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Mounting uncertainties regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the popularity of social media created fertile grounds for conspiracy theories to flourish, leading to a global "infodemic." We examine information sources used to support five popular COVID-19-related conspiracy theories on Twitter to identify (1) their primary building blocks, (2) similarities and dissimilarities across COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and (3) the relationship between type of message content and content distribution. Findings show that statements of belief and of malicious purpose were most popular, followed by conspirators, authentication, and secretive actions. However, only malicious purposes and secretive actions messages successfully predicted higher distribution of content, while, for instance, content authentication showed a negative relation. Furthermore, the type of conspiracy theories matters. Mega-theories, such as Agenda 21 and QAnon, incorporated less statements of Belief. COVID-19 vaccine–related theories focused more on authentication, while QAnon highlighted the conspirators behind the pandemic. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misinformation and substance use both increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined potential links between misinformation beliefs and substance use among adults, along with the potential for media literacy to mitigate misinformation's influences on problematic use of widely available substances of misuse. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test a theoretical model of media literacy's effects on substance use, fully mediated by disinformation beliefs, with a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults recruited through a Qualtrics panel of adults using census-based quotas for geographic region, population density, ethnic diversity and gender (N = 1264). The sample was 51.5% male (N = 651); 46.7% female (N = 591); 1.1% nonbinary (N = 13); and 0.7% (N = 9) not reporting. Media literacy for source of news positively associated with media literacy for content of news (b = 0.814, p < 0.001). Media literacy for content of news then positively associated with science media literacy (b = 0.192, p < 0.001). Science media literacy then negatively associated with disinformation beliefs (b = −0.586, p < 0.001), and COVID-19 disinformation beliefs associated with an increase in substance use (b = 0.466, p < 0.001). Disinformation beliefs also associated with alcohol and sleep medication co-use (odds = 1.956, p < 0.05). Results demonstrate media literacy's value for substance misuse prevention and effective public health messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Purpose: The main purpose of the study is to understand the factors that facilitate correction behavior among individuals. In this study the authors examine the impact of self-perceived media literacy (SPML) and reflection on participants' correction behavior. Design/methodology/approach: Methods: Data for the study were collected from Amazon's MTurk using an online survey. Data were collected after a certificate of exemption was received by the Institutional Review Board in a research university in the United States (US) Qualtrics software was used to collect data. The total number of participants was 797. Findings: Findings: The findings show that although both SPML and reflection are positively associated with rumor refutation, higher SPML alone is not enough. Reflective judgment is critical for individuals to take part in this behavior online, such that individuals with higher reflective judgment indicated that they refute rumors online, irrespective of their SPML score. Originality/value: Originality: The authors tested the relationship of multiple variables with participants correction behavior. Although research shows the importance of social correction, there is not much knowledge about what facilitates actual misinformation correction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the framing strategies and language features of U.S. news coverage surrounding sexual violence and gender issues across the ideological media spectrum at two pivotal phases of the #MeToo movement: (1) during its initial rise as a hashtag-driven social movement in 2017 and (2) during the Kavanaugh nomination and confirmation in 2018. Using structural topic modeling, community detection, and feature extraction, we reveal a heightened employment of political framing during the Kavanaugh accusations. Topical prevalence and language use in news treatment also showed clear partisan differences, consistent with theories of moral foundation and issue ownership. Implications for research on news coverage of gender rights and framing of social movements are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 election and its aftermath present an opportunity to understand how audiences' changing news consumption patterns within an expanded, digitized, and polarized media environment shape electoral judgments. This paper introduces measures that capture individuals' partisan slant, partisan extremity, and overall diversity of news media use to understand how people interact with the contemporary news ecology. The measures combine self-reported media use with the partisan slant of news outlets along the ideological spectrum. Using these measures, we analyze a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the 2020 US election to investigate how slant, diversity, and extremity are related to post-election beliefs, including public confidence in the election and the acceptance of fraud claims. Our findings show that Republicans have more insulated news use behaviors in terms of slant and diversity. The analysis also reveals that the slant of people's news use is associated with post-election fraud beliefs, with right-wing news consumers more likely to believe such claims. However, a diverse news consumption style can moderate misinformation beliefs. Panel analysis points to the role of extreme-right news use in decreasing confidence in the legitimacy of the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is enough scientific evidence to show the benefits and safety of vaccines, vaccine rates are low, while misperceptions about vaccines are on the rise. The main purposes of the current study are to 1) examine the effects of narrative vs. statistical messages on vaccine intention, 2) test the mediating role of perceived expectancies, and 3) examine the moderating roles of perceived susceptibility and misperceptions on vaccine intention. Data were collected with an online experiment through Amazon Mturk. The online experiment was conducted via Qualtrics once the study was considered exempt by the Institutional Research Board of a large University in the U.S. A total of 300 participants aged 18 and above completed the survey. Findings show that perceived expectancies mediate the relationship between message manipulation and vaccine intention. Our findings also show a three-way interaction which indicates that among individuals with high misperceptions, statistical messages are more persuasive for individuals with high perceived susceptibility, while narrative messages are more influential for individuals with low perceived susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond a consciousness-raising hashtag, #MeToo has become a transnational movement, crossing the borders of many societies. However, outsized attention has been paid to the manifestations of #MeToo in the US and on Twitter when the reach of this movement was not restricted to a single country, language, or platform. Drawing from the concept of hybridization, we seek to understand how the uses of #MeToo are contextualized across cultures, languages, and social media platforms. By establishing a macroscopic computational approach, we examine the global diffusion of #MeToo as a hybrid communicative process across different language groups (English, Spanish, and Korean) and social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). Through time-series analysis and comparative descriptions of language groups and platforms, we demonstrate how discourse flows, language characteristics, and actors differ across cultural and platform contexts and how public discourse of #MeToo was reappropriated and re-signified in different parts of the world to localize connective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political polarization surrounding the COVID-19 health crisis has been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic. We combine prior research on motivated reasoning, selective exposure, and news framing to understand the association between partisan media use and social distancing behavior related to COVID-19. To do so, we collected media content data and national survey data during the onset of the pandemic. We employed structural topic modeling (STM), dependency parsing, word co-occurrence, and manual coding to examine the media coverage. Next, we analyzed survey data collected with a Qualtrics panel from a sample of U.S. residents for factors explaining social distancing behaviors. Results reveal coverage from the right leaning outlets downplayed the virus and highlighted the consequences of lockdowns on the economy. Our survey findings show that even after accounting for a range of demographic, political orientation, and COVID-19 awareness variables, conservative media use was linked, although modestly, with a lower likelihood of social distancing behavior. Our findings echo past research on media framing of pandemics and their association with public attitudes and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 6 million people have died due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to slow down the spread of COVID-19, health authorities have created numerous guidelines. In the current study, we use survey data from the U.S. and social cognitive theory (SCT) to examine the associations among self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and willingness to perform recommended COVID-19 related health behavior. Considering the misinformation-filled information ecology during the pandemic, we also examine the moderating role of misperceptions in these relationships. Our findings show that in general the SCT hypotheses hold for COVID-19 related behavior willingness. The interaction effects with COVID-19 misperceptions show that self-efficacy is not enough to understand people's health behavior. Higher outcome expectancies are important and may be able to overcome even if people held high misperceptions. Our findings have direct implications for communication theory and for health organizations in the contemporary information ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the ways to overcome the sheer devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic is to get vaccinated. However, vaccine hesitancy could be a significant barrier. The main purposes of the current study are to examine the impact of four types of theory-driven messages on COVID-19 vaccination intention and to understand the moderating role of partisan media use and vaccination attitudes. The study used a between-subject randomized online experiment with four conditions. The manipulation messages were presented as screenshots from the CDC's Facebook page. The total number of participants were 387 (female 43%, mean age 37 years). The participants were from the U.S. and older than 18 years. The findings show that loss vs. gain message frames did not have any impact on COVID-19 vaccine intention. The moderating effects of conservative media and attitudes show that in general, those who consumed lower conservative media and held positive attitudes were higher on vaccine intention, and individual vs. collective frames did not have a strong impact. However, among those participants who scored high on conservative media use, and held negative vaccination attitudes, the individual frame had a higher impact on vaccine intention. The current study experimentally tested the intertwined relationships among message frames, partisan media use, and attitudes on vaccine intention. These relationships are critical considering the political nature of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the sheer devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to a successful implementation of the vaccine. We apply two moderators to examine the associations of efficacy and expectancies with COVID-19 vaccine intention. Specifically, we use national survey data collected online in 2020 (N = 1264) and a moderated moderated mediation PROCESS model to examine 1) the associations between self-efficacy about COVID-19 and vaccine intention mediated by positive outcome expectancies and 2) moderating roles of individual responsibility and partisan media use. The findings show that the path from efficacy to expectancies is moderated by individual responsibility, while the path from expectancies to vaccine intention is moderated by liberal media use. Our findings support the strategic application of SCT to emphasize the role of personal responsibility in campaigns to encourage vaccination for the COVID-19 virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: One of the most prolific areas of misinformation research is examining corrective strategies in messaging. The main purposes of the current study are to examine the effects of (1) partisan media (2) credibility perceptions and emotional reactions and (3) theory driven corrective messages on people's misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing behaviors. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a randomized experimental design to test the hypotheses. The data were collected via the survey firm Lucid. The number of participants was 485. The study was conducted using Qualtrics after the research project was exempt by the Institutional Research Board of a large University in the US. The authors conducted an online experiment with four conditions, narrative versus statistics and individual versus collective. The manipulation messages were constructed as screenshots from Facebook. Findings: The findings of this study show that higher exposure to liberal media was associated with lower misperceptions, whereas higher credibility perceptions of and positive reactions toward the misinformation post and negative emotions toward the correction comment were associated with higher misperceptions. Moreover, the findings showed that participants in the narrative and collective-frame condition had the lowest misperceptions. Originality/value: The authors tested theory driven misinformation corrective messages to understand the impact of these messages and multiple related variables on misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing. This study contributes to the existing misinformation correction literature by investigating the explanatory power of the two well-established media effects theories on misinformation correction messaging and by identifying essential individual characteristics that should be considered when evaluating how misperceptions about the COVID-19 crisis works and gets reduced. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0600 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this social semiotic analysis, we examined visuals of Rohingya refugees in two U.S. newspapers: The New York Times and The Washington Post. We identified prominent tropes and themes exemplifying those tropes. Visuals connoted refugee vulnerability and subscribed to gender stereotypes. Media also leaned on familiar themes to translate "distant suffering." Our study has addressed the urgent need to bridge academic/critical work on journalism and journalistic practice in the field. Our hope is that media practitioners will take steps to delink refugees from negative connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on populist attitudes has bloomed in recent years, especially among political science and communication scholars. While this trend is undoubtedly positive to unravel what the causes and consequences of individuals' populism are, rapid accumulation of knowledge is also challenging, as numerous articles are published simultaneously using diverse theoretical, methodological, and data strategies. This systematic literature review considers all articles stored in the Web of Science and published in English that refer to populist attitudes, without time restrictions (N = 138). After a detailed reading of all articles, we focus on the most relevant findings considering populist attitudes both as dependent and independent variables. Main areas of consensus, disagreements, and guidelines for future research are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BIPOC scholars have criticized that feminism and feminist activism have often failed to include race, class, and intersectional identities in the feminist agenda. Using theoretical concepts from framing, rhetoric, and cross-platform activism, we examine (a) the discourse in social media posts around white feminism and (b) the platform differences of this content across five different social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube. The methodology we use is a combination of computational text analysis approaches and content analysis. Our study highlights the voice of those who felt marginalized by the feminist movement including the uprising of #MeToo. We find pockets of conversations on topics such as experiences of People of Color or Women of Color; critique of white feminism, experiences of LGBTQ+ communities, and Black experiences. These posts predominantly used techniques to persuade the audience with reason, facts, and logic. The most common framing technique used was acknowledgment. Moreover, our findings show multiple differences across the five social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fake information about COVID-19 continues to circulate widely, including false causes and cures. The current study examined the (a) relationship between information gathering sources and misperceptions; (b) association between literacy variables and misperceptions; and (c) the moderating role of political ideology on these relationships. Conservative ideology, younger age, conservative media use, information gathering from social media, and information gathering from Donald Trump were positively associated with COVID-19 misperceptions. Meanwhile, information gathering from local media, CDC, and scientists was negatively related to COVID-19 misperceptions. Interaction models showed critical conditional patterns with political ideology. For example, liberals with higher media literacy for content held lower COVID-19 misperceptions, but this did not hold true for conservatives. The results revealed a need to facilitate more exposure to alternative viewpoints to counteract the echo chamber of misinformation that conservatives appear to trust regardless of self-reported media literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental role of political discussions in democracy has been frequently highlighted by quantitative and qualitative literature at the intersection of political communication and media effects. Most research has revolved around whether, and if so under what conditions, social media platforms constitute public spaces where democracy can be nurtured and promoted. Building on this literature and underscoring the importance of individuals' self-effects theories, this qualitative study, based on 42 in-depth interviews, clarifies how social media users navigate political discussions and their ulterior affective and cognitive processes, introducing the notion of political discussion regret. Specifically, this concept fundamentally emphasizes the sterility of partaking in political discussions as the main motivation for users' cognitive lamentation, which indirectly cancels the presumed muscle of social media as the sphere of public and private political discussion and deliberations. Implications of the study's findings and main theoretical consequences for the political discussion literature are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As privacy concern is proven to be a pivotal thought that determines online self-disclosure, the current study examined the simultaneous influence of the antecedents of privacy concern. Specifically, this study focused on the nature of information (i.e., personal involvement) and the diversity of recipients (i.e., audience representation) in influencing individuals' cognitive processes pertinent to privacy concerns on Facebook. We conducted an experiment and a total of 241 young adults participated in the study. The results suggested that information that was highly involved with oneself would trigger extended thought elaboration related to privacy. However, surprisingly, influence from audience representation in the network was revealed to be minimal. The study underscores the self-serving purpose of privacy concern online, such that users would primarily focus on considerations surrounding themselves. The results of the current study highlight the importance of self-concerns when users are making sense of their decisions pertinent to self-disclosure on SNSs. Future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study has three main purposes: (1) to investigate the association between social media news use and misperceptions about COVID-19; (2) to explore the mediating role of homogeneous online discussion; (3) and to understand whether the extent to which one perceives themselves as media-literate could moderate the relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted an online survey and collected data through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 797 participants aged 18 and above completed the survey. The average age of the respondents is 38.40 years (SD = 12.31), and 41.2% were female. In terms of party identification, 30.8% were reported leaning toward Republicans; 53.7% leaned toward Democrats, and 15.4% were reported neutral. Findings: Results from a moderated mediation model show that social media news use is positively associated with misperceptions about the COVID-19. Moreover, homogeneous online discussion was a significant mediator of the relationship between social media news use and misperceptions about COVID-19. Further, self-perceived media literacy (SPML) significantly moderated the main and indirect effects between social media news use and COVID-19 misperceptions, such that the associations became weaker among those with higher SPML. Originality/value: Findings provide insights into the significance of online information sources, discussion network heterogeneity and media literacy education. Although there have been many studies on misinformation, prior research has not examined these relationships, which may help provide solutions to cope with misinformation. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2021-0305 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media platforms that are full of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic can have an adverse impact on young adults. Young adults are going through critical changes in their lives due to the pandemic including educational challenges, uncertainties in employment, changes in routines, and loss of security and safety. Yet another challenge during this time is the uncertainty and the exposure to massive amount of misinformation. The pandemic has had a global impact on people of all ages, including young adults, who are the primary interest for the current study. We conducted 30 in-depth interviews with young adults to understand their misperceptions about COVID-19, how young adults are coping with the COVID-19 'infodemic', and young adults' recommendations for combatting this challenge. Findings show majority of participants are stressed about the abundance of misinformation available about the pandemic. Additionally, young adults provide important ways to combat misinformation about COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a wide variety of scientific evidence that demonstrates the benefits of vaccination on a multitude of diseases, vaccination rates remain low while misperceptions about vaccines are on the rise. The primary objective of the present study is to examine the role of doctor–patient communication and vaccination. We test the impact of doctor–patient communication on trust in doctors' vaccine recommendations as a mediator, to understand the mechanisms leading to positive vaccination attitudes, and ultimately leading to actual H1N1 vaccination behavior. We use data from a nationally representative U.S. sample from one of the Multimedia Audience Research Systems (MARS) data sets collected by Kantar Media. Our results demonstrate the crucial role of doctor–patient communication in building patients' trust in doctors, which in turn positively impact vaccination attitudes and H1N1 vaccination behavior. Unlike other preventive health measures, getting vaccines after a pandemic is a critical decision because these vaccines are previously unknown. Our finding implies that verified communication from the physician's office may be one of the effective strategies during or after a pandemic. Our findings have implications for public health organizations to incorporate effective vaccination communication and could have critical implications for the COVID-19 vaccination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The communication mediation model asserts that the effects of news use on political participation are mostly indirect, mediated through discussion. Recent research has shown that this mediation process is stronger in countries where freedom of the press and expression are also greater. Relying on data collected during election cycles in seventeen countries between 2013 and 2018, we examine how additional country-level factors, including political freedom and digital infrastructure, moderate the indirect relationship between news use and political participation via political talk. Results provide evidence that these factors condition both outcomes, but in different ways. For protest, two of three country-level indices moderate individual-level variation in the pathway between political talk and protest. For voting, two of three country-level indices moderate aggregate-level variation in the pathway between news use and political talk. Results are discussed in light of their implications for the communication mediation model and comparative political communication research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: For many, the sole source for news content is social media, where passionate opinions are posted at an alarming speed. These opinions can cross the line from differing opinions shared in a public forum onto uncivil dialogue and even hate speech. Such online discourse threatens democratic values and creates a hostile environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine such incivility using the case of four congresswomen known as "The Squad". Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a content analysis examining 20,563 replies to tweets sent by the four congresswomen. The social media data analysis and library, Brandwatch, was used to aggregate tweets posted by the four representatives, as well as all the replies posted to these tweets. The replies were coded to understand the types of incivility against each of the four congresswomen, whether the topics of a tweet can predict the types of incivility received in response, and the impact of Trump's tweet against the congresswomen. Findings: The study findings show that the majority of replies contained uncivil language. The most common types of incivility are related to name-calling, stereotypes, threats to individual rights and vulgarity. Tweets about immigration and the Muslim ban, as well as tweets with negative tones received more replies. Following Donald Trump's Twitter attack on the representatives, replies to the congresswomen's tweets almost doubled. Mainly two types of incivility were observed to have increased significantly – the use of stereotypes and threats to individual rights. Originality/value: The study examines incivility on Twitter against four black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) congresswomen as an exploratory case to observe and understand the growing phenomenon of uncivil language which feeds a polarized society and threatens democratic values. "The Squad" is more than an isosteric case study. It captures key changes in American politics. In the context of democratic discourse, the attack by the former president on these congresswomen and the response on social media address key issues of gender, religion and race in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed many communication challenges for public health authorities, especially communicating the safety, effectiveness, and importance of the COVID-19 vaccine. This study takes an integrative approach that includes a content analysis of COVID-19 vaccine-related messages from the CDC Facebook page and an experimental test of the effectiveness of the same types of vaccine-related messages on participants' attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine. Our findings from the content analysis show that gain-frame was used significantly more than loss-frame, and statistical evidence was more prevalent than narrative evidence in the CDC's COVID-19 vaccine-related messaging. Results from the experiment indicated that loss-framed, and messages with statistical evidence, may be more successful in promoting positive attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that scientific evidence has repeatedly affirmed the safety of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, unconfirmed stories on social media that allege the vaccine is harmful has led to vaccination refusal, which drastically hampers immunization rates. Although social media makes it easy for the spread of misinformation, these platforms are also suitable for misinformation correction. The current study employs an experimental design to 1) test theory-based correction messages using loss- vs. gain-frames, to combat misinformation online in the context of Facebook, 2) extend the effects of correction messages from misperceptions to behavioral intentions, and 3) examine the conditional effects of reflection which is one of the most important variables for information processing. Our findings demonstrated that individuals with low reflection had lower misperceptions about the vaccine when exposed to loss-framed messages. However, exposure to loss- or gain-framed messages did not seem to differ the misperceptions for individuals with high reflection. Additionally, our findings showed that loss-framing elicited lower information seeking intention among individuals with low reflection. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media depictions of refugees play a significant role in determining public attitudes toward policies and dispensation of aid. Given this centrality, the study analyzes prominent visual frames of the Rohingya refugee crisis in newspapers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the United States, and Canada. We also examine the frames qualitatively. Findings show that overall coverage tended to focus on negative aspects by highlighting refugees' vast numbers, vulnerability, gendered stereotypes, and dependence on Western benevolence. Results show cross-cultural appeal of frames such as "Exodus" and "mother and child," both of which have roots in the Biblical tradition. Even though visuals came from different sources, there were not many differences among the newspapers. This suggests the role of standardized journalistic routines across multiple organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines prominent news frames, sources, and refugee characteristics present in coverage of the under-reported Rohingya refugee crisis across newspapers from four nations. Findings show victim, thematic, and administrative frames were most commonly used. Politicians, international organizations, and NGOs were dominant sources, while nationality, age, and gender were frequently used refugee characteristics. Findings suggest positive practices that journalists can incorporate while reporting refugee crises. These include more frequent use of thematic and personalized frames that will help provide holistic background to crises and lead to nuanced portrayals of refugee subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Garnering coverage across the political spectrum is a major challenge for burgeoning social movements. The #MeToo movement stands out due to the volume of attention it generated. Yet, it is unclear how news media across the partisan spectrum covered the movement using different sexual violence language markers, latent topic, and word choices and which accusations and events drove media attention. To examine this, we used Media Cloud to extract 17,877 news articles from nine media outlets across the political spectrum, containing specific n-grams or co-occurrences of (1) "metoo," (2) "sexual misconduct," (3) "sexual harassment," and (4) "sexual assault" from October 2017 through February 2018. The analyses first examined whether language and attention differed across the ideological news ecology and then turned to time-series modeling of these discourses to examine what drove press coverage and structural topic modeling (STM) and term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) analysis to understand latent topics and language usage. Findings reveal that (1) left-leaning media dedicated more relative attention across all topics—#MeToo, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and sexual assault—relative to centrist and right-leaning media. Moreover, across the right, left, and centrist media, the language markers "misconduct," "harassment," and "assault" decreased over the study period, while the mentions of #MeToo movement increased during the same period; (2) stories relating to entertainment and those accusing politicians, especially those belonging to the party in power at the Federal level, seemed to be by far the strongest driver of news media attention; and (3) we further observed partisan differences in topics of news coverage and language usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual representations of refugees likely have a determinative function in the ways policies are written and aid is dispensed for crises resolution efforts. We use theoretical concepts from the visual framing literature and two studies—a content analysis and an experiment—to examine the effects of six visual frames. We study the content of newspapers from four countries for the following visual frames: 'individual', 'massified', 'mother and child', 'father and child', 'receiving aid' and 'working refugees.' Next, we examine the impact of these frames on intention to donate. Findings demonstrate that individuals with higher positive attitude towards refugees showed higher intention to donate. However, among these participants, intention to donate was highest in the 'individual' frame condition. On the other hand, among the participants with lower positive attitude towards refugees, the highest intention to donate was in the 'working refugees' frame condition. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the influence of norm-based messages (positively worded descriptive vs. negatively worded descriptive vs. injunctive vs. basic information) on intentions and risk perceptions about receiving human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among young adults aged 18–29. Results from an experiment show that compared to the basic information condition, additional exposure to injunctive normative messages increased intention to seek further information about HPV vaccination, which in turn enhanced intention to get the vaccine. Negatively worded descriptive normative messaging should be used with caution since it resulted in the highest risk perceptions of the HPV vaccine, compared to positively worded descriptive norms and basic information messages. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The current study has three main purposes: (1) replicate results from prior framing effects studies on social media. To do so, the study examines the influence of news frames (free speech vs. public order) on participants' attitudes toward an alt-right rally (2) expand prior research by examining the emotional reaction of participants to these frames and (3) probe the moderating effects of face-to-face heterogenous talk and heterogenous social media feeds. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from theoretical concepts such as competitive framing, emotions and heterogeneity, the study uses a randomized online experiment. The study examines a conversation in a Twitter thread that includes both free speech and public order frames in the comments to the thread. The total number of participants was 275. Findings: The results show that free speech versus public order frame did not impact attitudes of the participants toward the alt-right rally. Findings also show the significant main effects of free speech and public order frames and the interaction of exposure to heterogeneity on emotional reactions of outrage and anger toward the alt-right rally. These findings suggest that framing research needs to take social media features into consideration for a complete picture of framing effects on social media. Originality/value: Using a classic framing effects experiment, the study includes variables relevant to social media discussions on Twitter and examined the moderating effects of heterogeneity on emotional reactions. In addition, one of the important methodological contributions of the current study are the framing manipulations for an externally valid experimental design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation has been circulating on social media and multiple conspiracy theories have since become quite popular. We conducted a U.S. national survey for three main purposes. First, we aim to examine the association between social media news consumption and conspiracy beliefs specific to COVID-19 and general conspiracy beliefs. Second, we investigate the influence of an important moderator, social media news trust, that has been overlooked in prior studies. Third, we further propose a moderated moderation model by including misinformation identification. Our findings show that social media news use was associated with higher conspiracy beliefs, and trust in social media news was found to be a significant moderator of the relationship between social media news use and conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, our findings show that misinformation identification moderated the relationship between social media news use and trust. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is one of the hardest-hit countries by the COVID-19 pandemic and yet there is widespread hesitancy to take the vaccine. In order to address vaccine hesitancy and foster public understanding of the COVID-19 vaccine, it is necessary to strategize public health messages based on evidence. To this end, we use experimental data to examine the effects of four message frames on participants' attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine and their vaccine intention. The primary purposes of this paper are to examine the 1) impact of loss vs. gain frames and individual vs. collective frames and 2) role of perceived benefits on participants' attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine and their vaccine intention. Our findings show that participants with higher perceived benefits and exposed to the loss frame showed higher positive attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine and greater intention to vaccinate. Similar patterns were revealed in case of the individual frame message. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the theoretical framework of framing, this study comparatively content analyzed the portrayals of overseas Chinese students in five newspapers of mainland China, U.S., and Hong Kong. The primary findings reveal that mainland Chinese media favored to frame overseas Chinese students as victims and patriots, while the U.S. and Hong Kong medias framed them as of liberalists and education seekers. Findings also revealed nuances among different media within the same society. This study enriched the extant framing literature through the utilization of consistent versus unique frames, using episodic versus thematic frames as its typological model, and the comparisons of media in different societies as well as different media organizations within a given society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hong Kong, public discontent against the government has evolved into a series of civil disobedience campaigns in the past few years, and digital communication platforms served to channel public sentiments and shape collective action. Grounded in the communication mediation model, this study analyzed the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) data. Findings show that political social media expression was negatively associated with government evaluation. Moreover, internal political efficacy was negatively associated with government evaluation, and it also mediated the associations between both political social media information seeking and expression, and government evaluation. External political efficacy was positively associated with government evaluation, whereas it only mediated the association between information seeking and government evaluation. Furthermore, democratic preference was found to be a significant moderator upon which the association between expression and government evaluation operated via internal political efficacy was contingent. Our findings provide insights into understandings of social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals increasingly rely on the Internet, and social media in particular, for health-related information. A recent survey reports that 80% of Internet users search for health information online. In the present study, we employ Twitter data to understand content characteristics and the patterns of content flow of the conversations about the HPV vaccine debate. Approaching the HPV vaccine conversations on Twitter as a social network, we can identify key self-formed subgroups—clusters of users who create "siloes" of interactions and information flow. Combining network analysis, computer-aided content analysis, and human-coded content analysis, we explored the communication dynamics within the groups in terms of group members' affective and cognitive characteristics. Our findings show that positive emotion is positively correlated with cluster density, an indicator of strong ties and rapid information flow. In the case of negative emotion, we found that anger is a significant negative predictor for graph density. We also found a correlation between certainty and tentativeness; both at cluster as well as at tweet level, suggesting that clusters bring together people who are sure about the HPV vaccine and people who are exploring for answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore the intermedia influence between Twitter's and newspapers' agendas on the topic of climate change. Accordingly, using President Trump's announcement of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement as a dividing point, we compare the agendas on Twitter and newspapers before and after the announcement, analyzing rank-order and cross-lagged correlations between both platforms. Results suggest that newspapers influenced Twitter before the announcement, whereas Twitter conversely influenced newspapers within five days after the announcement. However, Twitter's influence was found ephemeral, newspapers regained its unidirectional impact five days after the announcement. The findings imply that Twitter is more likely to influence newspapers' agenda in terms of breaking news, whereas newspapers are more likely to lead Twitter's agenda in terms of ongoing discussions during non-breaking news periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Political polarization and incivility manifested itself online throughout the 2016 US presidential election. The purpose of this paper is to understand how features of social media platforms (e.g. reacting, sharing) impacted the online public sphere during the 2016 election.Design/methodology/approach After conducting in-depth interviews with politically interested young people and applying deductive coding procedures to transcripts of the interviews, Dahlberg’s (2004) six normative conditions for the public sphere were used to empirically examine this interview data.Findings While some participants described strategies for productive political discussion on Social Networking Sites (SNS) and a willingness to use them to discuss politics, many users’ experiences largely fall short of Dahlberg’s (2004) normative criteria for the public sphere.Research limitations/implications The period in which these interviews were conducted in could have contributed to a more pessimistic view of political discussion in general.Practical implications Scholars and the public should recognize that the affordances of SNS for political discussion are not distributed evenly between different platforms, both for the sake of empirical studies of SNS moving forward and the state of democratic deliberation.Originality/value Although previous research has examined online and SNS-based political discussion as it relates to the public sphere, few attempts have been made understand how specific communicative practices or platform-specific features of SNS have contributed to or detracted from a healthy public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined political content on YouTube, especially in comparison to the traditional television spots. Relying on both audience- and platform-based theories, we develop expectations of differences in content between political ads posted online and aired on television. We use content analysis to compare both online political ads and televised political ads from the 2012 presidential campaign, relying upon data from YouTube and the Wesleyan Media Project. We find that negative ads are more likely to be sponsored by groups than candidates on both television and YouTube. Online ads are less negative and less policy focused. By comparing ads made for TV uploaded to YouTube and those only on YouTube, we find that there is no difference in viewership between the two types, but online ads are more likely to be shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online sources not only permeate the information-seeking environment of the younger generation, but also have profound influence in shaping their beliefs and behaviors. In this landscape, examining the factors responsible for credibility perceptions of online information is fundamental, particularly for health-related information. Using a 2 (frames: gain vs. loss) × 2 (source: expert vs. non-expert) × 2 (social endorsement: high vs. low) randomized between-subjects experimental design, this study examines the effect of health message framing and the moderating effects of social endorsement and source type on credibility perceptions of Facebook posts. Testing across two issues--physical activity and alcohol consumption--findings indicate that the gain-framed message was perceived as most credible. Additionally, significant three-way interactions suggest that social endorsement and source type affect the relationship between message framing and credibility perceptions. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that a gain-framed message from an expert source with high number of 'likes' is considered the most credible message. These findings have significant implications for information gathering from social media sources, such as the influence of 'likes' on health information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is beneficial to reflect on the research literature of emerging communication technology and what has been studied so far, given the rapid growth of this area of research. This study conducted a content analysis of the published literature related to emerging communication technology over a period of 16 years from 1998 to 2013. An exhaustive sample was gathered using two methods of sampling: all Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)-listed communication journals and key word searches. The study examined the common patterns in theoretical, methodological, and technological variables. The primary findings reveal a lack of theory, fuzziness in the conceptualization of the research, growth in empirical research methods, frequent use of nonprobability sampling methods, and growth in studies on blogs, social networking sites (SNS), and mobile technology. Implications and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is increasing research about the influence of political use of social networking sites on audience members, few studies have examined the content in candidates’ pages on these sites. To fully comprehend the impact of these online political messages, an analysis of the messages themselves is fundamental. The present study uses theoretical concepts from functional theory, political advertising, emotional appeals, and social endorsement to conduct a content analysis of the official Facebook posts of U.S. presidential candidates in 2008 and 2012 elections. Results demonstrate that John McCain and Mitt Romney attacked more, while Barack Obama acclaimed more. The Republican candidates used higher percentage of fear appeals, while Barack Obama used humor and enthusiasm in his posts. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on blog credibility shows that blog readers find blogs more credible than the mainstream media, whereas it is just the opposite with the general audience. Using three experiments, the present study examines the influence of two factors: identity of the blogger (journalist blogger vs. nonjournalist blogger) and reach of the blog (low vs. high) on blog credibility. Findings show that in the case of the general audience, the journalist blogger was perceived as more credible. Of interest, results also show that reach of the blog-influenced blog credibility only in the case of the nonjournalist blogger. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the extent to which YouTube helps democratize campaigns by allowing nontraditional political actors to be heard. We examine political advertisements posted on YouTube in races for the U.S. Senate in 2010. We find that ads posted by citizens and quasi-political organizations are viewed just as often as ads sponsored by some traditional electoral actors, such as parties and interest groups, but that ads sponsored by candidates are most likely to be viewed. However, news media coverage of ads posted online by nontraditional actors is dwarfed by coverage of traditional television advertisements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about selective exposure to partisan information have become a mainstay for scholars of political communication in the changing media environment. This study draws on a survey of a unique population—readers of political blogs—to explore the relationship between perceptions of mainstream media bias (as hostile media perception) and selective exposure to media sources that provide like-minded information as well as social support. We find that hostile media perception is an important motivator for partisan selective exposure among this audience, and also that such perceptions can lead indirectly to expressive political participation by encouraging visits to politically homogeneous online spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political blogosphere is replete with uncivil discussions and is apt to examine the influence of incivility on news frames. The present study brings in literature from incivility and framing effects and uses two experiments to examine the influence of incivility on news frames for democratic outcomes such as willingness to participate, online participation, openmindedness, and attitude certainty. Primary findings indicate the detrimental effects of incivility causing less openmindedness and more attitude certainty. At the same time, incivility causes more willingness to participate and online participation. More importantly, the findings demonstrate how incivility interacts with news frames. Implications for news framing effects in the social media landscape are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has identified the influence of using hyperlinks in online information gathering. This study attempts to understand first, how hyperlinks can influence individuals' perceptions of news credibility and information-seeking behavior. Second, the paper extends previous research by examining the interaction of hyperlinks with the content of the story. In doing so, the paper examines the influence of hyperlinks on news frames. The data for the study were collected using 2 experiments embedded in web-based survey of participants. Findings show that hyperlinks in news stories can increase perceptions of credibility as well as information-seeking. Results reveal the interaction of news frames in the process; hyperlinks increase participants' perception of news credibility; but only in the value-framed condition. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]