Darren L. Linvill

Public health framing of news regarding childhood obesity in the United States.

Five U.S. newspapers were searched for stories regarding childhood obesity. Of the 201 stories appearing in 1996, 2001, or 2006, 97 incorporated a public health frame (i.e., connects problem to the larger social and environmental context; exposes risk factors; includes information regarding preventatives and correctives). Significant risk factors were identified as unhealthy eating practices, lack of physical activity, and ads for junk food directed at children. Prevalent categories of preventatives and correctives focused on changes in diet, particularly in the home or in areas controlled by parents. Offered less frequently were suggestions regarding increases in physical activity. Consistent with previous research, the majority of both preventatives and correctives focused on individual-level as opposed to societal-level factors. Implications of these findings for the framing of news regarding childhood obesity are discussed.

Political Bias on Campus: Understanding the Student Experience.

The role ideology plays in the university classroom has been debated since the publication of Buckley’s God and Man at Yale (1951). The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Special Report (2004) found that more than half of United States citizens polled felt that U.S. colleges and universities improperly introduce a liberal political bias into the classroom. A number of states have proposed legislation aimed at increasing ideological diversity in state-supported institutions of higher education. The American Association of University Professors (2008 ) reported nearly two dozen such bills since 2004; and while none have passed, they illustrate the concern many have over the issue of politics-centered ideological bias in higher education. Student populations have also felt the effect of this issue. Student groups such as Students for Academic Freedom and its parent foundation, The Horowitz Freedom Center, have advocated that students have the “academic freedom” to be exposed to a wide spectrum of scholarly viewpoints. Central to this group’s mission is their proposed Academic Bill of Rights (Students for Academic Freedom, 2009). This document advocates for the purposeful promotion of intellectual pluralism in academia through curriculum development, funding given to invited speaker programs and student organizations, as well as the hiring and promotion of faculty. The Academic Bill of Rights has been modeled in much of the state legislation which has been proposed. While there is clear value in presenting students with a broad range of viewpoints and ideas, many feel that academic decision-making should be left solely to education professionals: Minnich (2006) writes that the risk to higher education in such legislation is that intellectual judgments may be “discredited wholesale as ‘bias’ and rendered irrelevant in favor of a mindless ‘impartiality’” (p. 20).

The Relationship between Student Identity Development and the Perception of Political Bias in the College Classroom

This study explored the relationship between identity development, as gauged by Marcias identity development construct, and student perception of instructor political bias. Regression analysis was employed to compare participant responses on the Ego Identity Process Questionnaire, a measure of Marcias construct, with the Political Bias in the Classroom Survey, a measure gauging perceptions of and reactions to instructor political bias. The EIPQs commitment scale was found to be a significant positive indicator for the PBCSs perception scale, suggesting that students who are strongly committed to their identity are more likely to perceive an instructor as having a political bias. Recommendations are made for how to address perceptions of political bias.

Academic Pinstitution: Higher Education's Use of Pinterest for Relationship Marketing

Colleges and universities have increasingly looked toward social media as a means of engaging with stakeholders. Using the relationship marketing framework as a lens, this study explores how institutions are employing the social media platform Pinterest. Content analysis of the types of college and university pins being used and their relationship to the number of user repins suggests that the tool is not being employed in a manner consistent with user expectations. Our findings suggest that some colleges and universities need to reevaluate their social media plan to acknowledge the different audiences, uses, and functionality of specific social media platforms. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

Student Interest and Engagement in the Classroom: Relationships with Student Personality and Developmental Variables

Student interest and student engagement have been found to be important communication-related traits linked to student classroom outcomes, including student learning and student retention. Employing student identity development as well as personality constructs, this interdisciplinary study takes a student trait approach to better understand how best to foster both student interest and engagement in the classroom. Degree of identity exploration was found to be a positive predictor of student cognitive interest in course content. The personality construct need for cognition was found to be a positive predictor for both student interest and student engagement with course content. Implications for future research, including scale development, are discussed.

The role of student academic beliefs in perceptions of instructor ideological bias

ABSTRACT A common perception exists in the media that university instructors are a liberal elite who use their positions to instill a biased perspective in their students. Exploring student attitudes in the United States and Australia, the present study examined how students’ academic beliefs are related to their inferences of instructor ideological bias and the degree to which they identify as reacting to these inferences in the college classroom. Results of regression analysis using previously validated survey instruments revealed that students’ academic entitlement and grade orientation (GO) predicted perceptions of instructor bias. In addition, students’ GO predicted students’ reactions to such inferred bias. Institutional differences, pedagogical implications, and areas for future research are discussed.

“Back-stage” dissent: student Twitter use addressing instructor ideology

ABSTRACT In this content analysis, we explored how students address instructor ideology in the university classroom through the social media platform Twitter. We employed Boolean search operators through Salesforce Marketing Cloud Radian6 software to gather tweets and identified English language tweets by how students referenced their instructors ideology. Tweets originated in the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.), and Australia. Using qualitative coding procedures, we identified seven themes in the data that described how students wrote about instructor ideology on Twitter: venting regarding instructors ideology, sharing classroom anecdote, affirming instructors beliefs/actions, expressing grade concern, articulating an opposing view, reporting conflict, and indicating confusion. Across categories, Twitter was employed primarily as a back-stage means to communicate expressive dissent regarding instructor ideology and also to demonstrate students’ identity. We identified differences between categories based on the perceived ideology of the students’ instructors as well as differences in the number of tweets per capita originating in each country.

Need for Cognition as a Mediating Variable Between Aggressive Communication Traits and Tolerance for Disagreement

This study examined the need for cognition as a mediator between aggressive communication traits and tolerance for disagreement. Previous research suggests that argumentativeness is a positive predictor of tolerance for disagreement, while verbal aggressiveness is a negative predictor of tolerance for disagreement. Our findings indicate that need for cognition positively mediates the relationship between argumentativeness and tolerance for disagreement, as well as verbal aggressiveness and tolerance for disagreement.

Teaching Metatheory through Venn Diagramming.

Courses: Communication Theory and Introduction to Graduate Studies Objectives: To help students understand theoretical assumptions and ways in which those assumptions overlap and interact.

Green on the screen: types of jealousy and communicative responses to jealousy in romantic comedies

ABSTRACT Romantic jealousy is common within romantic relationships, yet there is a lack of research on media portrayals of romantic jealousy and subsequent communicative responses to jealousy. Motivated by script theory and social cognitive theory, this study is a content analysis of types of romantic jealousy and communicative responses to jealousy in the 51 top-grossing romantic comedies released between 2002 and 2014. Results indicate that reactive jealousy was the most frequently depicted type of romantic jealousy in these movies, and destructive communication was the most common response. Furthermore, the type of romantic jealousy was significantly related to the type of communicative response the character employed, and females were more likely to use rival-focused communicative responses than males.