Antecedents of the Initiation of Watching Sexually Explicit Internet Material: A Longitudinal Study Among Adolescents

Little research to date has focused on adolescents’ initiation of watching sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) and its antecedents. Based on 400 adolescents who had never watched SEIM at baseline (in a three-wave panel study among 1,467 13–17-year-old Dutch adolescents), we examined antecedents of the initiation of watching SEIM one year later. Logistic regression analyses indicated that boys were more likely to start watching SEIM than girls. A hypergender identity increased the likelihood to initiate watching SEIM among girls, whereas frequent exposure to the sexy self-presentation of others in social media especially increased boys’ chance of watching SEIM. An interaction effect between sexual experience and age was also found.     

Silent derogation and perceptions of deceptiveness: Does communicating nonverbal disbelief during an opponent's speech affect perceptions of debaters’ veracity?

Compared to televised debates using a single‐screen presentation, those using a split screen presenting both debaters simultaneously show viewers the nonverbal reactions of a debater's opponent. This study examined the effect of such reactions on viewers’ ratings of both the speaker's and the nonverbal communicator's veracity. Students watched one of four versions of a televised debate. One version used a single‐screen presentation, showing only the speaker, while the other three versions used a split‐screen presentation in which the speaker's opponent displayed constant, occasional, or no nonverbal disbelief regarding the content of the speaker's message. After watching the videos, students rated the veracity of the debaters’ communication. Analysis indicated that when the nonspeaking debater showed constant signs of disbelief, his communication was perceived as deceptive, while his opponent's communication was perceived as truthful. Moderate signs of disbelief lowered truthfulness ratings for both debaters’ communication. These results and their implications are discussed.     

Crafting the news

Courses: This activity could be used in a basic public-speaking course to demonstrate messaging and the development of the three pillars of public speaking: content, organization, and delivery. In a basic communication course, this activity would help illustrate the process of communication (sender, receiver, feedback, channel, etc.). A mass communication class can use this activity to discuss the power of news outlets and social media while digging into mass communication theory (agenda setting, computer mediated communication, framing, etc.).

Objectives: Through collaboration with teammates, small groups of students will develop a three- to five-minute news segment that will be posted on YouTube upon completion. Through social-media distribution of the YouTube link, this news clip must attract a certain number (the final number can be determined by the instructor) of viewers in a specified time limit. Student participants will be responsible for identifying valid sources and compiling credible information pertaining to their news topic while also illustrating effective competency in speech content, organization, and delivery by preparing a presentation that is trustworthy and interesting, concise and clear, and presented with energy and charisma while conducting proper vocal and body delivery techniques. The “big question”: can the group create a credible, clear, concise, coherent news broadcast and distribute the finished project to a social-media outlet in the hopes of gaining a certain number of viewers?     

It's HBO: Passionate engagement,TV branding,and tourism in the postbroadcast Era

This paper contends with how postbroadcast television branding subsumes viewers’ affective interactivities with place to produce brand value. Focusing on the HBO series Treme, I argue that Treme engendered HBO's postbroadcast brand mutation by producing “passionate engagement,” where viewers were invited to interact with the show by touring New Orleans, thus adding place to online interactivity and multiscreen engagement as a means of constructing an “authentic” brand identity. The desire for viewers to connect to New Orleans’ culture is thus transformed into a vehicle for profit making for HBO and an assurance to shareholders that the brand still holds value.     

Financial support for religious television: The impact of the PTL scandal

The impact of the PTL scandal on financial contributions to televangelists and viewers’ perceptions of televangelists’ credibility and financial accountability is examined in this study. It finds that highly religious ritualized viewers have become more selective and infrequent in donating but are providing larger gifts.     

Electronic monitoring of in‐home television RCD usage

This study electronically‐monitored in‐home RCD activity. The frequency of channel changing and other RCD behaviors were recorded and discrepancies between self‐reported and actual RCD use are examined. This is one of a few academic studies of RCDs that does not rely on a survey (respondent recall) or on observation, but rather records actual behaviors in the participants’ home. This study also examines viewers’ uses of RCDs within the framework of selective exposure.

Slightly over 374 hours of television viewing by 44 participants yielded 13,680 channel switches. It was found that viewers made an average of 36.6 channel changes per hour. In other words, they watched channels for an average of one minute and 38 seconds between switches. Further analyses revealed an audience of “rapid‐fire”; channel grazers as 80% of the switches took place after a channel was on for less than five seconds.     

Star gazing: Transing gender communication

ABSTRACT

This activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70).     

Children's wishful identification and parasocial interaction with favorite television characters

Children aged 7 to 12 were interviewed about their favorite TV character. Nearly all boys and about half of the girls selected same‐sex favorites. Regression analyses used perceived character traits (attractiveness, strength, humor, intelligence, social behavior) to predict wishful identification and parasocial interaction with characters. For male characters, wishful identification was predicted by intelligence and (for girls only) humor; parasocial interaction was predicted by intelligence, attractiveness, and (for boys only) strength. In marked contrast, for female characters (chosen only by girls), attractiveness was the only significant predictor. Although girls rated female characters as more intelligent than male characters, this trait apparently was not an important determinant of attraction. Interpretations of the findings and implications for socialization effects are discussed.     

How families select television programs: A mass‐observational study

Mass observation and survey data reveal how family position and family communication patterns influence the selection of television programs under naturalistic conditions at home.     

Exploring the Recursive Nature of Food and Family Communication

Objective: Students experience the numerous ways in which a relationship exists between the food families eat and the patterns of communication families enact; this activity illustrates how family metaphors, stories, rules, roles, rituals, and other relevant course concepts are conveyed through food

Courses: Family communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, and gender communication     

Relational Framing Theory and Coming-Out Narratives: A Data Analysis Activity

Courses: This single class activity would be most useful in interpersonal, family, gender/sexuality communication, or research methods courses. This activity facilitates better discussion in a small or seminar-style class with students who have had pervious exposure to or who are in the process of learning about interpersonal communication theory or research methods.

Objectives: The goals for this activity are to (a) practice data analysis utilizing a specific theory, (b) identify the presence of relational frames and judgments to become more familiar with the interpersonal dimensions of coming-out interactions, (c) appreciate a multiplicity of data interpretations through the practice of group coding, and (d) practice evaluating the quality of data interpretations.     

The effects of newscaster gender and vocal quality on perceptions of Homophily and interpersonal attraction

The research attempted to clarify the “ideal newscaster” concept. Only newscaster gender contributed to a significant difference, and only on physical attraction. Findings are discussed with regard to their implications for viewers’ selective exposure to news broadcasts.     

The relationship between parental traits and open family communication: Affective orientation and verbal aggression

This study examined haw the parental traits of affective orientation and verbal aggressiveness were associated with openness in family communication patterns. Responses were obtained from 133 college‐aged children and their parents.

Parental affective orientation was positively related to their children's perceptions of more open family communication patterns, while verbal aggressiveness was negatively related. Parents’ and children's levels of trait affective orientation were moderately correlated (r=.45) with children's AO levels being higher than their parents’.     

Katz and Aakhus’ Theory of Apparatgeist: Students’ Perceptions of Normative and Non-normative Behaviors for Technology Use

Course: This activity was used in an upper-level, undergraduate, special topics course entitled “Issues in Mobile Communication.” However, the activity could also be used in undergraduate courses relating to mediated communication, interpersonal communication and communication theory

Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to increase students’ awareness of how norms for mobile communication technology use are established     

Utilizing Text Messages for Effective Outreach

ABSTRACT

As librarians strive to reach students and share reference content, text messages are a new avenue to explore. Although many libraries receive reference questions through text, few initiate the conversation. Sending text messages with video tutorials relevant to class assignments has been an effective and innovative outreach at Bethel University’s College of Professional Studies (CPS). Over three years, we have sent 1,099 text messages and 38% of the video links included were clicked. Students saw the message and clicked the link at a significantly higher rate than links inside e-mail campaigns, as compared to industry standards and CPS’s statistics. Text messages are an effective form of communication because they are prevalent, have a high likelihood of being read, and their content can be easily tailored. Students and the broader academic community do not expect a text from the library and it builds social capital with them. This social capital is a valuable benefit to librarians seeking to demonstrate their relevancy in a competitive information environment. A similar initiative could benefit several areas in an academic library. Personal librarians, first year experience librarians, distance education librarians, or librarians supporting student success could build relationships through this level of individualized contact.     

Negative video as structure: Emotion,attention, capacity,and memory

This paper uses a limited capacity information processing theory of television viewing to investigate the effects of graphic negative video at four levels of processing (attention, capacity, encoding, and retrieval) and on two dimensions of emotional experience (arousal and valence). Results indicate that the presence of negative video in news stories increases attention, increases the amount of capacity required to process the message, increases the ability to retrieve the story, facilitates recognition of information presented during the negative video and inhibits recognition for information presented before the negative video. Results also indicate that the introduction of negative video increases the self‐reported negative emotional impact of the story — making it more arousing and more negative.     

“It’s My Job Now,I Guess”: Biographical disruption and communication work in supporters of young adult cancer survivors

ABSTRACT

This study uses narrative interviews to describe how 25 young adult (YA) close supporters (i.e., romantic partners, siblings) experience an often invisible and uniquely burdensome biographical disruption following a young adult cancer survivor’s (YACS; i.e., 18–39) diagnosis. YA supporters reported varying levels of biographical interdependence with the YACS and family system uncertainty with other important supporters. These factors led YA romantic partners and siblings to engage in different types of communication work to negotiate and maintain primary and secondary support roles with parents and in-laws, to ensure that the YACS received helpful social support by gatekeeping (i.e., correcting, blocking) others’ support attempts, and to accommodate both their own and the YACS’s disrupted biographies.     

The Differential Effects of Direct Address on Parasocial Experience and Identification: Empirical Evidence for Conceptual Difference

Whereas parasocial experience is conceptualized as imagined interaction identification is defined as the merging of one’s identity with a character’s. Thus, having a character face the camera and directly address viewers should increase the sense of parasocial experience but not affect the intensity of identification. An experiment compared the levels of parasocial experience and identification among viewers of clips from the show House of Cards that included or omitted direct address tested this prediction. Results provide support for the previously theorized conceptualdistinction between parasocial experience and identification.     

Student Perceptions of the Instructor's Relational Characteristics,the Classroom Communication Experience,and the Interaction Involvement in Face-to-Face versus Video Conference Instruction

The present study examined student perceptions of the instructor's relational characteristics, classroom communication experience, and interaction involvement in courses taken face-to-face and in a video conference context. MANCOVA results showed significant differences between these contexts, with more negative student ratings of instructor immediacy and receptivity; classroom communication connectedness/mutuality, satisfaction, and quality; and interaction involvement occurring in the video conference classroom context than in the face-to-face context. A path analysis modeled the relationships among these perceptions of instructor characteristics, classroom communication experience, and interaction involvement. Based on this model, suggestions for improving student perceptions of the instructor, classroom communication, and interaction involvement in video conference courses are offered.     

To Hybrid or Not to Hybrid,That is the Question! Incorporating VoiceThread Technology into a Traditional Communication Course

Courses: This exercise can be applied to any course or discipline, particularly those that utilize public speaking techniques, interviewing skills, or media

Objectives: ? Students will identify key concepts from course readings and deliver verbal responses to the instructor's question, photo, and/or video example.

? Students will learn to effectively communicate and organize ideas around the course readings.

? Students will engage with technology that will enhance the in-class learning experience.

? Students will produce competent communication dialogue and discussion in an asynchronous online format.