Journal of Communication最新文献

Despite the increased attention to eudaimonic media experiences, to date scholars have paid little attention to the specific portrayals responsible for those experiences. Study 1 of this project reports the first systematic content analysis of self-transcendent media—a particular type of eudaimonic media—using a sample of 100 “inspirational” YouTube videos. The presence of 20 specific elicitors associated with self-transcendent emotions was examined and reported. In Study 2, respondents provided real-time self-transcendent emotional reactions while viewing 3 “inspirational” videos. As expected, ratings significantly increased immediately following exposure to each specific elicitor. Thus, this project reports the first empirical evidence directly linking specific representations to content identified as “inspirational” and directly linking those representations to self-transcendent emotional reactions.

In the following essay, I offer and explain the concept of wild public networks as a tool for social movement scholars interested in taking a network approach to contemporary protests via poststructuralism. Wild public networks offer scholars a means of approaching social movements that moves past binaries to productively incorporate affect. In so doing, the concept of wild public networks advances an ontological shift for social movement scholars that also alters what we examine and how. Wild public networks consider how the movement of the social can be witnessed in changes to relationships between actants and the configurations of networks. To explicate this new concept, I turn to contemporary environmental protests in Maoming, China.

Scholarship on media events has rarely considered how interpersonal interactions between participants mobilize collective feelings of solidarity. Drawing on a study of Big Brother Israel, we demonstrate how several structural-interactional features of the show encourage viewers to shift from a position of bystanders to one of confidants and companions of the contestants. We analyze this shift through the lens of mediated “public intimacy”—the staging of exclusive interactions in front of a third party. The emergent sense of collective complicity affects everyday interactions between viewers and public discourse on social media. We conclude that beyond the public staging of self, it is the staging and concretization of social relations in media events that serves to reaffirm the collective's solidarity.

This study analyzes whether the agenda-setting influence of traditional news media has become weaker over time—a key argument in the “new era of minimal effects” controversy. Based on media content and public opinion data collected in Sweden over a period of 23 years (1992–2014), we analyze both aggregate and individual-level agenda-setting effects on public opinion concerning 12 different political issues. Taken together, we find very little evidence that the traditional news media has become less influential as agenda setters. Rather, citizens appear as responsive to issue signals from the collective media agenda today as during the low-choice era. We discuss these findings in terms of cross-national differences in media systems and opportunity structures for selective exposure.

We hypothesize that generic frames influence what news people share on Facebook and Twitter through three different routes: emotions, motivations, and psychological engagement. Using a mixed-methods design, a content analysis of a representative sample of articles published in six Chilean outlets was combined with in-depth interviews with digital journalists. After controlling for issue, newsworthiness, informational utility, valence, and other confounds, results show that—across platforms—a morality frame increases news sharing, whereas a conflict frame decreases it. Emphasizing economic consequences also decreases sharing, but only on Facebook. Surprisingly, the human interest angle has no noticeable effects. These results show that news frames can have behavioral consequences, and confirm the existence of a gap between preferred frames of journalists and users.

For a well-functioning democracy, it is crucial that children consume news. However, news can elicit overly negative emotions and discourage engagement in children. The question, therefore, is how news can be adapted to children's sensitivities and needs but can still inform them. This study investigated whether constructive reporting (solution-based narratives including positive emotions) in news about negative events improved emotional responses and encouraged engagement (intention and inspiration to engage). In an experiment, 8–13-year-olds (N = 332) read a story containing either constructive elements or not. Constructive news elicited lower levels of negative emotional responses and provided more inspiration for engagement than nonconstructive news. These promising findings open doors for follow-up investigations regarding constructive news reporting, also among adult audiences.