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.

LaMarre Accepts University of Minnesota Position

Heather LaMarre, OSU School of Communication doctoral candidate and ATM member, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. The position will begin on August 1, 2009 and Heather will be missed when she and her family make their way to the Twin Cities. However, there is much friendship and scholarship to share between now and then. Congrats, Heather!

Sarge presentation this week

M.A. student Melanie Sarge will be presenting some of the work she has been doing with Dan McDonald during our ATM meeting this week. The title of her talk is "Loss of Self or Merging Self and Other? Transportation, Empathy and Self-Thoughts." The abstract follows.

Two recent developments in psychology have refocused communication research attention on how empathy and affect come into play in our understanding of media audiences: Transportation and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Transportation and the IRI both include a mix of perspective-taking, fantasy imagining, and the tendency to put ourselves in others’ places.
The present study explores how transportation and empathy are related by examining the relationship between transportation and empathy. We analyze audience members’ thoughts in reaction to media content, and how those thoughts relate to those characteristics which are considered to be the defining characteristics of transportation and empathy so that we can map how self-thoughts relate to transportation and empathy.

Dave Roskos-Ewoldsen to present video game research

On October 24, Dave Roskos-Ewoldsen will present some of his research on video games to the ATM group. The title of his talk is "Prosocial Behaviors and Violent Video Games." An abstract of his talk is below.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that playing violent video games increases aggressive affect, cognition, and behavior and decreases prosocial behaviors. This talk presents several studies looking at helping behavior during game play, attitudes toward bullying, and cooperative behavior as a consequence game play ­ all in the context of violent video games.

Elias to give practice job talk this week

Troy Elias, one of Osei Appiah's PhD advisees, is getting ready to go on several job interviews at research universities. This week, he will practice his job talk for the ATM group. The title of his talk is "Social Identity, Race, and Ethnicity: Predictors of Consumer Attitudes for Ethnic Minorities in Online Commercial Environments." An abstract of his talk is below.

One of the more commonly held adages of audience dynamics is that members of the audience approach mediated messages with pre-established beliefs and norms that have been established through their group associations and social networks. Media outlets, advertisers, and marketers are well advised that they no longer sell goods and services to individual consumers, but are actually in the business of selling goods and services to networks of customers. In order to understand how certain uniformities of consumer behavior occur, it has become critical to understand how groups are constructed in social systems. It is also critical to understand how members of groups communicate, and who they communicate with, specifically through new media tools. A Social Identity Theoretical Framework is proposed to examine intergroup behavior and communication amongst ethnic minorities in virtual commercial markets.

Eveland to present on Oct 10: "Questioning the Assumption of Uniform News Media Effects Across Time and Space"

Chip Eveland will present some of the work has has done with grad students Eliza Liu and Ivan Dylko. An abstract of his talk is below:

Most research on the effects of news media using survey data implicitly or explicitly assumes that the effects of news media is uniform across time and space. For instance, national survey data are employed without consideration of differences in the form and content of media available across media markets nationally, and state and local surveys are often considered to produce findings representative of research from elsewhere around the nation. Moreover, researchers tend to assume that the findings of a study in one year are comparable to findings from a study in another year. However, the quality and quantity of news content varies across media markets and has been shown to change over time as well. Theoretically, if the quality and quantity of news media content matters for news media effects, then the effects of news media use should not be uniform across time and space. In this presentation I will review two studies -- one comparing news media effects over time, and another comparing news media effects across communities in Ohio -- that test these assumptions. I will close by discussing a third study currently in progress that attempts to improve upon the first two tests.

Sohn and Pingree join ATM

ATM welcomes Ray Pingree and Dongyoung Sohn, both assistant professors, to ATM and OSU! Ray studies the relationships among mass communication, interpersonal discussion, reasoning and decision quality. Dongyoung studies media and new technologies. Welcome!

Moyer-Guse receives NCA top paper award

Congratulations to Professor Emily Moyer-Guse for receiving a 2008 top paper award from the Mass Communication Division of the National Communication Association! The award was for her submission, co-authored with Professor Robin Nabi of the University of California at Santa Barbara, entitled, "Explaining the Persuasive Effects of Entertainment Education Programming: An Empirical Comparison of Three Theories." Professor Moyer-Guse will receive the award at the annual meeting of the association this November in San Diego, CA. Well done!

Faculty, Students Win Top AEJMC Paper Awards

Congratuations to Osei Appiah and Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick for winning a top-3 paper award from the Communication Theory & Methodology division of AEJMC last month. Their paper, A Selective Exposure Experiment on Social Identity Theory: Effects of News Valence, Character Race, and Recipient Race on Selective News Reading, was very well received.

OSU Ph.D. students also won two of the three top student paper awards in the Mass Communication & Society division of the same conference -- LaMarre, Beam, and Landreville (the #1 student paper) for The Irony of Satire: People See What They Want To See in The Colbert Report (now in press at the journal Press/Politics) and Shen (the #2 student paper) for Staying Alive: The Impact of Media Coverage on Candidacy Attrition in the 1980-2004 Primaries (also now in press in the journal Press/Politics). LaMarre and Shen are both working on their dissertations and are actively on the job market now.

ATM members at NCA and AEJMC in Fall 2008

Congrats to all ATM members with accepted papers at NCA and AEMJM. And special congrats to Heather LaMarre and Kristen Landreville for their top student paper as well as Osei Appiah and Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick for their top faculty paper!

Appiah, O., Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Alter, S. A Selective Exposure Experiment on Social Identity Theory: Effects of News Valence, Character Race, and Recipient Race on Selective News Reading. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC. Winner of the division's Top 3 Faculty Paper Award.

Eisenberg, D. J., Stargel, S., Jain, P., Sarge, M. A., Dossett, A. P., Moreland, J. J., Heyman, T., Raup-Krieger, J. L., Katz, M. L. Newspaper Coverage of the HPV Vaccine: A Content Analysis of Appalachia and non-Appalachia Ohio Newspapers. Health Communication Division, NCA.

Eveland, W. P., Jr., Morey, A. C., & Hively, M. H. Distinguishing dimensions of political discussion using demographic, media use, political and personality variables. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Gleason, L. Spiral of Cynicism" or "Virtuous Circle": Political Alienation and Television News Use. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Hayes, A. F., Matthes, J., Hively, M. H., & Eveland, W. P., Jr. In search of the opinion climate: A new (and novel) test of spiral of silence theory. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Hively, M. H., & Eveland, W. P., Jr. Contextual antecedents and political consequences of adolescent political discussion, discussion elaboration, and network diversity: A longitudinal study. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Hmielowski, J. D., & Yamamoto, M. U.S. and Japanese press coverage of mad cow disease. Mass Communication Division, NCA.

Hmielowski, J. D. The Study of Electoral Ambivalence as Mediator of the Relationship between Talk Radio Exposure and Electoral Decision Making. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Jain, P. Gender, Body Image, Sexuality & Race on the Cover Pages of Men's and Women's Popular Magazines: A Comparative Analysis. Mass Communication Division, NCA.

LaMarre, H., Beam, M., & Landreville, K. The Irony of Satire: People See What They Want to See in The Colbert Report. Mass Communication & Society Division, AEJMC. Winner of the division’s Best Student Paper award.

LaMarre, H ., & Landreville, K. When the Movie Ends the Thinking Begins: Examining Entertainment Elaboration and the Mediating Role of Film Engagement. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Landreville, K., Holbert, L., & LaMarre, H. The Influence of Late-Night Comedy Viewing on the Consumption and Engagement of Political Discourse: A Testing of Competing Models of Candidate Issue Knowledge as Moderator. Mass Communication Division, NCA.

Mahood, C. & Cicchirillo, V. The combined effect of hysical activity and violent content in motion-sensing video games on affective aggression: A reexamination of the catharsis hypothesis. Mass Communication Division, NCA.

McDonald, D. G., Meng, J., Sarge, M., & Ragin, C. Resonance or Dampening? Relevance, Elaboration and Cognitive Interference. Communication Theory and Methodology Division, AEJMC.

Moyer-Gusé, E., & Mahood, C. Sex Differences in Entertainment-Education Effects on Safer Sex Attitudes and Behaviors. Mass Communication Division, NCA.

Willsie, B. D. Predicting Active Mediation: A Conditional Approach. Mass Communication Division, NCA

Willsie presentation on parental mediation of children's television viewing

This week, PhD student Brandon Willsie will discuss his ideas and research on the topic of parental active mediation of children's television viewing. The title of his talk is "Predicting and Protecting: Building a Conditional Model of Active Mediation." The abstract for his talk is below.

Children's television content has long been a concern of parents and researchers alike. The technique of an adult co-viewer engaging a child in conversation about mass media messages is known as activemediation and is seen as one way of mitigating harmful media effects on youth. The current study places the study of active mediation within a conditional model of media influence. When placing extant research on active mediation within this framework, it becomes evident that little focus has been given to understanding what predicts this potentially important parental behavior. This study focuses on assessing the predictive value of a host of pre-media use individual-difference variables relative to the dependent variable of active mediation and the development of a functional conditional framework which may be applied to the study of active mediation.

David Roskos-Ewoldsen joins OSU and ATM!

ATM would like to welcome Dr. David Roskos-Ewoldsen to the School of Communication and ATM! Dave will be joining our faculty as a Full Professor beginning in January 2009. Dave studies persuasion and social influence, adolescent risk-taking behaviors, and media psychology. We look forward to Dave's arrival here on campus!

Holbert to present study on satire's influence

On April 11, Lance Holbert will present some research on the influence of satire. An abstract of his talk is below.

Satire as a form of humor and social criticism has been undertheorized in the political communication literature. Two types of satire, horatian and juvenalian, will be outlined in the talk and several hypotheses positing divergent effects for these types of satire will be outlined. The pure random-placement experiment consists of a 3 (stimulus: horatian satire, juvenalian satire, traditional criticism) X 2 (ability: high, low) between-subjects design. The focus of the persuasive messages (satirical and traditional) is on Senator Hillary Clinton (D ­NY) and her plan for universal health care, and the study was conducted within a month's time of the State of Ohio's Democratic primary held on March 4, 2008. The dependent variables focused on in the study include thought listing, counter arguing, as well as a series of attitudinal outcomes. This study was conducted by a research team that includes four OSU School of Communication graduate students: Jay Hmielowski, Parul Jain, Julie Lather, and Alyssa Morey. Each graduate student provided valuable insights for the project and will be leading their own research papers generated from this study's data. The results presented by Professor Holbert will reflect only an initial set of insights.

McDonald and Meng's research on media enjoyment

On February 29, Dan McDonald and Jingbo Meng will present a paper they co-authored with former OSU student Shu-Fang "Sophia" Lin on media enjoyment. The title of their paper is "Media Enjoyment as Experience: Segmentation, Cohesion and Empathy." The following is an abstract of their paper:

This study examines how audience members’ enjoyment of programs and program segments may differ, and some of the structural factors that may impact enjoyment. Drawing on recent research in psychology and marketing which suggests that people develop expectations about future experiences that are differentially affected by the positive or negative trend of an experience and by the segmentation of that experience, we examine the impact of structure and cohesion on enjoyment, and whether empathy interacts with structural factors in producing enjoyment. Results suggest that the empathy, evaluative trend of the content and cohesion of the content appear to affect media enjoyment in main effects. Segmentation of content does not have a main effect, but instead works in interaction with cohesion; empathy does not interact with the structural factors in affecting enjoyment. Results are discussed in terms of current industry concerns regarding audience behavior and implications for communication research.