Communication Commons^™

Portrayals Of Gender And Race In Instagram Advertising: An Exploratory Content Analysis, Taylor Moore

Honors College Theses

Race and gender stereotyping is a longstanding problem in the world of advertising. This research utilized content and statistical analysis to answer three questions regarding race and gender stereotyping in Instagram advertising: (1) what portrayals are being shown? (2) how are these portrayals being shown? And (3) are diverse advertisements reinforcing or challenging stereotypes? Tweny advertisements were chosen off Instagram to analyze. Through an analysis of literature on the topic, a code book defining race, person of color, sex, gender, and gender expression was created. Using these variables and classifying the ads as a stereotype/counterstereotype/neutral, allowed for the creation of …

Ability Of Detecting And Willingness To Share Fake News, K. Peren Arin, Deni Mazrekaj, Marcel Thum

All Works

By conducting large-scale surveys in Germany and the United Kingdom, we investigate the individual-level determinants of the ability to detect fake news and the inclination to share it. We distinguish between deliberate and accidental sharing of fake news. We document that accidental sharing is much more common than deliberate sharing. Furthermore, our results indicate that older, male, high-income, and politically left-leaning respondents better detect fake news. We also find that accidental sharing decreases with age and is more prevalent among right-leaning respondents. Deliberate sharing of fake news is more prevalent among younger respondents in the United Kingdom. Finally, our results …

Navigating Cultural Identity In The Classroom, Caroline V. Phillips

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

As of 2016, ~25% of children in the United States are the children of immigrants (Nibbs & Brettell). Many of these youths struggle with the feeling that they belong neither to their parents’ cultural community nor to the locality in which they have been raised (Brockett, 2018). Furthermore, little academic research exists wherein these students share their experiences and engage in the processes of meaning making. This knowledge is essential for multicultural scholars and also for the (overwhelmingly white) population of K-6 teachers who help these youth construct personal identities. This project accomplishes the following:

1. I interview second-generation immigrants …

All Good Women Are Mothers: Exploring Gender Binaries In How I Met Your Mother, Jessica Marinho

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Television is thought to be a form of entertainment through its many genres from comedy to drama, however, it is more than a relaxing pastime. Television series construct messages that influence audiences to accept specific behaviors. In this thesis, I analyzed the portrayal of the two main female characters in the popular television series How I Met Your Mother (2005-2009) and I argued how their depiction served to represent childless women as unwomanly and mothers as the ideal woman.

Show Or Tell? A Systematic Review Of Media And Information Literacy Measurements, Daniel Schofield, Reijo Petter Kupiainen, Vegard Marinius Frantzen, Anette Novak

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Media and information literacy (MIL) is a key concept in several research fields and measuring the levels of MIL is considered valuable for policy stakeholders. However, the concept is complex, and few systematic reviews of research on measuring MIL levels have been conducted. This article draws on a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies measuring MIL between 2000 and 2021. Out of a total of 4008 publications, 236 were included in the analysis, and 87 were analysed in depth. A key finding was that several studies applied broad understandings of MIL, often based on initiatives by international organisations such as UNESCO, …

Online Media Literacy Intervention In Indonesia Reduces Misinformation Sharing Intention, Trenton Ford, Michael Yankoski, Matthew Facciani, Tim Weninger

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Media literacy is widely viewed as an important tool in the fight against the spread of misinformation online. However, efforts to boost media literacy have primarily focused on Western-media and Western-oriented social media platforms, which are substantively different from the media and platforms used widely in the Global South. In the present work, we focus on the media ecosystem of Indonesia and report the results of an online media literacy intervention consisting of short-videos that were targeted specifically to social media users in Indonesia (N= 656). We found that participants in our media literacy intervention were 64% more …

Media Literacy And Covid-19 Communication: Work And Home Sphere Differences, Donnalyn Pompper, Tugce Ertem-Eray

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As a learning process wherein we ask questions to enhance knowledge, media literacy offers a powerful lens for examining how people practice communication across diverse applied contexts such as professional communicators shaping messages about COVID-19. Borrowing a page from Renee Hobbs’ (1998, 1999, 2010, 2011, 2021) media literacy education research, we sought to compare/contrast media content creators’ (journalism, advertising, public relations, marketing communication) information-seeking behaviors during the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic for both their paid work and unpaid volunteer work, as well as for their own and family edification. Blending the media literacy lens with social construction theory (Berger & Luckmann, …

Improving Indonesian Seniors’ Digital Resilience And Quality Of Life Through The Digital Academy For Seniors Program, Mite Setiansah, Nuryanti Nuryanti, Edi Santoso, Agus Ganjar Runtiko, Wiwik Novianti

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Digital literacy education is essential for everyone, including seniors to sustain their quality of life. The Digital Academy for Seniors aims to instill digital skills among seniors through a non-formal learning program. This qualitative research aimed to provide a comprehensive description of how the program can develop digital resilience and improve the quality of life of seniors. This study concluded that the program can improve the knowledge and attitudes of seniors in using digital media safely. Both of these are important assets for seniors to develop their digital resilience so that they can take advantage of digital media to support …

Social Media Literacy: Sociocultural Instruction And Community College Students, Angela Kohnen, Christine Wusylko, Max Sommer

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Although literacy researchers have paid increasing attention to online information literacy, curricula are usually centered around webpages rather than social media, which is the more popular media platform for young adults. We developed and introduced a social media literacy curriculum to a summer bridge program for marginalized community college students. Our instruction was designed to center and build on students’ lived experiences, and we found that students purposes for using social media and their knowledge of credible sources was not aligned with traditional approaches to information literacy. Students perceived social media as a tool for fun and connectivity and their …

Filipino Students’ Competency In Evaluating Digital Media Content Credibility: ‘Beginning’ To ‘Emerging’ Levels, Margarita Felipe Fajardo

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study investigates Filipino students’ reasoning competency levels in evaluating the credibility of digital media content and whether significant statistical differences exist in their competency by education status, sex, age group, Internet use, and geographical location. Four hundred twenty-four students representing the senior high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels responded to four modified versions of the Stanford History Education Group’s civic online reasoning tasks. The study found that most students have ‘beginning’ competency levels in author-checking, fact-checking, and bias-checking but ‘emerging’ competency levels for image-checking. Younger students and those who spend more hours online have higher mean competency levels for …

Elementary School Students’ Information Literacy: Instructional Design And Evaluation Of A Pilot Training Focused On Misinformation, Benedikt Artmann, Christian Scheibenzuber, Nicolae Nistor

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Online news literacy training has been so far insufficiently conducted and evaluated, and even less so with younger news consumers. Against the backdrop of online news cognitive processing, interventions against misinformation, and inquiry-based learning, we designed, conducted, and evaluated a pilot online news literacy training with 36 elementary school students from Germany. In a causal comparison, quantitative data from N = 29 students attest high participant acceptance and substantial effects of the inquiry-based training on participants’ ability to correctly assess online news credibility, and on the corresponding cognitive processing route, moving this from intuitive to analytic processing. Despite the small …

Parental Education In Media Literacy, Social Media And Internet Safety For Children In Bosnia And Herzegovina, Dragana Trninić, Anđela Kuprešanin Vukelić, Jovana Mlinarević

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Parents have a great responsibility to protect their children while online, and to make sure that they are using digital technologies in a safe manner; at the same time, parents are not sufficiently educated and are unfamiliar with all regulatory mechanisms and possibilities of controlling and protecting their children online. Children need some help to take advantage of all positive aspects of digital trends and to protect themselves from those which are potentially negative. The international framework in the legal sense, which is in charge of standardizing the protection of the interests and rights of children on the Internet, is …

Lived Experiences Of Unequal Englishes Of Filipino Domestic Workers In Hong Kong, Nicanor L. Guinto Phd

International Journal for Research in Education

In this paper, I investigate the lived experiences with English of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong from roughly 30 hours of recorded ethnographic interviews and fieldwork with 28 key participants talking about language in relation to their living and working experiences. Employing linguistic ethnographic approaches to analysis, I describe recurring accounts reflecting the tension between doing being an English-proficient and an English-deficient other: a tension that emanates from enabling and constraining sociolinguistic conditions in the workplace and the host society, and informed by participants’ experiences and education from their home country. I demonstrate how participants seem to discursively invoke …

Twitter Trends During The 82nd Session Of The Nevada Legislature, 2023, Annie Vong, Zachary Billot, Mary Blankenship, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Elections & Governance

This fact sheet examines Twitter trends during the 82nd Session of the Nevada Legislature (2023). Data are comprised of tweets posted on Twitter by users located in Nevada addressing the most discussed topics during the session.

Parents’ Perceptions Of The Philly Goat Project’S All Abilities Ramble: A Qualitative Study Of Animal-Assisted Intervention For Intellectual And Developmental Disorders, Patricia Flaherty-Fischette, Jenée Lee, Yvonne D'Uva-Howard, Elizabeth P. Cramer, Karen Krivit, Sarah Meehan

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are a growing population. Considering the wide diversity in IDD and the financial burden of traditional treatment modalities, Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI) has emerged as an innovative and non-traditional treatment for individuals with a range of disabilities, including individuals with IDD. To the authors’ knowledge, the present study was one of the first to explore a goat-assisted therapy experience for children with IDD. This study explored the experiences of 23 children with the All Abilities RAMble – a goat-assisted therapeutic activity offered by the Philly Goat Project (PGP). Key themes in our study included …

Who Is (Communicatively More) Responsible Behind The Wheel? Applying The Theory Of Communicative Responsibility To Tam In The Context Of Using Navigation Technology, Sungbin Youk, Hee Sun Park

Human-Machine Communication

By examining how perceived usefulness and ease of use relate to the user’s perception (i.e., communicative responsibility), the communicative behavior of the navigation system (i.e., the landmarks used to give directions), and the context of driving (i.e., familiarity of the driving location), this study applies the theory of communicative responsibility to the technology acceptance model to better understand why users are more likely to adopt certain navigation technologies while driving. We hypothesized that users’ perceived symmetry in communicative responsibility independently and interactively (with communicative behavior of the navigation system and the driving situation) affects perceived ease of use and usefulness …

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 6

Human-Machine Communication

his is the complete volume of HMC Volume 6.

Boundary Regulation Processes And Privacy Concerns With (Non-)Use Of Voice-Based Assistants, Jessica Vitak, Priya C. Kumar, Yuting Liao, Michael Zimmer

Human-Machine Communication

An exemplar of human-machine communication, voice-based assistants (VBAs) embedded in smartphones and smart speakers simplify everyday tasks while collecting significant data about users and their environment. In recent years, devices using VBAs have continued to add new features and collect more data—in potentially invasive ways. Using Communication Privacy Management theory as a guiding framework, we analyze data from 11 focus groups with 65 US adult VBA users and nonusers. Findings highlight differences in attitudes and concerns toward VBAs broadly and provide insights into how attitudes are influenced by device features. We conclude with considerations for how to address boundary regulation …

Valenced Media Effects On Robot-Related Attitudes And Mental Models: A Parasocial Contact Approach, Jan-Philipp Stein, Jaime Banks

Human-Machine Communication

Despite rapid advancements in robotics, most people still only come into contact with robots via mass media. Consequently, robot-related attitudes are often discussed as the result of habituation and cultivation processes, as they unfold during repeated media exposure. In this paper, we introduce parasocial contact theory to this line of research— arguing that it better acknowledges interpersonal and intergroup dynamics found in modern human–robot interactions. Moreover, conceptualizing mediated robot encounters as parasocial contact integrates both qualitative and quantitative aspects into one comprehensive approach. A multi-method experiment offers empirical support for our arguments: Although many elements of participants’ beliefs and attitudes …

Triggered By Socialbots: Communicative Anthropomorphization Of Bots In Online Conversations, Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Kaisa Laitinen, Minna Koivula, Tanja Sihvonen

Human-Machine Communication

This article examines communicative anthropomorphization, that is, assigning of humanlike features, of socialbots in communication between humans and bots. Situated in the field of human-machine communication, the article asks how socialbots are devised as anthropomorphized communication companions and explores the ways in which human users anthropomorphize bots through communication. Through an analysis of two datasets of bots interacting with humans on social media, we find that bots are communicatively anthropomorphized by directly addressing them, assigning agency to them, drawing parallels between humans and bots, and assigning emotions and opinions to bots. We suggest that socialbots inherently have anthropomorphized characteristics and …