The effects of social identities and issue involvement on perceptions of media bias against gun owners and intention to participate in discursive activities: In the context of the media coverage of mass shootings. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted 18 March 2021.

Abstract The current study examines how parasocial relationships with both original (i.e., newly created and unfamiliar) and unoriginal (i.e., previously existing and familiar) characters and nostalgia-proneness can influence audience selection and enjoyment of movie adaptations. In an experiment, participants were exposed to storyboards previewing movies that could potentially be adapted from cartoon

Abstract The present study examines the self-reported impact of viewing more versus less eudaimonic Hollywood films using a retrospective study design. We investigate the role of three novel constructs in understanding people’s lived experience of eudaimonic narratives. These include two outcomes: acceptance of the human condition, or the perception that a film helped the viewer accept that inevitable

Drawing on the dual-process models of persuasion, this study sheds light on the impacts of political entertainment programming in South Korea with a particular emphasis on its potential to alleviate ideological polarization by enhancing attitudes toward the oppositional message source. The results from an online experiment show that counter-attitudinal exposure through political entertainment programming

Abstract Given the potential power of social presence on individuals’ cognitive and affective responses, the current study hypothesizes that individuals’ social presence differentiates the level of perceived subjective norms and societal injunctive norms for climate change prevention behaviors. Based on prior literature, users’ threat perception is suggested as a moderating variable that can maximize

ABSTRACT As scholarship increasingly focuses on the q uestion of a nationalized media ecosystem, the question of why audiences choose a local option often goes unaddressed. This paper addresses two gaps in the growing literature on the decline of local news: the perspective of audiences about their news preferences and communication environments in rural communities. Drawing on interviews with community

Abstract Three studies (study 1, 2a and 2b) were conducted to examine the effects of exposure type (randomized, selective) to negative and positive political information. Study 1 focused on a randomized exposure situation whereas study 2a and 2b investigated selective exposure conditions. Participants (N = 274 for study 1, N = 197 for study 2a, and N = 197 for study 2b) were recruited on Amazon Mechanical

Abstract This study examines both the antecedents and consequences of partisan misperceptions during the 2016 US Presidential election using a three-wave panel study collected by YouGov. Both cross-sectionally and over time, this study examines the relationships between both partisan media use and media trust on misperceptions. In addition, it examines the relationship between misperceptions and avoiding

Abstract Despite several transient spikes in response to the deadliest mass shootings, the U.S. population continues to perceive gun violence as less important than other issues, and public opinion remains divided along partisan lines. Drawing upon literature of compelling arguments and partisan media, this study investigates what kind of news framing—episodic framing that focuses on individual stories

A Nation Fragmented: The Public Agenda in the Information Age. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted .

(2021). Notes from the New Editor: Reflections on the Editorial Mission of Mass Communication and Society. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 159-161.

ABSTRACT This study tests the impact of protest news frames on audience support for a civil rights movement. Using a 3 x 2 experimental design, we explored how frames and visuals affect audiences’ criticism of police and protesters, support for, and identification with the movement. Findings show that articles with a legitimizing debate frame increase support for protesters, identification with protesters

ABSTRACT This study aims to explore the content production at the Olympic Channel through a lens of gender. The eleven interviews with the Olympic Channel professionals suggest that (a) sports media professionals claimed considerable agency, with individual personality and perspectives heavily influencing their journalism practice; (b) regarding content selection, the Olympic Channel seeks to strike

Competing Identity Cues in the Hostile Media Phenomenon: Source, Nationalism, and Perceived Bias in News Coverage of Foreign Affairs. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted 24 December 2020.

Communicating with Memes: Consequences in Post-Truth Civilization. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted .

Abstract This study analyzes New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today stories from 2009 to 2016 in which tweets were used as news sources to determine whether their use contributes to source diversity. Research consistently has shown that U.S. journalists rely on official sources such as governmental or business elites in reporting the news and that ordinary citizens and alternative voices are

ABSTRACT This study tests the impact of protest news frames on audience support for a civil rights movement. Using a 3 x 2 experimental design, we explored how frames and visuals affect audiences’ criticism of police and protesters, support for, and identification with the movement. Findings show that articles with a legitimizing debate frame increase support for protesters, identification with protesters

ABSTRACT This study aims to explore the content production at the Olympic Channel through a lens of gender. The eleven interviews with the Olympic Channel professionals suggest that (a) sports media professionals claimed considerable agency, with individual personality and perspectives heavily influencing their journalism practice; (b) regarding content selection, the Olympic Channel seeks to strike

Competing Identity Cues in the Hostile Media Phenomenon: Source, Nationalism, and Perceived Bias in News Coverage of Foreign Affairs. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted 24 December 2020.

Communicating with Memes: Consequences in Post-Truth Civilization. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted .

Abstract This study analyzes New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today stories from 2009 to 2016 in which tweets were used as news sources to determine whether their use contributes to source diversity. Research consistently has shown that U.S. journalists rely on official sources such as governmental or business elites in reporting the news and that ordinary citizens and alternative voices are

“The Rent is Too Damn High”: News Portrayals of Housing Security and Homelessness in the United States. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted 29 December 2020.

Abstract During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, governments across the globe relied heavily on the legacy media, not only to inform citizens about fast-paced developments in the midst of a crisis, but also to stimulate compliance with strict interventions. Prospect theory postulates that gain versus loss framing may affect preferences for different interventions. In a conceptual replication of Tversky

Discourses in Action: What Language Enables Us to Do. Mass Communication and Society. Accepted .

Abstract Although the prominence of fact-checking in political journalism has grown dramatically in recent years, empirical investigations regarding the effectiveness of fact-checking in correcting misperceptions have yielded mixed results. One understudied factor that likely influences the success of fact-checking initiatives is the presence of opinion statements in fact-checked messages. Recent work

Abstract Using a mixed-design online experiment, this study examined how individuals determine the quality of information they encounter online and engage in information verification and authentication processes. An online experiment tested the effects of “fake news” labels as discounting cues on individuals’ ability to correctly identify disinformation and their motivations to authenticate it with

Abstract Today’s media companies seem to be more intertwined than ever. But are they? Do these “interlocks” affect editors and the content journalists produce? This study uses a three-method design to examine the connections among newspaper organizations and corporations. The network analysis examined the interlocks among newspaper companies’ directors. The second phase surveyed editors of newspapers

(2020). The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

(2020). From News to Talk: The Expansion of Opinion and Commentary in US Journalism. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

(2020). Deep Mediatization. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT Subjective claims about what the public thinks are the most common public opinion cue in the news media and are used especially by populist politicians as a communication strategy to appeal to voters. These references are not based on polling data and may even be in contrast to them. Yet, there is little research on how effective this communication strategy actually is. In the present study

ABSTRACT This study assesses the influence of community “structural pluralism” on local news media reporting, in the context of global networks. Adopting and adapting the community structural pluralism approach, we compare news content across low pluralism (small communities), high pluralism (urban communities), and “global-local” pluralism (urban and globally connected communities). Specifically,

(2020). Barriers Down: How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media.. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This paper revisits the issue of partisan selectivity in the era of prevalent false, misleading, and biased information. We surveyed a representative sample of adults living in the United States to investigate the relationships among hyperpartisan news use, partisanship, and cognitive and affective involvement. First, we find that strong partisanship—from both Democrats and Republicans—relates

ABSTRACT Although likability and parasocial relationships (PSRs) typically go hand in hand, people can dislike media figures they are bonded to, or they can feel disconnected from media figures that they like. To examine the interplay of PSRs and liking, an experiment investigated responses to celebrities who made sexual harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein. Participants were assigned

ABSTRACT This cross-national survey among Austrian, Belgian, Spanish, and South Korean boys and girls (N = 1,983; M age = 14.41, SD = 1.08) investigated the association between mass media use, self-objectification, and positive body image. In doing so, we (a) extended existing research on the link between media use and positive body image by including different media genres that are known to be part

(2020). An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee that Redefined Freedom of the Press. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT Building off of literatures in the areas of network heterogeneity, oppositional networks, cross-cutting exposure, incidental information exposure, and trust, we suggested that Facebook networks characterized by inclusion of people different from the self have the potential to facilitate the inflow of diverse and attitudinally-dissonant information, and, as such, have potential for political

ABSTRACT This study examines the causal effects of social media use on political knowledge as well as the underlying mechanisms through which such an effect occurs. The findings suggest that social media use hinders rather than enhances an individual’s learning about politics, because social media use fosters the perception that one no longer needs to actively seek news in order to stay informed (i

ABSTRACT This study seeks a deeper understanding of the associations between early adolescents’ encounter with sexualizing messages, both through media and peers, and self-sexualization (i.e., performing sexualizing appearance behaviors). To address this aim, this three-wave panel study (N = 971, 49% girls; Mage = 11.14) takes both intra- and interpersonal aspects of sexualization into account. Specifically

ABSTRACT This study investigates to what extent news content and the mediating effect of social networks influence news engagement on Facebook. The study identifies three key factors of news consumption on social media—news content attributes, social networks, and news engagement—to illustrate how much each variable explains perceived news engagement on Facebook. The relationships among the three factors

Notions of partisan media bias and ideological influences on the news have become much more prevalent since Gans wrote Deciding What’s News. We propose a framework to explain what partisan media bi...

ABSTRACT Despite wide recognition that youth spend a significant amount of time communicating on social media, the literature is mixed when assessing the offline interpersonal impact of such time spent. This systematic review aimed to synthesize evidence on the associations between social media use and offline interpersonal outcomes in youth. A review of the literature across seven databases was conducted

ABSTRACT The idea that users of social networking sites (SNS) isolate themselves within like-minded, homogeneous communication environments has been receiving growing scholarly attention. Different from studies on the structure of users’ online networks, this work offers initial evidence on the specific behavior of political tie building, i.e., the preferential connection to like-minded SNS users.

This study examined psychological constructs related to the subjective experience of binge-watching serial video content. The results underscore the centrality of transportation in shaping viewers’...

(2020). From What IS News to How Vital Is News. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 23, What IS News?, pp. 603-607.

(2021). The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 314-316.

ABSTRACT This study examines the articulation of public opinion about so-called fake news using a national survey (N = 510) of U.S. adults conducted in 2018. We coded respondents’ open-ended answers about what is “fake news” and found that while some respondents adopted a politically neutral, descriptive definition, others provided a partisan, accusatory answer. Specifically, the weaponization of fake

(2021). Personal Relationships and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 317-318.

Modern campaigns in the Citizens United era are awash with negativity, much of which originates from independent political groups (e.g. Super PACs, 501c organizations, etc.). In contrast to the ple...

(2020). Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 968-970.

ABSTRACT Audiences’ online information acquisition has raised questions about the nature of selective exposure in today’s high-choice and fragmented news environment. To offer an overview of the relative contribution of several key drivers of selective exposure to political news, we assess the guiding influence of (1) confirmation bias, (2) source bias, and (3) negativity bias. The findings of an experiment

ABSTRACT The present study examines how anonymity and incivility influence interpersonal evaluations and message persuasion in the context of online user comments. The results of two experiments showed that the lack of identity cues undermined the perceived credibility of commenters and the persuasiveness of public discussion in comment forums. Additionally, participants who read uncivil comments following

(2020). Measuring Global Media Freedom. Mass Communication and Society. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT Journalists rely on polls as they cover public opinion. In order to provide perspectives within the news stories, journalists frequently quote pundits – expert and partisan – who evaluate the methodological quality and implications of the numbers. While partisan pundits might attack unfavorable polls as biased and even fake, experts typically provide rational assessments of methodological

The unique blend of fun entertainment and social relevance in socially conscious films, e.g., Black Panther (2018), appeals to viewers’ pleasure-seeking motives while it delivers social commentary....

Throughout the last three decades, a large number of studies have explored how the news media frame a wide variety of issues and how frames affect public opinion and the evaluation of current event...

ABSTRACT The #MeToo movement has restarted an extensive and worldwide debate about sexual harassment especially directed against women. When women publicly accuse an alleged perpetrator they often do so with a strong delay and frequently come forward with allegations years after a harassment occurred. Yet, we lack research on how news about delayed sexual harassment accusations affect victim blaming

ABSTRACT This exploratory study examines the roles journalists rely on when covering social justice topics and what these role conceptions reveal about emotion and self expression values in news production. This article builds on Herbert Gans’ definition of what news is, discursive understandings of journalistic performance, and emotion in news to understand and operationalize journalists’ understandings

(2021). Gender and Digital Culture. Between Irreconcilability and the Datalogical. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 157-158.