Adam Shehata, Fabian Thomas, Isabella Glogger, Kim Andersen
Abstract While prominent theories of media effects suggest that the maintenance of societal perceptions (and misperceptions) is a critical and distinct outcome of exposure to mediated communication, the “maintenance effect” remains poorly understood. This article provides a theoretical conceptualization and operational approach to the maintenance effect. The first part addresses the distinct properties of the maintenance effect and proposes a conceptualization anchored in theories of cognitive media effects. The second part focuses on the psychological mechanisms behind the maintenance effect, outlining factors operating in the short and long run. Finally, building upon recent statistical developments for longitudinal data analysis, the third part suggests and illustrates a specific empirical approach for analyzing the maintenance effect.
{"title":"Belief maintenance as a media effect: a conceptualization and empirical approach","authors":"Adam Shehata, Fabian Thomas, Isabella Glogger, Kim Andersen","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad033","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While prominent theories of media effects suggest that the maintenance of societal perceptions (and misperceptions) is a critical and distinct outcome of exposure to mediated communication, the “maintenance effect” remains poorly understood. This article provides a theoretical conceptualization and operational approach to the maintenance effect. The first part addresses the distinct properties of the maintenance effect and proposes a conceptualization anchored in theories of cognitive media effects. The second part focuses on the psychological mechanisms behind the maintenance effect, outlining factors operating in the short and long run. Finally, building upon recent statistical developments for longitudinal data analysis, the third part suggests and illustrates a specific empirical approach for analyzing the maintenance effect.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135394474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article proposes the concept of assemmethodology, which combines assemblage theory and ethnomethodology. Relating to the ongoing studies in sociomateriality, this article advances our understanding of the details of social conduct and the consequentiality of materials. By explicating the role of the situation and its processual becoming, which is inherent in ethnomethodology, and by replacing the unit of analysis from the individual to the assemblage made up of heterogenous elements, this article contributes to communication research that seeks to advance our understanding of the ways in which humans are entangled with the material world. As a perspicuous case for the study of assemmethodology, this article explores situations in which screens are assembled with humans and other materials in social situations. The article uses these examples to highlight the necessity of maintaining a focus on the situated emergence of socio-material orders as a property of the activity.
{"title":"Situated socio-material assemblages: assemmethodology in the making","authors":"Brian L Due","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad031","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article proposes the concept of assemmethodology, which combines assemblage theory and ethnomethodology. Relating to the ongoing studies in sociomateriality, this article advances our understanding of the details of social conduct and the consequentiality of materials. By explicating the role of the situation and its processual becoming, which is inherent in ethnomethodology, and by replacing the unit of analysis from the individual to the assemblage made up of heterogenous elements, this article contributes to communication research that seeks to advance our understanding of the ways in which humans are entangled with the material world. As a perspicuous case for the study of assemmethodology, this article explores situations in which screens are assembled with humans and other materials in social situations. The article uses these examples to highlight the necessity of maintaining a focus on the situated emergence of socio-material orders as a property of the activity.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42017480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charee M Thompson, Emiko Taniguchi-Dorios, Tingting Reid
Abstract This study further examines a difficult experience for support providers in close relationships that we are calling the social support quandary hypothesis: Mental illness uncertainty simultaneously increases fear/anxiety and decreases supportive communication efficacy. In turn, fear/anxiety motivates support provision, but supportive communication efficacy is needed to provide support and for support to be of quality. Undergraduate students (N = 201) completed weekly online surveys. Broadly, findings at both within-person and between-person levels supported the mediating role of fear/anxiety and supportive communication efficacy in the relationship between mental illness uncertainty and quantity of emotional support provision and between mental illness uncertainty and social support quality. Information quality issues interacted with mental illness uncertainty at the within-person level, and the nature of the interactions differed by support outcome. We discuss this study’s theoretical and practical implications for understanding support provision in the context of chronic illnesses, such as mental illness.
{"title":"Further examination of the support quandary hypothesis: a weekly diary study of how uncertainty both motivates and challenges supporting close others with mental illness","authors":"Charee M Thompson, Emiko Taniguchi-Dorios, Tingting Reid","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study further examines a difficult experience for support providers in close relationships that we are calling the social support quandary hypothesis: Mental illness uncertainty simultaneously increases fear/anxiety and decreases supportive communication efficacy. In turn, fear/anxiety motivates support provision, but supportive communication efficacy is needed to provide support and for support to be of quality. Undergraduate students (N = 201) completed weekly online surveys. Broadly, findings at both within-person and between-person levels supported the mediating role of fear/anxiety and supportive communication efficacy in the relationship between mental illness uncertainty and quantity of emotional support provision and between mental illness uncertainty and social support quality. Information quality issues interacted with mental illness uncertainty at the within-person level, and the nature of the interactions differed by support outcome. We discuss this study’s theoretical and practical implications for understanding support provision in the context of chronic illnesses, such as mental illness.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135571504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Immersive narratives—narratives viewed in immersive mediated environments—are a promising tool for increasing empathy and persuasion due to their presumed capacity to place viewers inside a story world. Empirical studies, however, have produced mixed findings. This meta-analysis synthesized findings on the effects of narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments on empathy and persuasion (k = 25). It also examined the impact of narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments on presence and narrative transportation, psychological constructs associated with two key mechanisms identified in immersive narrative research. Results showed that narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments had small positive effects on empathy and persuasion. The effect of immersion level on presence was significant, positive, and strong, but the effect on transportation was not significant, perhaps due to the limited sample size (k = 4). This study contributes to further understanding the potential of immersive narratives.
{"title":"Present, empathetic, and persuaded: a meta-analytic comparison of storytelling in high versus low immersive mediated environments","authors":"Zexin Ma, Rong Ma, Meng Chen, Nathan Walter","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Immersive narratives—narratives viewed in immersive mediated environments—are a promising tool for increasing empathy and persuasion due to their presumed capacity to place viewers inside a story world. Empirical studies, however, have produced mixed findings. This meta-analysis synthesized findings on the effects of narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments on empathy and persuasion (k = 25). It also examined the impact of narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments on presence and narrative transportation, psychological constructs associated with two key mechanisms identified in immersive narrative research. Results showed that narratives viewed in high (vs. low) immersive environments had small positive effects on empathy and persuasion. The effect of immersion level on presence was significant, positive, and strong, but the effect on transportation was not significant, perhaps due to the limited sample size (k = 4). This study contributes to further understanding the potential of immersive narratives.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46905135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jeremy Foote, J. Treem, B. van den Hooff, M. Honcoop
This work conceptualizes enterprise social media (ESM) as a multifunctional public good that both supports communication that connects users directly and allows users to contribute or access communal information. We show how differing motivations to use an ESM—connective or communal goals—interact with individuals’ perceptions of activity on a platform, and the consequences this has for individual participation decisions and the viability of the digital space. We begin with a case study of the adoption of an ESM platform within a single organization. We then apply findings from this case study, combined with broader theories of technology adoption, to create agent-based simulations. We show that the connective and communal aspects of an ESM complement each other and can spur adoption; we also identify the importance of information decay as a variable influencing collective adoption. We end with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our results.
{"title":"Motivations to use multifunctional public goods in organizations: using agent-based modeling to explore differential uses of enterprise social media","authors":"Jeremy Foote, J. Treem, B. van den Hooff, M. Honcoop","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad029","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This work conceptualizes enterprise social media (ESM) as a multifunctional public good that both supports communication that connects users directly and allows users to contribute or access communal information. We show how differing motivations to use an ESM—connective or communal goals—interact with individuals’ perceptions of activity on a platform, and the consequences this has for individual participation decisions and the viability of the digital space. We begin with a case study of the adoption of an ESM platform within a single organization. We then apply findings from this case study, combined with broader theories of technology adoption, to create agent-based simulations. We show that the connective and communal aspects of an ESM complement each other and can spur adoption; we also identify the importance of information decay as a variable influencing collective adoption. We end with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our results.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46548779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the Māori consultation and engagement processes in a development project framed as climate adaptation and carried out by a local council that sought to expel Māori from ancestral land. Drawing on a dialogue between Kaupapa Māori (KM) theory and the culture-centered approach (CCA), land is centered as the basis for everyday meanings of health. We depict the processes of culture-centered organizing in co-creating voice infrastructures at the “margins of the margins” of the community, which serve as the spaces for voicing Indigenous knowledge to resist the modern-day confiscation of ancestral Māori land. The dialogue between KM theory and the CCA foregrounds communicative inequalities within community spaces, working with the concept “margins of the margins” to center Māori voices that have historically been silenced.
{"title":"Local government engagement practices and Indigenous interventions: Learning to listen to Indigenous voices","authors":"C. Elers, M. Dutta","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the Māori consultation and engagement processes in a development project framed as climate adaptation and carried out by a local council that sought to expel Māori from ancestral land. Drawing on a dialogue between Kaupapa Māori (KM) theory and the culture-centered approach (CCA), land is centered as the basis for everyday meanings of health. We depict the processes of culture-centered organizing in co-creating voice infrastructures at the “margins of the margins” of the community, which serve as the spaces for voicing Indigenous knowledge to resist the modern-day confiscation of ancestral Māori land. The dialogue between KM theory and the CCA foregrounds communicative inequalities within community spaces, working with the concept “margins of the margins” to center Māori voices that have historically been silenced.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46873856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The current high-choice media environment is characterized by increasingly intense competition for audience resources among media products. Drawing on research in organizational ecology and communication, audience behavior, and media economics, this study provides an ecological explanation for audience size in the digital media system. The analysis of Comscore’s aggregate audience data on the use of 64 digital media platforms over a 38-month period from 2019 to 2022 shows that a platform’s audience size is negatively associated with its niche overlap with another platform. This competitive effect of niche overlap on a platform’s current audience size is moderated by its previous audience size (size dependence) and species membership in the environment (species dependence). The results also support the short- and long-term stability of audience size.
{"title":"Ecological constraints on audience size in the digital media system: evidence from the longitudinal tracking data from 2019 to 2022","authors":"Yu Xu, Tai-Quan Peng","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The current high-choice media environment is characterized by increasingly intense competition for audience resources among media products. Drawing on research in organizational ecology and communication, audience behavior, and media economics, this study provides an ecological explanation for audience size in the digital media system. The analysis of Comscore’s aggregate audience data on the use of 64 digital media platforms over a 38-month period from 2019 to 2022 shows that a platform’s audience size is negatively associated with its niche overlap with another platform. This competitive effect of niche overlap on a platform’s current audience size is moderated by its previous audience size (size dependence) and species membership in the environment (species dependence). The results also support the short- and long-term stability of audience size.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":"220 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136145975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Meta-analysis has shown that people are only slightly better than chance at distinguishing truths from lies in deception detection experiments. Truth-default theory (TDT), however, specifies multiple paths to lowering and increasing accuracy. The current experiment (n = 81) tested truth-default theory’s proposition 13 and diagnostic questioning module with a student sample from South Korea. The proposition and module predict that how an interviewee is questioned can affect deception detection in both directions, improving or reducing accuracy. Consistent with the original findings, questioning was found to significantly enhance (65%) and reduce (30%) deception-detection accuracy relative to the results of meta-analysis (54%). The current findings provide additional evidence consistent with TDT and replicate prior findings documenting substantial question effect on deception-detection accuracy. The implications of question effects for non-native speakers and intercultural lie detection are discussed.
{"title":"Deception detection and question effects: testing truth-default theory predictions in South Korea","authors":"T. Levine","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad026","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Meta-analysis has shown that people are only slightly better than chance at distinguishing truths from lies in deception detection experiments. Truth-default theory (TDT), however, specifies multiple paths to lowering and increasing accuracy. The current experiment (n = 81) tested truth-default theory’s proposition 13 and diagnostic questioning module with a student sample from South Korea. The proposition and module predict that how an interviewee is questioned can affect deception detection in both directions, improving or reducing accuracy. Consistent with the original findings, questioning was found to significantly enhance (65%) and reduce (30%) deception-detection accuracy relative to the results of meta-analysis (54%). The current findings provide additional evidence consistent with TDT and replicate prior findings documenting substantial question effect on deception-detection accuracy. The implications of question effects for non-native speakers and intercultural lie detection are discussed.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49528431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Partisanship played a key role in shaping individuals’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The current project applies the extended parallel processing model (EPPM) to examine how the content features of White House press conferences were associated with the partisan gap in perceptions and behavior during the early stage of the pandemic. Using supervised machine learning, Study 1 analyzes the White House press conferences regarding the pandemic during 2020. The results demonstrate that the White House focused on efficacy but included minimal threat information. Study 2 uses the threat and efficacy information in White House press conferences to predict perceived threat and efficacy as well as self-quarantine behavior measured by longitudinal surveys using nationally representative samples of U.S. adults. Time-series analysis shows that an increase of threat information from the White House was associated with a subsequent decrease in the partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans on perceived threat and self-quarantine behavior by increasing perceived threat and self-quarantine behavior among Republicans. This study contributes to presidential communication research by systematically examining specific message features and linking them to public perceptions and behaviors in the context of a public health crisis. The study also extends the EPPM to a dynamic model, estimating the asymmetric effects and self-continuity of positive (i.e., efficacy) and negative (i.e., threat) information on perceptions and behaviors.
{"title":"Presidential communication during the pandemic: a longitudinal examination of its relationship with partisan perceptions and behaviors in the United States","authors":"Yue Li, Zheng Wang, Qin Li","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad025","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Partisanship played a key role in shaping individuals’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The current project applies the extended parallel processing model (EPPM) to examine how the content features of White House press conferences were associated with the partisan gap in perceptions and behavior during the early stage of the pandemic. Using supervised machine learning, Study 1 analyzes the White House press conferences regarding the pandemic during 2020. The results demonstrate that the White House focused on efficacy but included minimal threat information. Study 2 uses the threat and efficacy information in White House press conferences to predict perceived threat and efficacy as well as self-quarantine behavior measured by longitudinal surveys using nationally representative samples of U.S. adults. Time-series analysis shows that an increase of threat information from the White House was associated with a subsequent decrease in the partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans on perceived threat and self-quarantine behavior by increasing perceived threat and self-quarantine behavior among Republicans. This study contributes to presidential communication research by systematically examining specific message features and linking them to public perceptions and behaviors in the context of a public health crisis. The study also extends the EPPM to a dynamic model, estimating the asymmetric effects and self-continuity of positive (i.e., efficacy) and negative (i.e., threat) information on perceptions and behaviors.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45499514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qinghua Yang, Andrew M. Ledbetter, J. Zhuang, A. Richards
Despite the common use of social media to discuss health issues, little is known about how features of user-generated content influence users’ health outcomes. To address this gap, we longitudinally studied large-scale conversations on the subreddit r/loseit, an online weight loss community, by computationally analyzing the themes and sentiment of users’ posts and examining their associations with users’ self-reported weight loss. Our study identified 28 distinct topics on r/loseit, many of which significantly predicted post score and the number of responsive comments. We also found that the post score was predicted by positive sentiments, whereas the number of comments was predicted by negative sentiments. Further, users’ posts on the topic of goal setting significantly predicted their self-reported weight loss, and such association was amplified when the post score and the number of comments are high. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications for the relationship between interactions in online communities and health outcomes.
{"title":"Theme and sentiment of posts in a weight loss subreddit predict popularity, engagement, and users’ weight loss: a computational approach","authors":"Qinghua Yang, Andrew M. Ledbetter, J. Zhuang, A. Richards","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Despite the common use of social media to discuss health issues, little is known about how features of user-generated content influence users’ health outcomes. To address this gap, we longitudinally studied large-scale conversations on the subreddit r/loseit, an online weight loss community, by computationally analyzing the themes and sentiment of users’ posts and examining their associations with users’ self-reported weight loss. Our study identified 28 distinct topics on r/loseit, many of which significantly predicted post score and the number of responsive comments. We also found that the post score was predicted by positive sentiments, whereas the number of comments was predicted by negative sentiments. Further, users’ posts on the topic of goal setting significantly predicted their self-reported weight loss, and such association was amplified when the post score and the number of comments are high. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications for the relationship between interactions in online communities and health outcomes.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45063447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}