Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Can News Literacy Help Reduce Belief In Covid Misinformation?, Seth Ashley, Stephanie Craft, Adam Maksl, Melissa Tully, Emily K. Vraga

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The rapid spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased calls for news literacy to help mitigate endorsement of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and other falsehoods. In two cross-sectional online surveys conducted in October 2020 (N = 1,502) and July 2021 (N = 1,330), this study examines relationships between news literacy, COVID-19 misinformation, conspiratorial thinking, and political orientation in the United States. The results show that individuals with higher levels of news literacy were more likely to reject COVID-19 misinformation and conspiratorial thinking, but also that news literacy matters more for individuals with liberal political views than conservative …

The Grounded Model Of Communication Savoring: Theory Development And Age Cohort Study, Margaret Jane Pitts, Alice Fanari, R. Amanda Cooper, Jian Jiao, Sara Kim

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Savoring contributes to human flourishing by enabling individuals to optimize, enhance, and prolong pleasurable moments. One unique dimension of savoring, communication savoring, refers to the practice of mindfully attending to and elevating pleasurable or meaningful moments that are experienced in language and social interaction. The grounded model of communication savoring identified the types and phenomenological experiences of communication savoring. The purpose of this study is to continue grounded theoretical development of the communication savoring model by adding new cases to build and refine the model and by applying the model to a novel setting. Using a priori and emergent coding, …

My Enemy’S Fear Is My Fun: Print Columnists’ Mixed Reactions To The Frights Of Religious Dystopia, Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel by Margaret Atwood that has won numerous awards for its frightful dystopian imagery. It was recently adapted for series television, an adaptation that has led some to see beyond the confines of the printed word. Columnists for a number of newspapers and magazines have suggested the television series provides insights into contemporary politics and religion. This study examines the way these essayists wrestled with various interpretations of the show. Some writers based their fearful reaction to the show on the Trump administration. Others, though, scoffed at this interpretation and seemed to enjoy doing so. …

Beyond Fact-Checking: 5 Things Schools Should Do To Foster News Literacy, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

When it comes to news literacy, schools often emphasize fact-checking and hoax-spotting. But as I argue in my new book, schools must go deeper with how they teach the subject if they want to help students thrive in a democratic society.

As a new poll shows that Americans struggle to know if the information they find online is true, news literacy remains essential in student education.

Separating fact from fiction is a vital skill for civic engagement, but students can be good fact-checkers only if they have a broader understanding of how news and information are produced and consumed in …

Interdependence In Dating And Cohabiting Relationships: The Role Of Cognitive Interdependence, Commitment, And Marital Intent, Heidi Reeder, Eva Hart

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study uses Interdependence Theory, specifically cognitive interdependence and the investment model of commitment, to further understand the impact of marital intent in cohabiting versus dating relationships. Contrary to the hypothesis posed, results revealed that individuals in cohabiting relationships and dating relationships experience similar levels of interdependence. However, people who report an intent to marry their partner, whether dating or cohabiting, have higher degrees of centrality of relationship, commitment, satisfaction, investments, and a lower level of perceived relationship alternatives than those who did not report marital intent. The results of this study suggest that marital intent may work similarly in …

The Usefulness Of A News Media Literacy Measure In Evaluating A News Literacy Curriculum, Adam Maksl, Stephanie Craft, Seth Ashley, Dean Miller

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The question “What is news literacy?” has been asked and answered in a number of ways, as scholars, teachers, librarians and journalists have sought to address the confusion resulting from the increasingly crowded digital information sphere. Concerns center on how the difficulty people face in differentiating reliable, credible information from unverified and biased information threatens their ability to participate in democratic life. Approaches to training and curriculum aimed at minimizing that difficulty have included standalone courses, modules in existing courses, after-school programs, and online exercises aimed at a variety of populations, from K-12 to college students to adults. Given this …

The Use Of Pathos In Ipda Debate: Justifications And Guidelines, Jeffrey Hobbs, Amy Arellano

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Simply put, pathos is the use of emotional appeals in argument. The reasons for using pathos include putting your audience into a favorable state of mind for accepting your message, to provide motivational warrants for your arguments, to provide a catalyst for action, to create a balance or working relationship between ethos, logos, and pathos, and to ensure that your participation in IPDA debate teaches you real-world argumentation skills. Guidelines for using pathos include carefully choosing your words, telling compelling stories, picking your motivations carefully by determining what is at the top of your judge’s value hierarchy, avoiding the logical …

Speaking As (Significant) Othered, Amy Arellano, Christina L. Ivey

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Amy and Christina sat together in their living room. Amy held her phone, scrolling through notes she had typed a few minutes before their meeting. Christina’s laptop lay open in front of her.

“How do we start this?” Amy asks. “Do we need an abstract?”

Christina smirks, “I don’t know if we need it right now. Even if we do, I never start by writing the abstract.”

“Then how do we start?” Amy asks again, anxiously.

“I think we can begin with what we bring to the table for this conversation about queer autoethnography: We are a queer couple in …

News Media Literacy And Political Engagement: What’S The Connection?, Seth Ashley, Adam Maksl, Stephanie Craft

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Scholars and educators have long hoped that media education is positively related to pro-social goals such as political and civic engagement. With a focus on measuring news media literacy with emphasis on media knowledge, need for cognition and media locus of control, this study surveyed 537 college students and found positive relationships between news media literacy and two political engagement measures: current events knowledge and internal political efficacy. Findings show that news media literacy is not associated with political activity, although some dimensions of news media literacy are associated with lower levels of political trust. Results help to define significant …

Blown Saves: The Fate Of Baseball's Silent Cinema, Marshall G. Most

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past three decades, baseball films — motion pictures that take baseball and baseball players as their primary content — have served as the focus for a number of scholarly studies of the game and its place in American culture. Scholars including Gary Dickerson (1991), Howard Good (1997), Stephen Wood and David Pincus (2003), Marshall Most and Robert Rudd (2006), and others have found the intersection of the national pastime and Hollywood film a rich site for cultural analysis.¹ The game of baseball is said to embody the most fundamental and significant values and virtues of the nation. …

Media Literacy In Action?: What Are We Teaching In Introductory College Media Studies Courses?, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

An introductory media studies course is a staple of post-secondary education. What are instructors teaching in this course, and to what extent are the principles of media literacy education being incorporated into this likely home? This article reports the findings of a small survey of instructors, who describe aspects of their course content and pedagogy. Media literacy appears to provide a basic foundation in most cases, though instructors struggle with structural constraints. Findings suggest that more focus should be placed on teaching the political and economic contexts of media, and that instructors should embrace active learning and creative engagement.

Making The Case For War: A Comparative Analysis Of Cnn And Bbc Coverage Of Colin Powell’S Presentation To The United Nations Security Council, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The normative role of journalism in democracy is well established: democracy depends on news media to facilitate self-government. But theories of the press point to structural limitations that inhibit the democratic ideal. To examine this contradiction, this article offers a comparative analysis of online news coverage by CNN and BBC of Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations Security Council on 5 February 2003. Ethnographic content analysis is used to examine the coverage and to consider each outlet’s broad institutional context. The article concludes that structural limitations are less of a hindrance at the BBC, which is better situated to …

Measuring News Media Literacy, Adam Maksl, Seth Ashley, Stephanie Craft

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

News media literacy refers to the knowledge and motivations needed to identify and engage with journalism. This study measured levels of news media literacy among 500 teenagers using a new scale measure based on Potter’s model of media literacy and adapted to news media specifically. The adapted model posits that news media literate individuals think deeply about media experiences, believe they are in control of media’s influence, and have high levels of basic knowledge about media content, industries and effects. Based on measures developed to assess news media literacy, highly news literate teens were found to be more intrinsically motivated …

Amending Equal Time: Explaining Institutional Change In American Communication Policy, Tim P. Vos, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study explains the history of a 1959 amendment to the 1934 Communications Act through the lens of historical institutionalism. The amendment created broad exemptions for newscasts, documentaries, interviews, and news events, triggering the equal time provision for candidates for public office. While this study offers a variety of new empirical details, the chief goal is explanation based on an examination of historical mechanisms—path dependence, critical junctures, agglomeration, asymmetries of power, reinforcement of expectations, and temporal sequencing—that shaped the policy options leading up to the amendment.

Having The Last Word, But Losing The Culture Wars: Mainstream Press Coverage Of A Canceled Evangelical Benediction., Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines how mainstream news media reported the withdrawal of a popular pastor from the 2013 Obama inaugural ceremony. Louie Giglio was originally chosen for a role in the event but relinquished his position when focus was placed on a sermon he once delivered about homosexuality. Analysis of framing and sourcing of the stories raises serious questions about the role media played in reporting about this skirmish, which is clearly part of the larger culture wars.

A Historical Comparison Of The Social Origins Of Broadcasting Policy, 1896–1920, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using the United States and Great Britain as a comparative case study, this article employs a historical framework to consider the broad array of social, cultural, political, and economic contexts that led to divergent outcomes in the early development of broadcasting policy. This comparative historical analysis reveals the causal chains formed before the 1920s despite a period of post-war contingency. As a policy option, government control was removed in the United States but stayed in place in Britain after the war. This comparative approach can help to explain policy outcomes and inform modern policy debates.

Guest Introduction To The 40th Anniversary Issue: Manifestos, Web Pages, And Continuities In Criticality, Ed Mcluskie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

A decade ago, JCI marked its 30th anniversary with a tracing of mastheads (McLuskie, 2004) once manifesto-like in character, but less so as the journal moved through its first three decades. Now, at its 40th year, the word “Inquiry” in the journal’s title still announces an orientation that aims beyond method. Whether discussing the field and its problems or offering alternative modes of inquiry, JCI has a reputation as a space for fresh academic air (more on the history, importance, and perennial vulnerability of that reputation in a moment).

Seeing And Not Believing: Concern For Visual Culture In The Humanist, Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

A recent study of a magazine distributed by a powerful conservative Christian group determined the organization showed strong concern for “visual culture.” The publication directed its readers on how to understand the seen world. The present study analyzes a periodical of an avowedly secular group to understand how they might manifest similar or different concerns. On the whole, the content of the magazine called The Humanist appears to indicate that visual culture is as important to agnostics as it is to theists.

“Deep Interdisciplinarity” As Critical Pedagogy: Teaching At The Intersections Of Urban Communication And Public Place And Space, Erin Daina Mcclellan, Amanda G. Johnson

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interdisciplinary is a word that has been picked up by institutions of higher education, research foundations, and even popular culture as a way to articulate the need to move beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries within which we categorize knowledge about the world. While disciplinary silos in higher education often reflect structures within which teaching and learning are engaged, we contend that critical pedagogy provides an opportunity for innovative thinking and creativity to emerge via Giroux’s (1981) critical notion of praxis. We discuss how Penny’s (2009) notion of deep interdisciplinarity can serve to guide course development in a way that enables …

Measuring News Media Literacy: How Knowledge And Motivations Combine To Create News-Literate Teens, Stephanie Craft, Adam Maksl, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Developing ways to improve young people’s news media literacy has been the focus of much recent attention among scholars, educators, and news professionals. Common definitions and approaches, however, have been scarce, making it difficult to compare and analyze curriculum effectiveness and research results. This project sought to create a measure of news media literacy that can be used to further our understanding of what constitutes news media literacy and to help validate and improve education and training.

Developing A News Media Literacy Scale, Seth Ashley, Adam Maksl, Stephanie Craft

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using a framework previously applied to other areas of media literacy, this study developed and assessed a measurement scale focused specifically on critical news media literacy. Our scale appears to successfully measure news media literacy as we have conceptualized it based on previous research, demonstrated through assessments of content, construct and predictive validity. Among our college student sample, a separate media system knowledge index also was a significant predictor of knowledge about topics in the news, which suggests the need for a broader framework. Implications for future work in defining and assessing news media literacy are discussed.

Teaching Nuance: The Need For Media Literacy In The Digital Age, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Today’s students are not being equipped with the critical thinking and analysis skills they need to successfully navigate our media-saturated environment. Time spent consuming media, now up to nearly eight hours a day, continues to increase, but students often are poorly versed in analyzing and understanding different media messages and formats. They prefer to see the world of media messages as simple and straightforward, to be taken at face value, according to recent research in the field of media literacy. While students express confidence that media messages have clear primary meanings and sources that can be easily identified, media literacy …

Learning In The Geoscience Classroom: Q-Methodology, Learning Styles, And Individual Preferences, R. Trevor Hall, Ryan R. Jensen, Daniel D. Mclean

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

One of the challenges of traditional student learning, from an instructor's perspective, involves achieving an understanding of how students learn. Q-method is an effective approach to improve understanding of human subjectivity, and, as this research suggests, it is an appropriate tool to assist educators to better understand how students learn. In particular, Q-methodology provides the educator with a robust tool to assess student learning styles. This paper adapted an existing learning style instrument to a Q-method analysis in an introductory geographic information system class. The analysis resulted in three learning groups: lone pragmatist, explorer, and synergistic. These three learning groups …

The Closing Of The Ether: Communication Policy And The Public Interest In The United States And Great Britain, 1921-1926, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

How do media systems come to be structured in different ways? Through a comparative historical institutional analysis of the origins of broadcasting policy in the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century, this study examines reasons private, commercial interests dominated the U.S. system while Britain granted a monopoly to the publicly funded, noncommercial BBC. Policy outcomes at this critical juncture were contingent on different path-dependent notions of the public interest as well as temporal sequencing. Through an analysis of primary documents and secondary literature, this study considers the implications of these different approaches for modern communication policy …

Exploring Message Meaning: A Qualitative Media Literacy Study Of College Freshmen, Seth Ashley, Grace Lyden, Devon Fasbinder

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Critical media literacy demands understanding of the deeper meanings of media messages. Using a grounded theory approach, this study analyzed responses by first-year college students not currently enrolled in formal media literacy education to three types of video messages: an advertisement, a public relations message, and a news report. Students did not exhibit nuanced understandings of message purpose or sender in any of the three types of messages, and had particular difficulty distinguishing public relations and news messages. These results suggest a media literacy curriculum addressing distinctions between media formats, with emphasis on analysis of message intent and point of …

New Media, Old Criticism: Bloggers' Press Criticism And The Journalistic Field, Tim P. Vos, Stephanie Craft, Seth Ashley

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bourdieu's field theory suggests that the rise of the Internet and blogs could generate a shift in the journalistic field – the realm where actors struggle for autonomy – as new agents gain access. This textual analysis of 282 items of media criticism appearing on highly-trafficked blogs reveals an emphasis on traditional journalistic norms, suggesting a stable field. Occasional criticisms of the practicability of traditional norms and calls for greater transparency, however, may suggest an emerging paradigm shift.

Rhetoricizing The Urban: Finding A Living Public In Public Plaza, Erin Daina Mcclellan

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The city is a complex and nuanced collection of symbols, actions, interactions, and meanings rife for analysis at any given moment. Rhetorical scholarship adds unique insights into how such meanings are constructed, interpreted, and enacted. Much of the foundational research in the field of communication traces back to McGee's¹ disciplinary transition "from rhetorical materialism to rhetoric's materiality."² As Biesecker and Lucaites point out, this critical discussion has led to understanding rhetorical objects as on a "continuum of rhetorical influence that extend from the most concrete incidence of microrhetorical experience to increasingly abstract socio- and macro-rhetorical experiences".³ It …

As Predicted: Fact And Improbability In News Coverage Of Astrology, Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines a recent eruption of news about astrology. For a theoretical lens, it uses contemporary research on how traditional news values might allow what some have labeled "mystical" ideas to maintain public acceptance in spite of scientific evidence against them. As a contrast to that approach, a different perspective by Neil Postman is provided, an approach that suggests the dominant media of our culture will have as much impact as will professional practice in determining the nature of our messages. In investigating a group of news stories that questioned the validity of key astrological principles, the current study …

Bombing At The Box Office: Reviewers’ Responses To Agnosticism In Bill Maher’S Religulous, Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines reviewers' reactions to Bill Maher’s documentary film Religulous as a way of beginning a discussion of media and religious hegemony. Hegemony theory posits that dominant ideology typically trumps contesting views, even when the latter do manage to leak through the system. Given this, one might expect that film reviewers serve as a second line of defense for entrenched worldviews. Here, however, a thematic analysis of reviews from major national newspapers reveals that critics provided only slight support to traditional religious views Maher challenges in his filmic plea for agnosticism.

Communecation: A Rhizomatic Tale Of Participatory Technology, Postcoloniality And Professional Community, Kirsten J. Broadfoot, Debashish Munshi, Natalie Nelson-Marsh

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explores our experiences in creating and participating with(in) a virtual conference organized as an experimental virtual network. These experiences demonstrate how physically co-located and virtual conferencing practices acting in tandem provide a greater opportunity for the inclusion of both diverse perspectives and participants in professional community. Using insights from postcolonial theory, we examine how the architecture of participation found in the technologies of Web 2.0 accentuates the potential for reclaiming some diversity of perspective and participation, facilitating a form of molecular community through conferencing practices. Finally, we provide theoretical and empirical insights and reflections on the social dynamics …