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Multiple Identities as Buffer or Catalyst? An Investigation of Psycho-Behavioral Effects of Sports Fans’ Exposure to Abusive Social Media Content Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-23 Yangkun Huang, Jiayu Yang, Yuan Gao
Sports, traditionally pregnant with aggression and violence, are now a breeding ground for online abuse, where toxicity and malicious campaigns on social media have even afflicted national sports r...
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Norm Setting in Times of Crisis: A Time-Series Analysis of the Dynamics Between Media Reporting and Perceived Norms in the Context of the COVID-19 Vaccination Roll-Out Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-22 Sarah Geber, Benjamin Fretwurst, Daniel Vogler, Dario Siegen, Mark Eisenegger, Thomas Friemel
Social norms have great potential for mitigating crisis as people align their prevention behavior with the norms they perceive. However, there is insufficient knowledge of how normative perceptions...
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Life in Media. A Global Introduction to Media Studies Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-13 Reviewed by Carlos A. Scolari
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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When the Right Riots: How Ideology, Protest Tolerance, Authoritarianism and News Consumption Affect Perceptions of the US Capitol Insurrection Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-06 Rachel R. Mourão, Danielle K. Brown
After the 2020 presidential election, sustained efforts to overturn outcomes culminated in the invasion of the United States Capitol. While scholars have long investigated the impact of news on sup...
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Exposure to Higher Rates of False News Erodes Media Trust and Fuels Overconfidence Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 Sacha Altay, Benjamin A. Lyons, Ariana Modirrousta-Galian
In two online experiments (N = 2,735), we investigated whether forced exposure to high proportions of false news could have deleterious effects by sowing confusion and fueling distrust in news. In ...
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News Literacy and Critical Thinking in the Pacific: Evidence from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 Francis S. Dalisay, Masahiro Yamamoto
This study analyzes data from surveys conducted in two Pacific Island communities—Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—to assess relationships among news literacy, news literac...
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Unequal Framing in Times of Hardship? How Newspapers from Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Switzerland Portray Syrian and Ukrainian Refugees – Evidence from a Deductive and Inductive Automated Content Analysis Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 Lukas Benedikt Hoffmann, Michael Hameleers
The mostly welcoming attitudes toward refugees from Ukraine stand in stark contrast to restrictive policies and often negative attitudes toward refugees from Syria in Europe. By emphasizing certain...
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Beyond Perceived Similarity: Development and Validation of the Character Recognizability Scale (CRS) Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-07-22 Bartosz G. Żerebecki, Suzanna J. Opree, Joep Hofhuis, Susanne Janssen
Current understandings of similarity with media characters often focus on visible attributes including gender and race, yet overlook deep-level characteristics such as personality, attitudes, and e...
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An Unholy Alliance? The Influence of Negative Emotions Elicited by Media Reports on the Persuasiveness of Populist Communication Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-07-22 Dominique S. Wirz, Werner Wirth
Emotions play a crucial role in the success of populist actors and movements. The present study investigates whether populist actors can profit from emotions elicited by media content. We assume th...
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The Emotional Power of Partisan Media: A Computer Vision Analysis of the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Primaries Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Lei Guo, Denis Wu, Hao Yu, Margrit Betke
Building on theories of emotional contagion and affective priming, the study assesses the emotional impact of the U.S. partisan media’s coverage of six leading political candidates’ images during t...
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Explaining Mainstream News Media Use in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Roles of Partisanship, Perceptions of Threat, Negative Emotions, and News Media Trust Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-07-05 Junghyun Moon, Jason T. Peifer
As the COVID-19 pandemic struck the United States amid the 2020 presidential election campaign, the public health crisis rapidly developed into a polarizing political issue. Within the context of a...
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The Psychology of Evolving Technology: How Social Media, Influencer Culture and New Technologies are Altering Society Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Yuanyuan Lu, Jing Zhang
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Hate Speech and Political Violence: Far-Right Rhetoric from the Tea Party to the Insurrection Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Morgan Badurak
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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How Dramas Featuring Morally Ambiguous Protagonists Increase a Sense of Life Expansion: The Role of Moral Judgment Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Chingching Chang
Building on moral foundations theory, this article explores which combinations of moral ambiguity domains (care–harm, care–unfairness, fairness–harm, and fairness–unfairness) exhibited by morally a...
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Crowds and Smiles: Visual Opportunity Structures and the Communication of European Political Leaders During the COVID-19 Pandemic Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 Moreno Mancosu, Gaetano Scaduto
The growing interest in political leaders’ visual communication often emphasizes specific visual features without focusing on the driving factors behind these strategies. Our study introduces the V...
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Contextualizing Representations of Violence in #Blacklivesmatter Coverage with Inductive Computational Content Analysis Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-30 Marisa A. Smith, Katherine Haenschen
News coverage of social movements traditionally adheres to the protest paradigm, which focuses on violent and confrontational tactics instigated by activists. Recent work has called for a reevaluat...
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How It Ends: Exploring How Narrative Closure and Character Outcomes in Series Finales Relate to Viewer Responses and Coping Behaviors Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-21 K. Maja Krakowiak
Series finales garner much attention and discussion from viewers and the press, yet few studies have examined what makes finales satisfying. According to affective disposition theory (ADT) the outc...
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Media & Mental Health: A Complex Relationship Worth Empirical Investigation Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-08 Scott Parrott, Robert McKeever
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Vol. 27, No. 3, 2024)
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“How Do We Put the Country Back Together?” Mitigating Affective Polarization Through Mediated Intergroup Contact Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-08 John J. Brooks, Christopher M. Dobmeier, Nathan Walter
Affective polarization presents an ongoing threat to the political and social functioning of democracies as partisans increasingly dislike and distrust opposing partisans. Because engagement with p...
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Digital Humour in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Job Allan Wefwafwa
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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An Experiment on the Press Coverage of Child Sexual Abuse: Can Readers Differentiate Between Good and Bad Reporting? Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Nicola Döring, Roberto Walter
News reporting on child sexual abuse (CSA) plays an important role in educating the public and fighting sexual violence, according to the public interest model of normative media theory. Bad report...
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Breaking Agenda Setting Boundaries: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Understanding Salience of Gun Control in the Polarized Public Sphere Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Chris J. Vargo, Milad Minooie
We reexamine agenda setting by analyzing the salience of gun control within diverse U.S. audience groups. Utilizing data spanning from 2015 to 2022, we investigate the impact of traditional media, ...
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The Model Family: The Effect of Multiracial Families in Advertising on Emerging Adult Consumers’ Attitudes and Intentions Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Chelsea E. Moss, Spiro K. Kiousis
This experimental study tested the effect of advertisements featuring a multiracial family on emerging adult consumers’ responses. Participants (N = 225) had more favorable attitudes toward multira...
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Gendered Agenda-Building: How Female Candidates Communicate Heterogeneous Issue Agendas Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Ayla Oden, Annelise Russell, Nicole Bauer
This study investigates the extent to which the issues emphasized by female political candidates in American congressional elections vary based on the media platforms used to promote their messages...
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Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media: Evidence for Effects of Visual Cues in Liberals, but Not in Conservatives Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Viorela Dan, Florian Arendt
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently under...
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Journalist Identity and Selective Exposure: The Effects of Racial and Ethnic Diversity in News Staff Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Emily Van Duyn, Jay Jennings, Natalie Jomini Stroud
Newsrooms are challenged with representing a diverse public, yet news staff are not always diverse themselves. Drawing from research on selective exposure along lines of race and ethnicity, this st...
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Understanding Digital Campaign Competence: Conceptualizing Data-Driven Political Advertising Literacy Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Sophie Minihold, Sophie Lecheler, Rachel Gibson, Claes de Vreese, Sanne Kruikemeier
Technological advancements create new ways of informing and persuading citizens in the political advertising context. Insights are limited regarding how citizens deal with data-driven political adv...
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Encouraging Positive Dialog Toward COVID-19 Vaccines on Social Media Using Hope Appeals, Celebrity Types, and Emoticons Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Yen-I Lee, Ying-Chia Hsu, Joe Phua, Tai-Yee Wu, Sarah Hachman
This study examined the effects of hope appeals, celebrity endorser types, and valence of emoticons on COVID-19 vaccine confidence, hesitancy, and intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The pot...
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Ethically Motivated or Emotionally Charged? Examining Relationships Among Moral Norms, Anticipated Negative Emotions, and Laypeople’s Online Misinformation Correction Intentions Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Yang Hu, Anfan Chen, Yu Yang, Tong Tong
The extant research on misinformation correction largely emphasizes institutional-approach-based fact-checking practices while underestimating laypeople’s potential to correct misinformation. By in...
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Populist Radical-Right Attitudes, Political Involvement and Selective Information Consumption: Who Tunes Out and Who Prefers Attitude-Consonant Information Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Michaela Maier, Silke Adam, Teresa Gil Lopez, Mykola Makhortykh, Laurits Bromme, Clara Christner, Ernesto de León, Aleksandra Urman
This study seeks to understand how populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes and political involvement relate to individuals’ political information consumption and selective exposure to ideological co...
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Is Social Media Use Related to Social Anxiety? A Meta-Analysis Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Yuanfeixue Nan, Jiaqi Qin, Zichao Li, Natalie Garyeung Kim, Steffie Sofia Yeonjoo Kim, Lynn Carol Miller
During face-to-face interactions, social anxiety involves an intense fear which precipitates impaired communication and avoidance. Social media provides an alternate, potentially less anxiety-provo...
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A Systematic Content Analysis of the Moral Foundations Featured in Celebrities’, Influencers’, and Athletes’ Instagram Content Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Anaëlle J. Gonzalez, Drew P. Cingel, Laura Vandenbosch
Despite the attention that moral media content has received for many years, no research has systematically investigated the moral foundations featured in (visual) user-generated content. This is im...
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When are Fact-Checks Effective? An Experimental Study on the Inclusion of the Misinformation Source and the Source of Fact-Checks in 16 European Countries Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Patrick F. A. van Erkel, Peter van Aelst, Claes H. de Vreese, David N. Hopmann, Jörg Matthes, James Stanyer, Nicoleta Corbu
Despite increasing academic attention, several questions about fact-checking remain unanswered. First, it remains unclear to what extent fact-checks are effective across different political and med...
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Trans Youth Sport Bans and the Facilitation of Moral Panic: A Cross-Platform Comparison of 2022 Media Narratives Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Andrew C. Billings, Leigh Moscowitz, Joshua R. Jackson, Emily Dirks, Spencer M. Tomsett
This study incorporates moral panics as a lens for investigating discussions in US news reports and on social media surrounding anti-transgender youth sports legislation. A total of 210 newspaper a...
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The Effects of Peer Mental Illness Narratives on Reducing Stigma Among U.S. Marginalized College Students Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Najma Akhther, Elizabeth Stoycheff
Mental health stigma remains a significant barrier to accessing mental health care and treatment, particularly among racial, ethnic, gender, and LGBTQIA+ underrepresented groups in the United State...
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The revolution will be hilarious: Comedy for social change and civic power Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Matthew R. Meier
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Vol. 27, No. 5, 2024)
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Changes and Continuity for a Second Editorial Term Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Mike Schmierbach
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Vol. 27, No. 2, 2024)
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Seeing “Us” and “Them”: How Political Symbols Polarize Through Anger, Anxiety, and Enthusiasm Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard, Renita Coleman
This study investigated how political symbols influence affective polarization through emotions. Integrating research on visual communication, social identity theory, and the affective contagion hy...
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Evidence of Ambivalent Sexism in Female Video Game Character Designs Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Teresa Lynch, Jessica E. Tompkins, Michael Gilbert, Sage Burridge
This report shares the results of a systematic, quantitative analysis of themes resonant with ambivalent sexism in playable female video game characters. Applying principles of ambivalent sexism’s ...
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User Engagement on Facebook: Examining the Role of Visual and Verbal Politeness Cues Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Fabienne Bünzli, Omid Alizadeh-Afrouzi
Nonprofit organizations have eagerly embraced Facebook as a strategic tool to reach large audiences and promote their advocacy. While there are numerous means to motivate users to engage with Faceb...
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Opinion Leadership via Conversation: How Opinion Leaders Talk About the Media Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Nicole Podschuweit, Stephanie Geise
Opinion leadership is an influential concept in communication research. Although opinion leadership is established through the transmission, classification, and interpretation of mass media content...
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Examining the Dynamics of Uncivil Discourse Between Sub-National Political Officials and the Public on Twitter Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Juliana L. Barbati, Stephen A. Rains, Kate Kenski, Yotam Shmargad, Steven Bethard, Kevin Coe
Despite agreement about the challenges posed by incivility for democratic discourse, much remains to be learned about how incivility manifests in interactions between the public and political elite...
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The Future of Feminism in Public Relations and Strategic Communication: A Socio-Ecological Model of Influences Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Breann Murphy
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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I Do Not (Want To) Know! The Relationship Between Intentional News Avoidance and Low News Consumption Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Dominika Betakova, Hajo Boomgaarden, Sophie Lecheler, Svenja Schäfer
News avoidance is associated with misperceptions and lower political knowledge and participation. Synthetizing the research results in differentiating between intentional news avoidance, a consciou...
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Time to ‘Wine’: A Content Analysis Investigating How Social Media Influencers Refer to Alcohol Use in Instagram’s Feed Posts and Stories Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Sofie Vranken, Sebastian Kurten, Kathleen Beullens
This exploratory content analysis examines how well-known social media influencers (SMIs) refer to alcohol in their Instagram stories and feed messages. Guided by the attention, retention, and moti...
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Why Do People Underestimate Polling Effects? Examining the Gap Between Actual and Perceived Polling Effects Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Yujin Heo, Junghyun Moon, S Mo Jones-Jang, Sungeun Chung
Two major challenges have limited the advance of our knowledge about people’s bias in perceived polling effects compared with actual polling effects. The first challenge comes from a methodological...
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Media Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’ Sociotropic Beliefs Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Monika Djerf-Pierre, Adam Shehata, Bengt Johansson
This article examines whether shifts in news media attention to societal issues matter for how strong beliefs citizens have about those issues. Based on an issue signal approach, in which media sal...
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Picturing Tragedy: A Content Analysis of the Publication of Graphic Images in Newspapers Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Gabriela Ruhl Ibarra, Jonathan van ’t Riet, Mariska Kleemans, Marieke Fransen
For decades, the inclusion of graphic photographs in the news has been a matter of controversy. One important criticism made by news audiences is that the publication of graphic imagery could be gu...
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The Scary World Syndrome: News Orientations, Negativity Bias, and the Cultivation of Anxiety Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Kim Andersen, Monika Djerf-Pierre, Adam Shehata
Negativity bias is one of the most salient features of news reporting. According to cultivation theory, this bias can foster anxiety about societal issues among news audiences. The relationship is,...
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Comedy for Racial Justice? The Mediating Roles of Narrative Mechanisms and Perceived Humor Types on Persuasive Outcomes Related to Racially Biased Policing Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Corinne Weinstein, Lauren Feldman
Despite the greater attention brought to systemically racist policing practices through protest movements in recent years, police in the United States continue to target racial minorities with aggr...
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Miscommunicating the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Asian Perspective Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Reviewed by Wenjing Pan
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Vol. 27, No. 4, 2024)
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Scriptwriters’ Conceptions of Audience Attitudes Toward LGBTQ+ Characters Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 María T. Soto-Sanfiel, Isabel Villegas-Simón
Drawing on media production studies, this research observes the understudied figure of the scriptwriters of fictional series to identify their feelings about different audiences and the way they re...
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Who Says “Muslims Are Not Terrorists”? News Differentiation, Muslim versus Non-Muslim Sources, and Attitudes toward Muslims Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Helena Knupfer, Jörg Matthes
Media coverage on terrorism can lead to negative attitudes toward Muslims. We theorize that undifferentiated news—i.e., not explicitly distinguishing Muslims from terrorists—can accelerate these ne...
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Worn Out & Tuned Out: Does Politics Fatigue on Social Media Foster Participatory Inequality Among Americans? Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Daniel S. Lane, Nancy Molina-Rogers, Emilija Gagrčin
In this paper, we take seriously evidence of growing politics fatigue on social media among Americans and consider how this fatigue might ultimately foster participatory inequalities on these platf...
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Political Opinion Leaders in High-Choice Information Environments: Are They More Informed Than Others? Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Jesper Strömbäck, Elina Lindgren, Yariv Tsfati, Alyt Damstra, Rens Vliegenthart, Hajo Boomgaarden, Elena Broda, Noelle Lebernegg, Sebastian Galyga
One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depends less than on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and pe...
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Examining the Role of Distrust in Science and Social Media Use: Effects on Susceptibility to COVID Misperceptions with Panel Data Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Sangwon Lee, S. Mo Jones-Jang, Myojung Chung, Edmund W. J. Lee, Trevor Diehl
Trust in scientific actors and institutions in the United States is at an all-time low. At the same time, studies show that people use social media for science information and become increasingly v...
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‘Look at How Corrupt They Are!’: How Anti-Political Discourse from Politicians Affects Their Own Image and the Image of Politics Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Dieter Dekeyser, Henk Roose
In this article, we use a survey experiment (N = 1,626) to test whether anti-political Facebook messages from politicians improve the character evaluation of the messenger while damaging the image ...
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Responses to Mental Health Care Posts by Social Media Influencers: The Moderating Effects of Previous Experience and Follower Involvement Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Olivia Simone Reed
Mental health information on social media is more often communicated by regular users as opposed to healthcare professionals, and a subset of these regular users, social media influencers, are empl...
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Why We Broke Up with X (And You Should Too) Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Mike Schmierbach
Published in Mass Communication and Society (Vol. 26, No. 6, 2023)
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I Participate in Politics Because the News is Influential Against Me: Hostile Media Perception, Third-Person Perception, and Political Participation Mass Communication and Society (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Seungsu Lee, Kyungmo Kim
The present study examines the interactive roles of hostile media perception (HMP) and third-person perception (TPP) on political participation. In the context of partisan news and polarized politi...