Anke Wonneberger

The Skeptical Green Consumer Revisited: Testing the Relationship Between Green Consumerism and Skepticism Toward Advertising

This article revisits the widely believed notion of the skeptical green consumer, in other words, that green consumers tend to distrust green advertising. Study 1, a survey of U.S. consumers, found no positive relationship between green consumerism and general ad skepticism. However, green consumerism was negatively related to green advertising skepticism. Study 2, a survey of Austrian consumers, addressed the underlying mechanism of this negative relationship in a mediation analysis. It was shown that green consumers saw more informational utility in green ads than nongreen consumers did. This, in turn, decreased their green advertising skepticism. The emotional appeal of green ads, however, had no impact on green advertising skepticism. Findings suggest that the “dilemma for marketers who desire to target the green consumer” (Zinkhan and Carlson 1995, p. 5) is far less serious than previously thought.

Interest in News and Politics—or Situational Determinants? Why People Watch the News

This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determinants on news viewing behavior. Individual people-meter data allowed the unobtrusive study of news viewing situations. The finding is that the viewing context is much more important than motivations. However, interest in the news and politics can reinforce or reverse situational influences. For interested viewers, watching more TV in general mainly explains news viewing, while for less interested viewers, lead-out effects and social viewing are more relevant.

Dynamics of Individual Television Viewing Behavior: Models, Empirical Evidence, and a Research Program

Television viewing often is a sequence of a multitude of activities that can vary tremendously from the moment the TV set is turned on until it is turned off again. Previous models of individual viewing behavior as well as empirical studies have focused on isolated aspects of viewing only, such as the frequency and duration of viewing or patterns of selecting a specific program. This paper draws attention to the complete process of TV viewing. We develop a process model to describe whole viewing sessions. Furthermore, a review of the empirical evidence on viewing behavior and a typology of factors influencing the viewing process are presented, concluded by a research program.

Staying Tuned: TV News Audiences in the Netherlands 1988–2010

With an abundance of TV channels available, viewers with no interest in politics might escape from news watching completely. But whether this is true depends on how viewers deal with an increasing complexity. Do people follow their viewing motives and preferences even more or do unintentional choices prevail? Using people-meter data, the authors studied news exposure over the last 2 decades in the Netherlands. They found increasing levels of news exposure more strongly influenced by the viewing context than by motivations of the viewers. The results showed how a mix of public-service and commercial news still can reach wide audiences today.

Mass Media Orientation and External Communication Strategies: Exploring Organisational Differences

ABSTRACT This study assesses relationships between mass media orientations of communication professionals in organisations and their external communication strategies. We assume that mass media orientations within an organisation may affect an organisation’s external communication strategies of bridging and buffering. A survey among 150 Dutch communication professionals working for both for-profit and public organisations as well as NPOs was conducted. Our study shows that preferences for specific communication strategies are related to different forms of media orientation. Having media attention as an organisational goal is more strongly associated with buffering, that is, one-way and symmetric communication, yet a more negative attitude toward the media also hinders an organisation from bridging activities. Overall, few differences between the three types of organisations regarding communication strategies and media orientations were found.

How keeping up diversifies: Watching public affairs TV in the Netherlands 1988-2010

Although concerns have been raised that political infotainment programmes might increasingly substitute more serious information, empirical evidence about changes of individual viewing behaviour is scarce. The authors discuss audience specialization and diversification as two opposing patterns of audience response to a growing variety of public affairs programmes. While specialization results from selective programme choice, diversification may be furthered by the impact of situational factors. Using electronically recorded people-meter data, this study explores information viewing in the Netherlands over the last two decades. As opposed to concerns about audience fragmentation, the authors find that public affairs viewing has become more diverse on the individual level with entertaining information programmes used as an additional source of information. Dutch viewers were exposed to different public affairs information. The personal relevance of TV as a medium is one of the main drivers behind high levels of exposure.

How Much Time Do You Spend Online? Understanding and Improving the Accuracy of Self-Reported Measures of Internet Use

ABSTRACT Given the importance of survey measures of online media use for communication research, it is crucial to assess and improve their quality, in particular because the increasingly fragmented and ubiquitous usage of internet complicates the accuracy of self-reported measures. This study contributes to the discussion regarding the accuracy of self-reported internet use by presenting relevant factors potentially affecting biases of self-reports and testing survey design strategies to improve accuracy. Combining automatic tracking data and survey data from the same participants (N = 690) confirmed low levels of accuracy and tendencies of over-reporting. The analysis revealed biases due to a range of factors associated with the intensity of (actual) internet usage, propensity to multitask, day of reference, and the usage of mobile devices. An anchoring technique could not be proved to reduce inaccuracies of reporting behavior. Several recommendations for research practice follow from these findings.

Explaining Response Errors of Self-Reported Frequency and Duration of TV Exposure Through Individual and Contextual Factors:

Measures of TV exposure are crucial for many communication studies but possible flaws remain understudied. This study contributes to the discussion about the validity of survey measures of media use by assessing the extent to which people over- or underreport their viewing behavior by examining recency effects, and systematic variations in the accuracy of self-reports. Self-reported measures of TV exposure are directly compared with people-meter measures stemming from a single sample and the same time period. The findings reveal tendencies to overreport the frequency of watching and underreport the viewing duration. Response errors relate to sociodemographics and viewing-related characteristics.

Environmentalism—A Question of Guilt? Testing a Model of Guilt Arousal and Effects for Environmental Campaigns

ABSTRACT Guilt has been identified as a crucial factor mediating the effects of social campaigns. So far, however, knowledge regarding the process of guilt arousal is limited. This paper studies processes of guilt arousal and effects for the context of environmental donation campaigns. Following the extended parallel process model, environmental concern and self-efficacy are introduced as main predictors. Results of an experiment show that guilt arousal enhances campaign effects for those with a high concern but is the wrong strategy to reach those with a low concern. Guilt arousal is not influenced by self-efficacy and occurs independently of emotional message frames.

Media positioning: comparing organizations’ standing in the news

Visibility in the media is considered important for organizations, as it is alleged to affect their reputation, public legitimacy, and stakeholder relations. Strategies for media relations often discern corporations, public organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The media attention for those organizations is, however, often studied in isolation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of media positioning to compare media coverage for corporations, public organizations, and NGOs.,A quantitative content analysis of the media coverage of 61 Dutch organizations was conducted. The comparison focused on three aspects of media positioning: prominence, context, and evaluation.,Public organizations and corporations were most similar, whereas corporations and NGOs differed most strongly in their media positioning. Corporations appeared most prominently in the media. While corporations and public organizations were more often related to organizational issues, NGOs were more often linked to substantial issues and received more positive coverage.,Insight into the content, amount, and tone of organizational media coverage is crucial for the formulation of public relations strategies by corporate communication professionals. The analysis shows whether and how the prominence, context, and evaluation differs among corporations, public organizations, and NGOs. The findings shed light on institutional factors that affect the visibility of different types of organizations, thus enabling future scholars in the field of visibility analyses in corporate communication to refine theories on drivers and characteristics of media coverage regarding different types of organizations.