An Experimental Investigation of Social Identification on College Student Organ Donor Decisions

This investigation examined whether persuasive organ donation messages that target individuals’ identification with a salient social group will be more effective in encouraging these individuals to become organ donors than will information-only persuasive messages. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of two pro-organ donation messages, both of which included basic information about organ donation (need, number of registered donors, etc.) while one also targeted social identity. Findings indicate that individuals exposed to a social identification message were more likely to click a link that allowed them to officially register as organ donors. These results offer support for the utility of social identification as a health communication campaign strategy for increasing organ donation.     

How food ads communicate ‘health’ with children: a content analysis of Korean television commercials

In the past decades, the rates of childhood obesity have increased rapidly in Asian countries, where an increase in Westernization of behavioral and dietary lifestyle is evident. Although causes of childhood obesity have raised an issue about the direct influence of food advertising on children, little has been known about what kinds of health relevant content are provided and how they are presented. The present study explores the current practice of television food advertising targeted at children in Korea and extends previous content analyses by examining the content and presentation manner of health-related claims as well as persuasive appeals and food types. The results of the analysis of 403 television commercials show children in Korea are still mainly targeted with advertising messages that urge the consumption of unhealthy foods heavily emphasizing sensory and emotional appeals, while food marketers have not utilized health information enough and put an emphasis on ‘health’ in advertising without making substantial claims explicitly. This study also reveals that some presentation manners of health-related claims are identified as potentially misleading with child audiences.     

Student Perceptions of a Required Information Literacy Course on Their Success in Research & Writing Intensive Criminal Justice Courses

Scholars in Criminal Justice have argued that students should have a stand-alone course that focuses on fostering library literacy skills for Criminal Justice students in order to improve their writing, research, and presentation skills. In 2011, a required information literacy course was implemented in one Criminal Justice program to meet this need. Building on the existing literature, the current study is the first to explore student perceptions of a required information literacy course. The results offer valuable information on how to strengthen the course moving forward and can provide useful suggestions to other Criminal Justice programs thinking about instituting a library literacy course in their curriculum.     

Ambivalence Amplifies College Smokers' Negative Emotional Responses to Antismoking Information

Many smoking college students hold ambivalent attitudes toward smoking. Although ambivalence is widely believed to evoke negative affect, little research attention has been paid to how ambivalence may influence emotional responses to persuasive information. Participants in this study (N = 133 college smokers) completed a survey that included a presentation of novel and credible antismoking information. Structural equation modeling analyses showed that pre-exposure ambivalence was positively associated with postexposure negative emotions. Negative emotions, in turn, were associated with greater perceived message effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mother Goose and Mother Nature: Designing Stories to Communicate Information About Climate Change

Narratives have the ability to highlight climate change information in a relatable and engaging format. The purpose of the present investigation was to test the effects of five story structure types containing climate change information on perceived message effectiveness. Furthermore, we measured whether political affiliation moderated persuasive effectiveness of climate change messages among U.S. eligible voting adults (N = 594) who identified as Republican, Democrat, and Independent. The highest rated story overall was situated in the past, was realistic, and had clear moral values, indicating that certain appealing stories can serve as effective conduits for persuasive messages across the political spectrum. There were few differences between political affiliations, namely, that Democrats and Republicans rated messages differently on effectiveness when they differed on moral themes.     

A cross-cultural comparison of Kuwaiti and British citizens' views of e-government interface quality

It is difficult to conceive how Web users from different cultures can be encouraged to reap the benefits of an e-government initiative when its portal is suffering from culture-indifferent interface quality. Thus far, the e-government literature not only has paid scanty attention to web evaluation issues but also has been slow to embarking on cross-cultural research. As an attempt to address this concern, this investigation introduces an augmented approach to analyze cross-cultural website quality. The proposed approach consists of three parts: 1) a qualitative study of the website using content analysis, 2) an empirical evaluation using traditional statistical methods of perceptions of website users, and 3) a “persuasive quality gap” analysis that examines the gap between the composite scores of perceived importance and performance of quality attributes across the studied two cultures. These analyses were used to identify cross-cultural differences between Kuwaiti and British users' perceptions of e-government quality attributes. While the findings showed no significant differences between Kuwaiti and British users in terms of important quality features, the results revealed significant variations between the two groups in terms of perceived performance of quality attributes. Moreover, although the findings showed marginal support for the existence of differences between the two samples in terms of persuasive quality features, a post-hoc analysis of the persuasive quality gap revealed a need to consider not only important and/or high performing characteristics but also persuasive features to fully understand cross-cultural e-government quality variations. The author discusses the implications of these results for e-government design practices and future research.     

Testing the persuasiveness of evidence: Combining narrative and statistical forms

This study provides an experimental test for the conclusions of the Allen and Preiss (1997) meta‐analysis that statistical evidence is more persuasive than narrative evidence. This investigation extends that finding to consider the case where a message combines statistical and narrative evidence to determine if a combination of evidence is more effective than a single form of support. This investigation using 15 messages and 1,270 participants finds that a message combining narrative and statistical evidence is more persuasive than a message using either narrative or statistical evidence alone.     

Taking the Plunge: A Contextual Approach to Problem-Based Research

This study investigated the possibility that persuasive agents’ inability to obtain their goals symbolically is the major factor underlying their decisions to use direct coercion as a compliance‐gaining tactic. Several higher‐order interactions were tested to determine the joint effects oj persuasive agents’ communicative failure, persuasive agents’ and persuasive targets’ gender, and the nature of their relationship on agents’ decisions to use violence as a means of achieving their persuasive ends. Results confirmed the hypothesis that males were more likely than females to use violence against a noncompliant male persuasive target in a noninterpersonal relational context. Males were also more likely than females to use direct coercion against persistently noncompliant and noninterpersonal persuasive targets in relational contexts with short‐term consequences.     

Deliberative democracy and the conceptual foundations of electronic government

As electronic government (e-government) becomes increasingly important in the presentation of government information to citizens, the potential impacts of e-government on the democratic process must be carefully considered. E-government clearly has the potential to become an institution that helps to ensure reasoned reflection about political issues and active participation in deliberative democracy by citizens and by members of the government. Though the Internet presents innovative new methods for conveying government information to citizens, it also presents new and serious potential impediments to deliberative democracy, such as group polarization about political issues by online social groups. The ability of e-government sites either to foster democratic dialogue by presenting multiple viewpoints or to enable polarization on political issues by promoting specific views demonstrates a key question about the conceptual foundations of e-government. Drawing upon perspectives from information studies, public policy, law, and governance, this article examines the differing political implications between e-government built on a foundation of participation and on a foundation of polarization.     

面向科技文献的多模态语义关联特征提取与表达体系研究

科技文献资源是一种多模态数据,除文本信息外,还包含丰富的图像、表格、公式、音频、视频等多种模态的信息,有利于用户充分理解科技文献资源中的知识。该文把多模态思想引入科技文献的语义表示方面,对科技文献中的图像、表格和公式信息进行语义分析,与文本信息共同表示文献语义内容,通过科技文献中多种模态信息的语义表示及相互关系完善科技文献内容的语义化表示,发展刻画科技文献对象多态性的表达体系。     

Moderating effects of collectivism on customized communication: a test with tailored and targeted messages

A growing body of research has shown that customized messages have certain advantages over non-customized ones such as being more memorable and more persuasive. However, most prior studies tested customization effects with American participants only. It remains a mystery in the literature how people from other cultures may process customized messages. The current article examined the effects of two types of customized information, tailored and targeted, through two studies. Thirty Chinese working professionals and students in the US participated in study 1 and 56 Asian students in Hong Kong participated in study 2. In both studies, participants' tendencies toward collectivistic and individualistic cultures were measured. It was found that more collectivism-oriented participants generated higher recall and more favorable attitudes toward targeted messages, whereas less collectivism-oriented participants generated higher recall and more favorable attitudes toward tailored messages.     

For the record: document and record sensibilities of art conservators in the Philippines

In this article the authors present a study of the use of documents by a small group of art conservators in the Philippines. Documents are important for these conservators, but not just, or even primarily, for their role as memory devices. Also important are the functions they play in creating a sense of professional identity, for mediating the tensions created by a bureaucratically structured workplace and an occupation traditionally organised around notions of craftsmanship, and as creators of persuasive evidence for clients.     

An uninformed electorate: identity-motivated elaboration,partisan cues,and learning

ABSTRACT

A deliberative democracy is reliant on an informed electorate discussing issues and presenting persuasive arguments. Individuals acquire information from exposure to political messages. Partisan cues, however, undermine learning outcomes. The current study experimentally examines the social cognitive processes that underlie this learning process. Integrating the social identity theory, elaboration likelihood model, and the theory of motivated reasoning to construct the theoretical concept of identity-motivated elaboration, the results indicate that partisan social identities motivate biased processing of new information, which subsequently influences the valence of elaboration. Positively and negatively valenced elaboration are situated as mediating variables in the structural model, which predicts learning from a persuasive political message. The current study extends the partisan social identity hypothesis to the elaborative and learning outcomes of political messages.     

Conflict-Framed News,Self-Categorization,and Partisan Polarization

Two experiments tested whether exposure to partisan conflict-framed news polarizes news consumers along party lines. Partisan self-categorization and motivated reasoning were examined as potential mediators of this effect. In two samples, path analyses showed that Democrats and Republicans exposed to partisan conflict-framed news adopted more polarized opinions on a disputed issue. This polarization effect was consistently mediated by perceived argument validity, an indicator of motivated reasoning; increased partisan self-categorization also mediated the effect, though less reliably and consistently. Thus, the present study adds to the literature on polarization by providing experimental evidence that exposure to conflict-framed news may contribute to partisan polarization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Pre‐election perceptions of politicians and their promises as a function of the reference group match between speaker and listener

The Categorization‐Attribution‐Matching or CAM model of persuasion was tested in a field experiment, using an actual election to provide a natural manipulation of reference group similarity‐dissimilarity between speaker and audience. Just prior to the election, 344 Ss rated a set of campaign proposals, which were attributed either to the incumbent Prime Minister of Australia, or to the Leader of the Opposition. Half of the Ss received an unsupported, and half received a supported version of the message, thereby manipulating information content. Ss also rated the speaker, and indicated how they intended to vote. As predicted, speakers and speeches were rated as more credible and persuasive respectively, in the conditions where the political affiliation between source and target was matched, than in the mismatched conditions. And as predicted, the provision of additional information did not make a speaker more credible or a message more persuasive, when reference group salience was high.     

高校图书馆开展大学生信息素质教育的途径

利用文献调研方法分析了大学生信息素质现状,在阐述高校图书馆开展信息素质教育优势的基础上,结合实际探讨了高校图书馆开展大学生信息素质教育的途径。     

国内外信息资源建设政策研究进展

国内外对信息资源建设政策还没有较为系统的研究,它的研究成果分布在多个领域当中。本文在大量文献调查的基础上,分别从文献信息资源建设政策、数字信息资源建设政策、信息资源共建共享政策以及信息技术与标准化政策四个领域探讨20世纪90年代以来国内外信息资源建设政策的研究进展。