A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Effects of Source Credibility on Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

In this article, we investigated (a) whether the commonly reported 3 dimensions of source credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness) are applicable to both Americans and Koreans, and (b) which of those 3 dimensions exerted more influence on the dependent variables in each country. Findings suggest that the dimensionality of source credibility was remarkably similar between the 2 samples. The influence of 3 source credibility dimensions varied by the dependent variables. Attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness were equally important to purchase intentions. All 3 dimensions affected involvement with the advertisement message equally. Only trustworthiness had a significant impact on attitude toward brand and brand beliefs. In terms of attitude toward the advertisement, perceived attractiveness of the endorser was more important than expertise and trustworthiness.     

Re-presenting Sport: How Instant Replay and Perceived Violence Impact Enjoyment of Mediated Sports

Several long-standing theories intersect in discussing the impact of community characteristics and of the mass media. The structural pluralism model popularized by Tichenor and his colleagues says that social structure influences how mass media operate in communities because they respond to how power is distributed in the social system, whereas the linear model says that the increasing size of a community's population leads to more social differentiation and diversity and corresponding increases in subcultures with their own beliefs, customs, and behaviors. Recently, there has been a concern about how changes in society have led to a decline in organizational activity and the network of relationships and trust that constitute “social capital.” This article examines the impact of population and diversity (using census data) on individuals’ media use, interpersonal discussion and civic engagement (measured in a national survey), and the relationship among these variables. Analysis of a structural model provides evidence that the “linear hypothesis” can be combined with structural pluralism, with size—measured by population—impacting diversity, which influences the relationships that people have with their community. Concurrently, social categories influence people's communication patterns and community relationships, and communication impacts civic engagement.     

Using Palm Technology in Participatory Simulations of Complex Systems: A New Take on Ubiquitous and Accessible Mobile Computing

This paper reports on teachers’ perceptions of the educational affordances of a handheld application called Participatory Simulations. It presents evidence from five cases representing each of the populations who work with these computational tools. Evidence across multiple data sources yield similar results to previous research evaluations of handheld activities with respect to enhancing motivation, engagement and self-directed learning. Three additional themes are discussed that provide insight into understanding curricular applicability of Participatory Simulations that suggest a new take on ubiquitous and accessible mobile computing. These themes generally point to the multiple layers of social and cognitive flexibility intrinsic to their design: ease of adaptation to subject-matter content knowledge and curricular integration; facility in attending to teacher-individualized goals; and encouraging the adoption of learner-centered strategies.     

Network-adaptive HD MPEG-2 video streaming with cross-layered channel monitoring in WLAN

INTRODUCTION Video streaming service nowadays enjoys ex- plosive adoptions over all kinds of underlying net- works. To enjoy the freedom of tether-less connection over the wireless local area network (WLAN), we need to overcome many challenges of unstable wire- less channel due to fading, interference and so on. The scarce and fluctuating available bandwidth (together with time-varying delays and random/burst losses) can cause the video quality at the streaming client to be seriously deg…     

Phases and patterns of group development in virtual learning teams

With the advancement of Internet communication technologies, distributed work groups have great potential for remote collaboration and use of collective knowledge. Adopting the Complex Adaptive System (CAS) perspective (McGrath, Arrow, & Berdhal, Personal Soc Psychol Rev 4 (2000) 95), which views virtual learning teams as an adaptive and self-organizing entity, this study examined group development processes of seven intact virtual learning teams over 12 weeks using the multiple case study design. Content analysis revealed seven temporal group development phases: orientation, scheduling, exploration, work and decision, progress check and evaluation, refinement and formatting, and termination. The development pattern of each virtual learning team could be described as either Linear Progression, a straight movement through those phases, or Adaptive Progression, a backward movement to a previous phase for adaptation before proceeding. We also identify the factors that caused each team to develop in one way or the other and conclude with the implications of conceptualizing virtual teams as a CAS.