Young Children’s Positive and Negative Parasocial Relationships with Media Characters

There is a scarcity of research on how young children form short- and long-term emotional connections with popular media characters. Preexisting research on young children’s parasocial relationships (PSR) with media personae has traditionally operationally defined PSR exclusively in terms of friendship and focused on television characters. However, a growing body of research suggests the need for a wider survey of children’s media platforms. Scholarship also actually points to two distinct constructs of PSR: positive PSR (friendly feelings or amicability) and negative PSR (unfriendly feelings or antipathy). This study engaged 88 children ages 5–7 in open- and closed-ended questions designed to measure both positive and negative PSR. Our research reveals a more nuanced understanding of young children’s PSR.     

Media’s Influence on the Accessibility of Altruistic and Egoistic Motivations

Previous research suggests that media featuring exemplars of specific altruistic motivations can make those motivations more accessible in viewers’ minds. The present study extends this research to also examine egoistic motivations. We (a) developed a coding scheme to examine how frequently exemplars of altruistic and egoistic motivations appear in media content, (b) developed an intuitive motivation-affect misattribution procedure to measure the accessibility of altruistic and egoistic motivations, and (c) examined whether exposure to media content portraying specific motivations makes those motivations more accessible in audiences. The findings are discussed in terms of the model of intuitive morality and exemplars.     

Will You Listen? An Examination of Parasocial Interaction and Credibility in Radio

A quasi-experiment was designed to examine the effects of social media on parasocial relationships and credibility for on-air radio hosts. Hypotheses and research questions were tested using 4 experimental conditions. A sample of 240 participants were randomly assigned to a condition and then asked to complete a survey. Results showed that social media appeared to have a negative effect on the strength of a parasocial relationship as well as on credibility.     

“… And Please Visit Our Facebook Page,Too!” How Radio Presenter Personalities Influence Listeners’ Interactions With Radio Stations

Radio personalities or presenters are important to music radio stations, as their individual personalities influence if, how, and to what extent listeners want to interact with radio stations and presenters during programs. Both parasocial interaction with the presenter and flow experiences are believed to mediate the listener–presenter relationship. With this in mind, we conducted an experiment in which 236 German radio listeners aged 14 to 49 were asked to listen to the same radio show, but with varying presenters. Mediation analysis revealed notable effects of presenters’ personalities on listeners’ behavioral intentions. Both parasocial interaction and flow were found to be important mediators of the discovered effects.     

The Influence of Instructor-Student Rapport on Instructors’ Professional and Organizational Outcomes

Students and teachers have relational goals and needs, yet little research has examined the relational goals of instructors and how achieving those goals may affect instructor outcomes. This study examined instructors’ perspectives on instructor-student rapport. Results revealed that instructors who build rapport with students are likely to experience teaching satisfaction, affective commitment to the institution, and enhanced teaching efficacy. However, instructor-student rapport was not related to instructor morale. The findings in this study highlight the importance of positive instructor-student relationships in the classroom and the implications for both instructors and administrators.     

“We Talk about Life”—KTCK,The Ticket,and the Influence of Guy Talk on Sports-Talk Radio

KTCK, “the Ticket,” in Dallas is a prime example of a sports-talk station whose format has evolved into “guy talk.” The station is the object of imitation in the sports-talk community, having reportedly earned $33 million in 2006. “The Ticket is a great radio station; there's no denying they do a wonderful job,” the program director of KILT-AM in Houston, Bill Van Rysdam says. Sports-talk stations across the country have learned that “guy talk” is the “ticket” for higher ratings and greater profits.     

The Influence of Device Access and Gender on Children’s Reading Frequency

We explore the role that devices currently play in children’s book reading, finding that while children have relatively high access to devices with eReading capability, these devices are underutilised for reading purposes. While ownership of devices was negatively associated with reading frequency for both genders, its negative impact was more significant for girls than boys. We also found that when boys and girls identified themselves as daily readers, and where they had access to devices, they did not use them frequently for book reading, suggesting that paper book reading is still preferable for frequent book readers of both genders.     

Impact of Consumer＇s Cognitive Style on Attention of Product Information on the Web

以典型网站的商品展示页面为研究对象,借助眼动仪实验和问卷调查来揭示Web环境下消费者认知风格与商品信息关注程度之间的复杂关系,将消费者的浏览过程表达为具有不同认知风格的消费者（具有不同的经验水平）对页面（具有不同的页面风格）上不同功能区域的关注。据此提出两组基本假设,并通过对120份有效样本的分析,验证上述假设。研究表明,认知风格差异会影响消费者对商品信息的关注程度,而页面风格、网络熟悉程度和购物经验会影响认知风格的效应。     

“You can't tell anyone but …”: Exploring the Use of Privacy Rules and Revealing Behaviors

This three-part study examines how privacy rules function to protect shared information from further revelation. Communication Privacy Management served as a theoretical framework to investigate issues related to boundary management. In the pilot study, college students (N = 409) described privacy rules and their use, and participants reported not further revealing the information when privacy rules were expressed by disclosers. In Study 1, participants (N = 167) reported on disclosing health-related information, and participants did not anticipate that recipients would further reveal especially when they used a privacy rule. In Study 2, dyads (dyad N = 257) reported on shared disclosure experiences, including both anticipated and actual boundary management. Study 2 findings include that privacy rules have limited effectiveness. The article discusses implications of privacy rule use when sharing private information.     

Exploring the influence of coauthorship with top scientists on researchers’ affiliation,research topic,productivity, and impact

Research studies have found that coauthorship with top scientists positively correlates with researchers’ career advancement. However, the influence of different proximities and types of coauthorship with top scientists on their performance has rarely been discussed. We identified the winners of four awards as top authors. We also evaluated the effect on the researchers’ affiliation change, research topic, productivity, and impact before and after three top-ordinary scientist coauthorship types (strong, moderate, and weak), examining the effect after top-top and ordinary-ordinary scientist coauthorships. Additionally, a coauthorship closeness indicator was proposed, considering the team size and author role to measure the collaboration relationship between coauthors. The results reveal that the top scientist in strong coauthorship obtained the highest affiliation change rate. For the top-ordinary coauthorship, the affiliation change rate for top scientists is higher than for ordinary scientists. For other aspects (the coauthor number, research topic, productivity, and impact), the rate after strong and moderate coauthorships increases compared to weak top-ordinary coauthorship type for top and ordinary scientists. Therefore, top scientists obtain a partner with skills, and ordinary scientists obtain more guidance. Strong and moderate coauthorships are win-win relationships for top-ordinary coauthorship types.     

An Investigation of User Comments on Facebook Pages of Trinidad and Tobago’s Indian Music Format Radio Stations

Starting in the 1990s, the Caribbean two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago witnessed the establishment of several Indian-music format radio stations, most of which now stream their content on the World Wide Web or otherwise make their content available beyond the range of their terrestrial radio transmitters. The convergence of traditional terrestrial radio with audio streaming technology combined with the spread of high speed broadband connections has expanded the audience of a typical radio station from a few kilometers to a globally dispersed set of listeners who often include those physically displaced from their native cultural programming. The present investigation examines the Facebook comments of domestic and foreign listeners to Indian-music format radio stations from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.     

A Reinforcement Sensitivity Perspective on Adolescents’ Susceptibility to the Influence of Soap Opera Viewing on Alcohol Attitudes

Previous research found support for an association between exposure to alcohol-related media content and alcohol attitudes, intentions and behavior. Nevertheless, research on what makes young people susceptible to the occurrence of this relationship is scarce. The current study examined the behavioral activation (BAS) and inhibition system (BIS) as moderators of the relationship between soap opera viewing and alcohol attitudes. A cross-sectional survey was carried out among a sample of 922 adolescents (M_age = 14.96 years, SD = .85, 56% girls). Regression analyses showed no association between total television viewing and alcohol attitudes, but did confirm that soap opera viewing is associated with positive attitudes towards alcohol use. Moderation analyses indicated that BAS did not moderate this relationship, while BIS did; the relationship between soap opera viewing and positive attitudes toward alcohol was only significant for adolescents with a low BIS-profile. These results provide support for the premise that an elevated BIS protects adolescents from the effect of soap opera viewing frequency on their alcohol attitudes.     

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     

Different Standards: Engineers’ Expectations and Listener Adoption of Digital and FM Radio Broadcasting

As digital radio broadcasting enters its third decade of operation, few would argue that it has met all expectations expressed at the time of its launch in the mid-1990s. Observers are now more circumspect, with views divided on the pace of transition to an all-digital future. In exploring this mismatch between expectation and actuality, this article considers the introduction of FM radio in the 1950s. It too was expected to replace its forebear (AM) but, like digital radio, its adoption by listeners was slower than anticipated. An examination of published literature, in particular engineering and technical documents, reveals a number of similarities in the development of digital radio and FM. Assumptions about listeners’ needs and preferences appear to have been based on little actual audience research and, with continual reference in the literature to the supposed deficiencies of the predecessor technology, suggest an emphasis in decision making on the technical qualities of radio broadcasting over an appreciation of actual audience preferences.     

‘Listening Became Indispensable for Life … ’ Strategies and Goals of Radio Monitoring in the Warsaw Ghetto

In the beginning of the German occupation of Poland in 1939, press censorship and a strict ban on radio listening were imposed. Poles and ghettos-imprisoned Jews could obtain international information by reading German-controlled newspapers or, alternatively, by reading the clandestine press or listen to rumours. This article stresses the significance of information distributed by activists of Hashomer Hatzair, Zionist, leftist youth movement, who conducted radio monitoring and prepared daily news bulletins distributed in Warsaw ghetto. The article describes their monitoring practices and shows how news extracted from broadcasts was later used in the press. It also engages with the question as to why foreign news was so important to Jews struggling to survive in terrible conditions of the ghetto. It also identifies motivations for conducting radio monitoring during the Holocaust and compares it with those of people listening to foreign radio stations in other contexts and with different intentions.     

Media Violence and Adolescents’ ADHD-Related Behaviors: The Role of Parental Mediation

We examined the role of parental media mediation in the relationship between media violence and adolescents’ ADHD-related behaviors. Survey data from 1,017 adolescents (10–14 years) show that parents can play an important role in this relationship, depending on the media mediation strategies that they use (i.e., restrictive or active mediation) and how they apply these strategies (i.e., in a controlling, inconsistent, or autonomy-supportive way). Our findings support the notion that contextual factors are critical in understanding media effects, and provide directions for how parents can manage their adolescents’ violent media use, and possibly by extension, their ADHD-related behaviors.     

Structure or Predisposition? Exploring the Interaction Effect of Discussion Orientation and Discussion Heterogeneity on Political Participation

Past research on how discussions with non-like-minded others impacts political participation has focused mostly on structural attributes of discussion networks, and—as a result—has produced inconsistent findings. This study, therefore, introduced the concept of discussion orientation—one's willingness to express and listen in political discussion, even when disagreement exists—as a predispositional explanation of the impact of discussion heterogeneity on political participation. Based on the national telephone survey data, during the course of the 2004 election, we find a strong main effect of individual predisposition to express different opinions on political participation. In addition, the link between discussion heterogeneity and political participation is significantly stronger for those respondents who exhibit a willingness to express different opinions during those conversations.