Priming Stereotypical Associations: Violent Video Games and African American Depictions

The following study examines the influence of racial representations in violent video games upon stereotype associations. Participants were assigned to play either a violent video game with a stereotypical African American avatar or a Caucasian avatar. Following game play, participants completed several measures related to aggression and an implicit association task. The results showed significant differences between the conditions for IAT response times. African American participants showed faster response times to stereotype associations of African Americans than participants who played as a Caucasian avatar. The results also showed a significant interaction effect between participant race and avatar race for aggressive affect.     

It's Not Easy Trying to be One of the Guys: The Effect of Avatar Attractiveness,Avatar Sex,and User Sex on the Success of Help-Seeking Requests in an Online Game

Interactions in online environments are influenced by many of the same gender and sex-role stereotypes that people use in offline interactions. However, less research has examined systematically how the traits of an avatar and the avatar's user interact to influence stereotypical responses in virtual spaces. A field experiment manipulated avatar attractiveness, avatar sex, user sex, and favor difficulty to measure responses to a requested favor across 2,300 interactions in an online game. Attractive avatars received more help than less attractive avatars, but female users received less help than male users when represented by avatars that were less attractive or male.     

Is Desirability of the Trait a Boundary Condition of the Proteus Effect? A Pilot Study

Although previous research has shown that individuals take on aspects of the avatars they embody in virtual environments, studies have not yet tested whether this phenomenon, known as the Proteus effect, extends to traits that are undesirable to have, such as narcissism. A total of 133 female participants completed a shopping simulation in virtual reality. In this simulation, half embodied an avatar of Kim Kardashian, a celebrity known for her narcissistic behavior and materialistic purchases, while the other half embodied a generic female avatar of similar appearance. Participants then chose between luxury and nonluxury brands for a variety of objects. Results indicated that participants did not take on the luxury purchase behaviors of Kim Kardashian and in fact showed lower narcissism scores after embodying her than those embodying a generic avatar. These results suggest a self-serving component to the Proteus effect, in that individuals may only take on desired aspects of the avatars they embody and distance themselves from undesired aspects.     

Mixed Reality Lab at Mississippi State University Libraries

Virtual and Augmented Realities are advancing technologies that are becoming more popular in gaming and programming communities. However, virtual reality has been in development for decades. As libraries are often at the forefront of offering new and advancing technologies to their communities, virtual and augmented reality programs have become new additions to library services. While gaming is the prominent use of these technologies, virtual and augmented reality affords many educational opportunities. Mississippi State University Libraries have recently added a virtual/augmented reality lab as part of its library program.     

Applying Library of Congress Demographic Group Characteristics for Creators

Abstract

This research project explores how to ethically, efficiently, and accurately add demographic terms for African American authors to catalog records. A Department of History graduate student located evidence of self-identification as African American for authors, and catalogers added the demographic term to bibliographic records and are in the process of creating work level Name Title Authority Records for titles written by those authors. This work is the beginning of systematically enhancing catalog data with author characteristics to support making such information available in faceted results.     

The Impact of Market Segmentation on African American Frequency,Centrality, and Status in Television Advertising

Market segmentation made communication with the advertising audience dependent upon the audience segment. African Americans were the first racial minority group identified as having economic viability as a target market that could be reached through advertising content and placement. A content analysis of 358 prime-time television advertisements for African American and general audiences revealed that African Americans are still playing a subordinate role, even in advertising targeted to them. Market segmentation has increased the breadth, but not necessarily the depth of African American advertising depictions.     

美国黑人图书馆事业发展研究

美国黑人图书馆事业在整个美国图书馆事业中占有重要的地位。在黑人馆藏、黑人图书馆员及其教育、独立黑人图书馆、黑人图书馆专业组织及黑人图书馆事业研究等方面要素的推动下,美国黑人图书馆事业大致经历了萌芽、奠基、发展、转折和今天的繁荣时期,黑人图书馆事业的发展历程反映了美国不同历史时期社会对待种族问题的态度,是美国社会民主进程的一个缩影。     

大学生网络游戏行为对学术不端的影响

文章以社会认知理论为基本框架,探究大学生网络游戏行为对学术不端行为的影响及其发生机理。以道德相对主义为中介、性别为调节的模型检验发现,道德相对主义在网络游戏频率与学术不端行为之间的中介作用仅在重度学术不端行为中存在。具体而言,对重度学术不端行为来说,网游频率能直接正向影响学术不端行为频率,还通过影响学生的道德相对主义认知而对其学术不端行为产生间接影响。但对轻度学术不端行为而言,网游频率对学术不端行为仅有显著正向的直接影响,道德相对主义的中介作用并不存在。网游频率对学术不端行为的直接影响仅在男性群体中显著存在。     

Priming Welfare Queens and Other Stereotypes: The Transference of Media Images into Interpersonal Contexts A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the 48th annual meeting of the International Communication Association,San Diego (2004).

Specific stereotype portrayals of African American women were hypothesized to produce stereotype-consistent judgments made of a different African American woman. Participants (N?=?76) observed a mammy, jezebel or welfare queen video-segment. Then they observed an African American woman in a mock job interview and rated the interviewee. Participants who observed a specific stereotype associated the interviewee more quickly with stereotype-consistent adjectives than with stereotype-inconsistent adjectives for all three stereotypes. For measures of how suitable the woman was for jobs that were related to the stereotypes, only the welfare queen prime produced significant effects.     

The African American Male Librarian: Motivational Factors in Choosing a Career in Library and Information Science

A recent American Library Association (ALA) report has shown that less than 1% of credentialed librarians are African American males. This article discusses possible reasons for this dearth; and, in an effort to inform future LIS recruiting and marketing campaigns, the included study attempted to discover which factors lead African American males to choose to pursue a graduate degree in library and information science (LIS) and practice LIS as a career. The study also canvassed African American male librarians’ views on gender advantage in LIS, their career goals, perceived triumphs and challenges in LIS, and level of job satisfaction.     

Race,whiteness, "lightness," and relevance: African American and European American interpretations of Jump Start and The Boondocks

African American and European American participants were interviewed about two syndicated comic strips written by and featuring African Americans: Jump Start, a comic strip that portrays African Americans in a normative middle-class family narrative and focuses only occasionally on racial issues, and The Boondocks, a comic strip that focuses frequently on racial issues. The African American groups interpreted the comic strips through the terministic screen of race cognizance, through which racial politics and oppression were highly relevant. Almost all of the European American participants, however, interpreted the comic strips through the terministic screen of Whiteness, through which racial politics and oppression were not relevant.     

Revisiting a Polysemic Text: The African American Press's Reception of Gone With the Wind

This article is a historical and discursive analysis of the African American press's reception of the motion picture Gone With the Wind (1939). The African American press represents a specific sphere wherein ambivalence and resistance to the cultural hegemony exhibited in this popular film text may be examined. Coverage of the film by 5 newspapers from December 1939 through May 1940 suggests a process in which discourse changed from watchful indifference to ambivalence toward the film. News and commentary suggest the polysemic readings of the text by African American journalists and filmgoers and the emergence of more complex forms of viewer resistance to Hollywood's cultural hegemony. The Academy Award received by Hattie McDaniel for her performance made the sense of resistance to such hegemony more substantive, while also bringing a new sense of purpose to the audiences' readings of the text. The resistance to this cultural hegemony was cut short, however, when reports of a new production of The Birth of a Nation (1915) were carried by the newspapers. A collective effort by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the African American press, and its readers curtailed the remake of The Birth of a Nation, although it would be years before Hollywood included African Americans in meaningful, multidimensional roles.     

Network Revenues and African American Broadcast Television Programs

This article explores factors explaining program cast racial composition on television broadcast network programs. The roles of program type, cast composition, and viewer income on advertising revenue are examined. The analysis of the data yields several key findings. First, there is no bias against African Americans on the part of viewers or television networks when adjusting for viewer income and age. Second, African Americans have lower incomes and show a strong intensity of preference for programming featuring African American cast members. Therefore, despite the absence of bias, the advertiser-supported broadcast market likely produces less than the socially optimal amount of African American programming. This article provides policy recommendations to increase viewer benefits.     

Building next generation video game collections in academic libraries

Most academic libraries do not yet have gaming collections, let alone gaming services and facilities that support the unique and growing teaching and research needs of campus environments. Academic libraries in particular need to start thinking about developing the next generation of gaming collections and services. This article examines the experiences in developing an academic library gaming initiative at a large research university, and works towards identifying the questions academic libraries need to be asking and the issues that need investigating in order to map out a path for developing next generation gaming collections that will meet the needs of academic instructors and researchers in the coming decade, and take advantage of the unique opportunities gaming and gaming technology provide.     

New Interactions

From the first studies of wearables inside MIT’s Media Lab decades ago to the smartwatches and smartglasses sold these days as consumer devices, wearables provide clues to better understand new paths to record and distribute information. Google Glass was one of the first immersive products, allowing users to capture and stream information to the Web, creating screen-based micro-interactions displayed in front of the user’s eye or sent to their smartphone. The first-person perspective is not new, but network-enabled Glass creates a novel state of streamed information and images, potentially making the journalist an avatar of the audience. Possibilities also lay in the development of Glass-specific ambient or calm communications—providing users with seamless information updates. Our study explores how Glass, attached to the head of the journalist-broadcaster, creates alternative behaviours in those captured due to its almost-invisible camera. These and other aspects of Glass will be explored during this paper, recalling experiences made across multiple test beds in the United Kingdom, Porto Alegre, Brazil and the Sahara Desert. The lessons acquired from these experiences allow us to understand not only new ways to inform, but new relationships between journalists, newsrooms and the public.     

Challenging Norms of Invention: Mimesis and African American Communication Patterns

Objective: To challenge norms of rhetorical invention by examining and enacting African American communication patterns

Course: Basic Course, Public Speaking, Argumentation, Intercultural Communication, African American Rhetoric     

Minority and Majority Faculty Members in a Historically Black College/University: Redefining Professors’ Teacher Credibility and Classroom Management

When African American professionals become the majority (e.g., historically Black colleges and universities—HBCUs), whether they and White professors would perceive different challenges in class is unknown. Qualitative findings revealed that White professors considered their professional image as “well-learned” and “intelligent” in the HBCU, whereas African American professors perceived their credibility as dependent on their work experience. In addition, the “call response” communication strategy and classroom tardiness were two cultural shocks encountered by White professors. However, unlike PWIs, the HBCU culture facilitated students’ use of professional titles when addressing White and African American female participants.     

The thing was done in the library: Animating an early eighteenth-century murder mystery

In this article we explore Who Killed Sarah Stout? A Participatory Exhibit as a case study exploring how a multimodal approach to publishing special collections may facilitate dynamic engagement with historical evidence. Stout's murder in 1699 remains unsolved; framing the exhibit as a murder mystery, we consider several key goals: promoting critical engagement and use of primary source collections, advancing curricular and cocurricular learning, developing multimodal exhibitionary practices, creating learning opportunities through hybrid exhibitions, leveraging technology to generate new knowledge, and gaming as a mode of scholarly inquiry. The findings proved almost as interesting as the case itself.     

Naming and Claiming Cancer among African American Women: An Application of Problematic Integration Theory

This study examines how a sample of African American women understands the uncertainties fundamental to cancer risk communication. Utilizing data from four focus groups, Problematic Integration (PI) theory is applied as an interpretive lens for illustrating their felt difficulties of talking openly about cancer and breast cancer in everyday life. The women describe worry about cancer and its prevalence among African American women; ambivalence and uncertainty; belief that what is not uncertain is certain and awful; fear and avoidance; contradictions in “claiming” and “rebuking” cancer; and hopefulness.