She’s Hot,for a Politician: The Impact of Objectifying Commentary on Perceived Credibility of Female Candidates

The way female politicians are discussed in traditional and new media may contribute to the way individuals evaluate those candidates. Objectification theory suggests that framing individuals in a way that reduces them to their physical characteristics is detrimental to perceived agency. To that end, an experiment was designed to determine the impact of objectifying comments on the evaluation of female candidates. Researchers created two Facebook feeds discussing a hypothetical female candidate. For both feeds, the discussion focused on the candidate’s policy credentials, with one feed containing commentary on the female candidate’s body. Aspects of credibility and suitability for office were impacted by objectifying commentary, implying the need for future research directed at the specific impact objectification has on candidate evaluation.     

News Stories on the Facebook Platform: Millennials’ Perceived Credibility of Online News Sponsored by News and Non-News Companies

ABSTRACT

This experimental study examined whether stories presented on Facebook that appeared to be from a news organization were rated as higher in perceived credibility than stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. One-hundred-and-seven participants took part in the online study. One group saw stories that appeared to be from a news organization and another group saw the same stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. Both groups rated the stories the same in terms of perceived credibility. The study also found that the higher the participants rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility, the higher they rated the organization’s perceived credibility. These findings point to potential implications for traditional journalistic outlets regarding their ability to be seen as credible, reliable online news sources—particularly through a social media platform like Facebook.     

Don’t Quote me: Effects of Named,Quoted, and Partisan News Sources

ABSTRACT

Many news organizations have developed policies on the use of named and unnamed sources, including whether the latter can be directly quoted or paraphrased in news stories. In this experiment, we test how audience members respond to these policy dictates by measuring news credibility in a political story that manipulated whether the source was named, whether that source was directly quoted, and the source’s political connection to the story. We found that while each of these manipulations had little or no main effects, they combined to trigger a discernible change in credibility in the eyes of the audience.     

Soft-Core in TV Time: The Political Economy of a “Cultural Trend”

This essay deconstructs popular notions that “sex sells” in an increasingly sexualized U.S. popular culture by examining the specific political, social, and economic forces behind the creation and expansion of Girls Gone Wild, a home video series marketed through television infomercials. The crackdown on hard-core pornography, followed by the opening of television infomercial markets, paved the way for the series’ creator to bring together the structural organization of a new soft-core video industry with the marketing aims of a cable industry eager to sell young, male ratings.     

The Effects of Instructor Credibility,Grade Incentives,and Framing of a Technology Policy on Students’ Intent to Comply and Motivation to Learn

This experiment assessed whether instructor credibility (low or high) moderated the effects of grade incentives (rewards or punishment) and advantage framing (gain or loss) of technology policies on students’ intent to comply and motivation to learn. Results indicate that credibility increased motivation to learn. Significant moderated moderated mediation was found: a three-way interaction affected both intent to comply, and motivation to learn as mediated by attitude toward the policy. Specifically, credibility positively influenced learning outcomes via attitude when the syllabus used opposing frame-incentive structure (i.e., gain-framed punishment and loss-framed reward).     

“Why Aren’t You a Sassy Little Thing”: The Effects of Robot-Enacted Guilt Trips on Credibility and Consensus in a Negotiation

Robots are becoming increasingly popular in social applications and have demonstrated effectiveness in a variety of contexts such as education, health, task management, and other complex cooperative roles. The purpose of this study was to examine human–robot interaction in a nonassistive environment: a negotiation scenario. Specifically, the authors examined what effect message appeals (guilt trip, no guilt trip) and robot agency (principal, agent) had on the negotiation outcomes and perceptions of credibility. Results indicated a significant main effect of agency and an interaction effect between agency and guilt messaging on perceptions of robot credibility such that participants rated a robot agent employing no guilt trips as more credible than one negotiating as principal or one utilizing guilt trips. Neither guilt nor agency had a significant effect on the overall concession of the negotiation task.     

The Development of News as a Viable Format in Philippine Radio (1960s–Present): A Study of DZRH and DZBB

This article traces the development of news as programming content in Philippine radio from the 1960s to the present. Two radio stations, DZRH and DZBB, were chosen for the study. Aside from their popularity among Metro Manila listeners, they are also similar in content (news and information-oriented programs) and have long histories. The case studies show the socio-political, regulatory, economic, and technological influences on the metamorphosis of DZRH and DZBB into news-oriented radio stations. Attention was given to the changes in news program format, news production, and the ratings and advertising of the two stations.     

The Stubborn Pervasiveness of Television News in the Digital Age and the Field’s Attention to the Medium, 2010–2014

A secondary analysis of 2010–2014 World Values Survey (WVS) data (N = 81,229) is performed across 56 countries to assess frequency of exposure to television news versus the Internet and mobile phone as information sources. A large majority of the comparisons (105/112; 93.75%) reveal television to be used more frequently than Internet or mobile phones (p < 1.0E-09). A content analysis of works published in 9 communication journals from 2010 to 2014 indicates a precipitous decline in the attention political communication scholars are giving to television. Meanwhile, there is substantial growth in the focus on new media.     

Master of “Complex and Ambiguous Phenomena”: The ERL’s Role in a Library Service Platform Migration

ABSTRACT

Library Services Platforms (LSPs) offer academic libraries the ability to integrate the management of print and electronic resources in one centralized platform. This article will examine the role of electronic resources librarians (ERLs) in a large-scale, consortial LSP implementation relative to NASIG’s Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians. The speakers, Conor Cote and Kirsten Ostergaard, hail from Montana, where the Treasure State Academic Information and Library Services Consortium, comprised of seventeen academic libraries, is implementing Ex Libris’s Alma LSP in conjunction with the Primo discovery layer. The aim of this presentation and article is to examine how the skills and competencies of an ERL can be leveraged for an effective and minimally disruptive LSP implementation.     

Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot: The role of a support seeker’s reply in online support provision

This experiment examined reciprocal communication among support seekers and support providers in online support forums. An interactive online support forum web page was employed where comments to a support-seeking post and a support seeker’s reply to previous comments were manipulated, and participants could post their responses on the interactive web page. Results showed that support seekers received more supportive responses from subsequent viewers when they expressed appreciation for earlier comments. Compared with an appreciative reply to supportive comments, the same reply to unsupportive comments elicited more positive expectancy violations and thus higher levels of action-focused supportiveness in viewers’ responses. This study extended the application of expectancy violations theory to the context of online support forums.     

That Sounds Familiar: The Relationship Between Listeners’ Recognition of Celebrity Voices,Perceptions of Vocal Pleasantness,and Engagement with Media

The human voice is a major component of popular media, yet its role in people’s media experiences has received minimal research attention. To address this gap, we investigated how recognition of celebrity voices interacted with perceptions of and engagement with audio-only media. After listening to famous actors reading stories, participants indicated whether they recognized each voice, rated its pleasantness, and completed parasocial interaction and narrative transportation measures. Results indicate that recognized voices were perceived as more pleasant. Additionally, vocal pleasantness was associated with increased parasocial interaction and transportation. Findings partially support the prediction that vocal recognition enhances parasocial interaction.     

OPACs,Users, and Readers’ Advisory: Exploring the Implications of User-Generated Content for Readers’ Advisory in Canadian Public Libraries

This article examines the contribution of social discovery platforms and user-generated content (UGC) on readers’ advisory (RA) services in Canadian public libraries. Grounded Theory was used to conduct a content analysis of library-assigned subject headings and UGC of 22 adult fiction titles in 43 Canadian public libraries that use BiblioCommons, SirsiDynix, and Encore social discovery platforms. Findings indicate that UGC complements the MARC bibliographic record as it provides insight into the subject of a work, its protagonists, and the effect the book has on readers. User-generated reviews provide a rich data set that clearly connects to known RA access points.