Is It the Medium or the Message? Structuring Complex News to Enhance Engagement and Situational Understanding by Nonexperts Ronald A. Yaros University of Utah, Salt Lake City An experimental design, theoretically motivated by cognitive models of text comprehension, investigates effects of structures in complex news on readers (undergraduate non-science majors) who have little or no expertise for the content (science and technology). Text from two New York Times stories were modified for a proposed explanatory structure building (ESB) model to enhance reader interest in and comprehension of the content. Dependent variables include self-reported situational interest and a deeper situational understanding of the text as measured by sorting tasks and inferencegenerating questions. A between-subjects field experiment exposed participants (N = 235) […]

Social Comparisons With News Personae Selective Exposure to News Portrayals of Same-Sex and Same-Age Characters Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick The Ohio State University Matthias R. Hastall University of Erfurt Appeal of personae in news is investigated based on social comparison theory. Participants (N = 276) of two age groups browsed through online news while selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Manipulated articles focused on individuals and varied along three within factors: sex and age group of portrayed individual and story valence. After browsing news, participants completed a questionnaire including a self-esteem scale. Recipients preferred news on same-sex individuals, and young readers favored articles about sameage characters. Impacts of self-esteem to positive and negative articles, offering upward and downward comparison opportunities, were mediated by […]

Understanding Employees’ Willingness to Contribute to Shared Electronic Databases A Three-Dimensional Framework Guowei Jian Leo W. Jeffres Cleveland State University Work organizations increasingly adopt shared electronic databases. However, employees’unwillingness to contribute to shared resources undermines the utility of such technologies. Current research is limited to either a utilitarian or normative perspective. To advance understanding in this area,this study proposes a three-dimensional framework. It includes the utilitarian and normative perspectives as two complementary dimensions in addition to a third collaborative dimension. Based on this framework, the study identifies three key organizational processes and advances an additive model to predict employees’ willingness to contribute to shared electronic databases. An empirical test was conducted to assess the model in a large manufacturing organization. […]

The authors define relationship talk as content messages that reference the nature of the relationship between people. They seek to contribute to the literature by (a) conceptualizing relationship talk in ways that attend to its nuances, and (b) evaluating how intimacy predicts the production and perception of relationship talk. They conducted an observational study of conversations between 120 dating couples. Length of romantic interest,compared to intimacy, was the more proximal predictor of the prominence, explicitness, depth, and negative valence of relationship talk. In general, relationship talk was positively associated with people’s perceptions of the relational impact of conversation, but intimacy was unrelated to relational impact. The prominence of relationship talk noted by third-party judges was positively associated with relational impact […]

Groups are becoming increasingly important in organizations, and they use electronic groupware to facilitate communication and workflow. The author usesa2x2laboratoryexperimentwith96participantstoevaluatetheinteraction between communication channel and incentive structure when groups have to solve a mixed-motive task.The communication channel variable has two values: face-to-face (FTF) communication and computer-mediated communication (CMC).Also,the incentive structure has twovalues:group-based and individual-based values. This article compares the performance and informationexchangetruthfulnessofgroupsunderthesedifferentexperimental conditions. The author utilizes a game theory perspective to study the behavior of members in these groups. The results indicate that communication channel and incentive structure mitigate strategies that lead to decision choices and information exchange truthfulness among members in a group. Keywords: negotiation; group decision support systems; communication channel; incentive structure; game Many organizations embrace the concept of […]

Cognitive and Motivational Bases of Mindful Reactions to Informational Social Influence The present experiments investigated how individuals’ cognitive thinking styles and the influence agent’s sex would affect the extent to which people mindfully respond to informational social influence. In Study 1, participantsplayedatriviagamewithanostensiblepartnerviacomputerandwere presented with either real informationthat provided arationale forthe partner’s choice or placebic information that merely restated accompanying selfconfidence ratings inverbalformat.As predicted,real information was more likelythanwasplacebicinformationtoelicitconformity(a)amonghighcompared to low rationals,(b) when the partner expressed the highest ambiguity (50% confident), and (c) when a female compared to a male character represented the partner, albeit only among men. By employing more direct measures of information processing, reaction time and perceived validity of the partner’s claims, Study 2 confirmed that greater acceptance of […]

This study investigated the effect of magazine use on the desire to be thin within the theoretical frameworkofpresumed influence.Structural equation modeling supported the hypothesis that reading beauty and fashion magazinesincreasedthedriveforthinnessbothdirectlyandindirectly.Theindirect pathway included the perceived prevalence of the thin ideal in mass media, thepresumedinfluenceofthethinidealonothers,andtheperceivedinfluence ofthethinidealonself.Socialpressuretobethinmaybebasedbothonreality and the presumption of influence on others. Results suggest potential strategies for intervention. Keywords: body image; eating disorders; presumed media influence Body discontent and problematicattitudestoward eating are facetsof a single issue that has gained increasing attention in our society during recent decades. As many as 10 million women and 1 million men are estimated to sufferfromanorexianervosa,andanadditional25millionpeopleareaffected by bulimia nervosa (Shisslak, Crago, & Estes, 1995). Prevalence among youngwomen,whohavetraditionallybeenconsideredatthehighestriskfor these disorders, is estimated at 15% (Levchuck, Kosek, & […]

Emotional TV Viewing and Minority Audience How Mexican Americans Process and Evaluate TV News About In-Group Members A total of 90 Mexican American and White American participants viewed 12 emotional television news stories, featuring Mexican Americans, that were positive or negative in valence and high or low in arousal.Participants completed a cued recall test and evaluated recalled news stories. Analyses revealed a strong main effect of arousal on participants’ attention and memory. Mexican American participants rated Mexican American news stories morefavorablyandasmorearousing,recalled the news more,andevaluated recalled news more positively than did their White American counterparts. Consistent withtheprinciples ofself-schemaandsocialidentity theory,these findings demonstrate thatpeopleprocess andevaluateself-referencing information differently than they process nonself-referencing information. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are also discussed. Keywords: […]

Information and Expression in a Digital Age Modeling Internet Effects on Civic Participation This article examines the role of the Internet as a source of political informationandasphereforpublicexpression.Informationalmediause,whethertraditional news sources or online public affairs content, is expected to foster interpersonalpoliticaldiscussionandonlinecivicmessaging,contributingto increased civic participation. Using two-wave national panel survey data, three types of synchronous structural equation models are tested: cross sectional(relatingindividualdifferences),fixedeffects(relatingintraindividual change), and auto regressive (relating aggregate change). All models reveal thatonlinemediacomplementtraditionalmediatofosterpoliticaldiscussion andcivicmessaging.Thesetwoformsofpoliticalexpression,inturn,influence civic participation. Other variable orderings are tested to compare the theorizedmodeltoalternativecausalspecifications.Resultsrevealthatthemodel produces the best fit, empirically and theoretically, with the influence of the Internet, rivaling the mobilizing power of traditional modes of information and expression. Keywords: civic engagement; computer-mediated communication;interpersonal discussion; media effects; political participation; social capital Political communication […]