Mike Vander Vort to discuss research on media and sex-role development

At our next ATM meeting, Mike Vander Vort will discuss the following topic: "The influence of media on sex role development"

Wendy Guo to discuss research on media and children

This week, Wendy Guo will be sharing with us some of the research she has been doing. The title of her presentation is "Exploring media effects on children and adolescents in the family context."

ATM meeting this week -- Florian Hottner

This week Florian Hottner, a PhD-candidate at the Division of Statistical Methods for Communication Research at the University of Jena, Germany, will discuss some of his research with us. The title of his talk is "Media use in spatial and social contexts - A multilevel approach."

Hively presentation this week

This week, Myiah Hively will be discussing some of her research with us. The title of her talk is: "Creating a Measure of News Mediation: How do Parents Talk about the News?"

Jim Collier to lead ATM discussion this week

This week, Jim Collier will lead our discussion in ATM. The title of the discussion is "Deliberation versus Isolation: The benefit and inevitability of seeking alternative viewpoints." Jim will be sharing his thoughts on Diana Mutz's book "Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy" and seeking input on his ideas for a paper he is planning to write.

Cicchirillo accepts job at Texas, Elias accepts job at Florida

ATM members were very successful this year on the job market. Vinnie Cicchirillo (Chad Mahood's student) accepted a job as assistant professor at the University of Texas-Austin and Troy Elias (Osei Appiah's student), accepted a job at the University of Florida. Both students gave their practice job talks to the ATM group in the autumn. Congrats to both Vinnie and Troy!

Mahood and Moyer-Guse presentation this week

Chad Mahood and Emily Moyer-Guse will present some of their collaborative research during our January 9th meeting. The title of their talk is: "The Role of Humor in Entertainment-Education Effects on Safe Sex Attitudes and Intentions." An abstract of their talk follows.

Recent research examining the prosocial effects of entertainment television on safer sex attitudes and practices, has yielded inconsistent results, particularly by gender. This could be because this research typically examines dramatic genres (e.g., daytime and primetime soap operas). Perhaps males would respond differently to a more gender neutral genre (e.g., situation comedy). Study 1 randomly assigned college students to view one of three versions of an unplanned, teen pregnancy storyline in a situation-comedy (pregnancy storyline with humor, pregnancy storyline with the jokes that add comic relief at serious moments in the pregnancy storyline removed, no pregnancy storyline). This manipulation tested competing theoretical questions about the role of humor. Will humor function as a positive reinforcer or trivialize the issue of teen pregnancy? Results revealed marginally significant support for the role of humor as an effective message strategy. However, several manipulation check items revealed that the humorous condition was not always perceived as the most humorous. Study 2 addresses this issue by adding additional measures of viewer perceptions and increases power.