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Communication Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Communication

Metaphors That Communicate Weight-Based Stigma In Political News: A Case Study Of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, J. Anderson, Y. Zhu, J. Zhuang, J.C. Nelson, M.J. Bresnahan, X. Yan Feb 2017

Metaphors That Communicate Weight-Based Stigma In Political News: A Case Study Of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, J. Anderson, Y. Zhu, J. Zhuang, J.C. Nelson, M.J. Bresnahan, X. Yan

Communication Studies Publications

News media use metaphors to describe politics (Landau & Keefer, 2014) and obesity (Barry,Brescoll, Brownell, & Schlesinger, 2009). Weight-based stigma is prevalent in U.S. news media (Heuer,McClure, & Puhl, 2011). Media coverage of politicians’ body size may contain metaphors that stigmatizeweight. Metaphors reflect and shape how people think about important issues like politics or obesity(Landau, Sullivan, & Greenberg, 2009; Landau, Meier, & Keefer, 2010; Landau & Keefer, 2014).
Objective – This study uses stigma communication theory (Smith, 2007) to examine stigmatizing metaphors used in media coverage of a United States politician, and candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, New …


Do College Students Perceive Stigma The Same Way Experts Do? An Experimental Test Of Lay Perceptions Of Body-Size Stigma, Andie Malterud Jan 2017

Do College Students Perceive Stigma The Same Way Experts Do? An Experimental Test Of Lay Perceptions Of Body-Size Stigma, Andie Malterud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Personal experience with weight-based stigma is negatively associated with selfesteem (Myers & Rosen, 1999). This study examined how self-esteem is affected by exposure to weight-based stigma communication that is directed at another person. Using Smith’s (2007a) stigma communication framework, I created a 2 (Stigma Level: high, low) x 2 (Gender of stigmatized person: male, female) x 2 (Body Size of stigmatized person: large, small) posttest-only experiment. Participants’ self-esteem was not impacted after viewing stigmatizing messages directed at another person. This suggests that selfesteem is more stable than some researchers indicate (Wagner, Lüdtke, and Trautwein, 2016). My results suggest that stigma …