the reactions

Abstract Harlow Gale is often depicted as the first experimentalist in advertising thought. This positioning elides influences which impacted upon his thinking. In this article, we outline Gale’s involvement with psychical research and its implications for advertising. These narratives are situated within a genealogy of subliminal processes across advertising and marketing theory from the late nineteenth

Abstract In recent decades, significant transformations in audience characteristics and the media environment have necessitated a reassessment of audience analysis. Communication scholars have increasingly recognized the value of utilizing digital traces as valuable resources to understand audience behaviors. This research presents a comprehensive review of 243 audience analyses that incorporate digital

Published in Digital Journalism (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Abstract Given the importance of fact-checking in reducing the spread of false information on social media, prior research has examined effective fact-checking strategies. The current study addresses this question by conducting a computational analysis of actual fact-checking tweets of three representative fact-checking organizations in the United States (Factcheck.org, PolitiFact, Snopes), replies

Abstract Understanding the impact of digital media on news inequalities is critical for democracy. The literature on incidental exposure challenges the idea that major platforms shrink information gaps, and research has turned to the identification of variables that explain how those gaps widen or persist. We use Latent Class Analysis to operationalize the metaphor of “attracting the news” and investigate

ABSTRACT Research into online trolling has been continuously expanding in the past decade. However, much of this research has focused on either the person of the trolls themselves, or on specific minority groups. Although all of this research is important, we still know little about how the average person deals with trolling experiences in their everyday. The present study aims to fill that gap by

Abstract Drawing upon regulatory fit theory, the current work investigates how the interaction between regulatory mode and positive emotion influences consumer social media engagement with meat alternative advertisements. Social media data (N = 966) are employed to explore the interaction between regulatory mode (from the text) and positive emotion (expressed via emoji) on sharing (Study 1). Three

ABSTRACT People often overestimate the duration and intensity of emotional impact for future health events, leading to sub-optimal decision-making. Previous attempts to mitigate these affective forecasting errors have had only limited success. Across two experiments with different emotional appeals (fear and disgust), health contexts (genetic testing and colonoscopy), and samples (women and African

Abstract Definitions of news are increasingly fraught in today’s media environment, making audience assessments of news-ness – the degree to which something is considered news – particularly important. Drawing from literature on representation in news and news-ness, we explore how seeing news that features a similar age group affects ratings of news-ness. We also argue that relevance offers as a psychological

Abstract With the rising availability and volume of data, journalists are finding ways to integrate data-rich information into news content and make them accessible to everyday news readers by accompanying them with exemplifying cases. However, these exemplars do not always fully capture the complexity of the data patterns, leading to significant biases in readers’ issue perceptions. Drawing on the

ABSTRACT We conducted two studies to compare how anxiety and anger influence the online spread of information. Study 1 found that tweets expressing anger reached more people and had deeper retweet chains than tweets expressing anxiety, across all measures of retweet cascades (i.e., size, depth, maximum breadth, and structural virality). Study 2 used an online survey and confirmed anger’s supremacy

Abstract Despite it being somewhat of a niche project back in 2009, at this stage of its evolution, data journalism has gained significant traction to grow into a maturing field. However, little is known about the intersection of data journalism and collaboration in the news organizations’ business models from an infrastructure perspective, that is, key activities, key resources, and partner networks

Abstract We examine the work that U.S. young adults undertake to design and maintain their personal media worlds across digital platforms, and the consequences of those practices for news use. Drawing on 50 in-depth interviews with 18-34-year-olds, including a shared reading of participants’ most-used social media platforms, we develop the concept of personal platform architecture and articulate links

Abstract The circulation of fake news on social media platforms has drawn increasing concern. At this point, the community reporting of fake news remains a key mechanism used by these platforms to identify information to block or label as misleading. Yet, little is known about the factors that motivate or dissuade the use of this mechanism and its perceived effectiveness to combat fake news. This study

ABSTRACT This study explored the role of affect in U.S. potential white jurors’ experiences with implicit bias and how affect manifests in their sensemaking of jury instructions. Using interviews with 30 potential jurors from a Midwestern state, we found that implicit bias operates as a linguistic alibi that allows people to talk about racism while evading the accountability and intensity of the term

ABSTRACT When journalists accuse politicians of deception and politicians return fire, how do voters decide what to believe? Grounded on truth-default theory and visual primacy theory, this paper reports experiments with stimuli of interviews in which a journalist accuses a politician of deceptive evasion. In Study 1, we manipulate whether the journalist’s allegation is accurate. Voters seem unable

ABSTRACT The need for privacy has been gaining importance in various disciplines and areas of communication, including computer-mediated, interpersonal, and health communication. These disciplines require reliable measurement of the need for privacy across different contexts. We propose a theoretical concept of the need for privacy as a personality trait and develop a multi-dimensional scale. In Study

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic quickly became a political and health communication crisis whose impact varied by geographic location in the United States. Although local television is known to be an important source of public information, little is known about how it covered the pandemic. We analyze the volume and content of local TV coverage of masks from 758 stations across all 210 U.S. media markets

abstract Advertisements that incorporate temperature-related cues are common in the marketplace. However, when and for whom marketers should use these temperature-based appeals in their ads is still unclear. To fill this research gap, we examine the effect of consumers’ feelings of power on preferences for cold versus warm advertisements. Through the lens of embodied cognition, we find that consumers

This article considers the Turing test as a problem of communication, particularly by asking how the language of artificial intelligence (AI) appears to human experience in comparison to the language of the Other. This question is approached through Levinas’ philosophy, by considering the possibility of AI as an absolute alterity, rather than reducing its alterity to the Same. This perspective diverges

This study offers a critical test of two competing theoretical accounts of message repetition effects—processing fluency and message fatigue—which have yet to be examined together under a coherent framework. Furthermore, integrating research on metacognition and motivated processing, we propose audience favorability toward message advocacy as a crucial moderator in this dynamic. A repeated-exposure

ABSTRACT This paper used communication theory of resilience (CTR) and high-reliability organization (HRO) theory to investigate the influence of resilience processes on disruption management outcomes (DMOs) at both the individual and team levels and at two points in time. Perceptions of individual and team stress, efficacy, and performance were examined longitudinally in surveys with working adults

Social media users often push back against harmful rhetoric with satirical and aggressive counterspeech. How do the interconnected race and gender identities of the person posting counterspeech and the person viewing it impact evaluations of the comment? Across two online experiments, we manipulate the race (Black or White) and gender (man or woman) of an individual whose tweet opposes ignorance about

Abstract Empowering customers through participation is known to enhance brand promotion. A popular strategy involves asking customers to vote on marketing communication tactics, which activates empowerment effects through increased psychological ownership. Prior research has found that while winning voters experience empowerment effects, losing voters report lower psychological ownership, product evaluations

Abstract Most scholars focus on the prevalence and democratic effects of (partisan) news exposure. This focus misses large parts of online activities of a majority of politically disinterested citizens. Although political content also appears outside of news outlets and may profoundly shape public opinion, its prevalence and effects are under-studied at scale. This project combines three-wave panel

ABSTRACT The rise of social media as a source of science and health information has brought challenges to informed citizenship and social trust due to the spread of misinformation, particularly anti-vaccination messages that incite hatred and discourage necessary health precautions. These messages often employ emotional appeals and identity cues. However, scholarship examining emotional appeals and

The rapid deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has enabled AI agents to take on various roles as communicators, such as virtual assistants, robot journalists, and AI doctors. This study meta-analyzed 121 randomized experimental studies (N = 53,977) that compared the effects of AI and human agency on persuasion outcomes, including perceptions, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. The

ABSTRACT Public speaking engages and entertains audiences. Through neuroimaging, we can examine responses to speeches in real time. Replicating an earlier study, this study carries out two kinds of analyses – forward and reverse correlations. First, we examine how the soundwave carrying the speech relates to brain responses, finding that bilateral auditory cortex responses track with the speech signal’s

ABSTRACT Women of Color (WoC) in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) leave doctoral programs at disproportionately high rates. Supportive mentorship is key to increasing belonging and rates of retention, yet little is known about how conversations between mentees and their mentors on academic and personal stress topics unfold in real-time. Applying the lens of Social Cognitive Career

Communicators frequently make adjustments to accommodate receivers’ characteristics. One strategy for accommodation is to enhance the relevance of communication for receivers. The current work uses information targeting—a communication strategy where information is disseminated to audiences believed to experience heightened risk for a health condition—to test whether and why targeting health information

Abstract The emerging use of Conversational Agents (CAs), such as Google Assistant, highlights the role of algorithmic gatekeeping power in news consumption. However, our knowledge of the effects of CAs on shaping the public’s perception of the most important topics (issue salience) is limited. To investigate this, we conducted a seven-day longitudinal survey in the Netherlands, comparing the most

Abstract Data has become an increasingly important commodity for news organizations. The capability to extract, store, and analyze data is also central to organizational decision-making. Drawing on the concept of epistemic infrastructures, this study sheds light on organizational datafication in journalism. Analyzing job advertisements of incumbent broadcast, print legacy, and online-only news outlets

Abstract This article studies local news media’s relationship with audiences from an organizational perspective. It is based on 45 semi-structured interviews conducted in eleven local news organizations in European French-speaking countries (France, Switzerland and Belgium), that explored the implementation of actions aiming at revitalizing the link with audiences, the role of the hierarchy and the

ABSTRACT The media are assumed to play a key role in democratization. Much of the available evidence on the media’s role in democratic transitions is based on a comparative and global perspective, focusing on rather recent key political events. Although democratization is conceptualized as a process that occurs over a long time, there is limited longitudinal evidence. Focusing on Austria, we used a

Abstract Although in-stream video advertising is common, its effects on advertisement (ad) information encoding remain unclear. We investigated the effects of in-stream video advertising by comparing two groups: those watching mid-roll (between the program) ads and those watching pre- and post-roll (before and after the program, respectively) ads. To elucidate how advertising content is encoded in

The theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) was used to understand the disparate impact of COVID-19 on married individuals. We hypothesized that women and people of color would experience g...

ABSTRACT Conversations between people are where, among other things, stressors are amplified and attenuated, conflicts are entrenched and resolved, and goals are advanced and thwarted. What happens in dyads’ back-and-forth exchanges to produce such consequential and varied outcomes? Although numerous theories in communication and in social psychology address this question, empirical tests of these

In the struggle to find sustainable business models, many local news sites have turned to engaged journalism, which draws from social exchange theory and aims to build relationships with audiences. The causal impact of these initiatives is unclear, but important given that local news sites are critical information sources and face dire economic situations. In this study, 20 news sites were randomly

Published in Journal of Advertising (Vol. 52, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Journal of Advertising (Vol. 52, No. 4, 2023)

ABSTRACT Moral differences hinder communication and relationship formation. However, perceptions and reactions to moral dissimilarity varies. Accordingly, we explored how moral adaptiveness (a flexible application of morality) relates to the intent to communicate with and befriend morally dissimilar others by focusing on moral relativism (believing that morals are subjective) and moral tolerance (believing

ABSTRACT The emergence of the radical right signals that social norms and values are changing. Existing literature suggests that citizens choose to voice their concerns when faced with the erosion of democracy. In this paper, we look at the consequences of citizens using quoted tweets to express negative sentiments to denounce and discredit the radical right. Using Twitter data from Portugal, we use

ABSTRACT The present research examined how value-free and value-driven measures of argument strength (MAS) can be computationally extracted using a theory-driven approach at scale in a naturalistic setting by analyzing a total of 7,961 real-world debates and 42,716 judgments in rhetorical quality. In the first study, value-free MAS was significantly related to the rhetorical quality of arguments (i

ABSTRACT What is the role of digital media in contentious politics? On the one hand, digital media plays a central role in informing the public and organizing political movements. On the other hand, it has become a valuable tool for digital repression in authoritarian states. This study concentrates on the patterns of digital media use by pro-government actors in times of nationwide protests in autocracies

Abstract The question of “who is a journalist?” has animated much discussion in journalism scholarship. Such discussions generally stem from the intersecting technological, economic, and social transformations journalism has faced in the twenty-first century. An equally relevant aspect, albeit one that has hitherto been less studied, is what a journalist looks like. Some studies have tackled this through

ABSTRACT The cognitive-emotional theory of esteem support messages (CETESM) posits that esteem support can enhance recipients’ state self-esteem after an acute threat. To test the CETESM and other supportive communication theories, researchers have conducted experiments employing trained confederates who provide supportive messages of varying quality to naïve disclosers. Manipulation checks of confederate

ABSTRACT The empirical identification of frames drawing on automated text analysis has been discussed intensely with regard to the validity of measurements. Adding to an evolving discussion on automated frame identification, we systematically contrast different machine-learning approaches with a manually coded gold standard to shed light on the implications of using one or the other: (1) topic modeling

With their power to shape public discourse under unprecedented scrutiny, social media platforms have revamped their speech control practices in recent years by building complex systems of content moderation. The contours of this tectonic shift are relatively clear. Yet, little work has systematically documented, examined, and theorized this process. This article uses digital methods and web history

ABSTRACT Despite the centrality of race and ethnicity in social and political life, they are often absent from studies of the urgent questions in contemporary political communication research. In this essay introducing a special issue focused on “Race and Ethnicity as Foundational Forces in Political Communication,” we examine factors that may contribute to the relative absence of race/ethnicity in

Published in Digital Journalism (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Abstract Much research has been conducted to understand the impact of sexual appeals in advertising on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Yet, romantic advertising, advertising that focuses on romantic relationships, has received less scholarly attention. To counter this imbalance, the present research investigates the influence of attachment anxiety, an individual difference variable, on consumer reactions

ABSTRACT Political communication research has long sought to understand the effects of cross-cutting exposure on political participation. Here, we argue for a paradigm shift that acknowledges the agency of citizens as producers of cross-cutting expression on social media. We define cross-cutting expression as political communication through speech or behavior within a counter-attitudinal space. After

ABSTRACT Understanding the implications of aggressive political debate style amid corrosive modes of campaign politics requires fine-grained analyses of political performance, attending to multiple communication modalities. Politicians’ facial expressions, emotional tone, and speech content can all independently convey aggression and dominance, and often work in combination for purposes of emphasis

Abstract Inclusive design considers usability first: to design with the needs of everyone to decrease the mismatch between the end-user and the design object. In advertising, the mismatch may be in the opportunity to process an advertisement due to design strategies (i.e., executional ad cues). Based on the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability model of information processing, we focus on legibility as an

Abstract While prior work has examined the effects of emotions on consumers’ attitudes toward ads, little research has explored how the joint presence of positive and negative emotions affects ad-related outcomes and to what extent such ads are common. This research leverages recent advances in emotion recognition technology to identify emotions based on the facial expressions of actors in Super Bowl