Donna Rouner

How Message Evaluation and Source Attributes May Influence Credibility Assessment and Belief Change.

Although source credibilitys importance in communication, particularly in persuasion, is well documented, audience processes in assessing source credibility and the resulting impact are inadequately specified. We hypothesize message quality will have direct effects and mediate partially the effects of initial credibility assessments on subsequent source credibility assessments and on belief change. Also, subsequent credibility assessments are expected to mediate effects of initial credibility assessments and message quality assessments on belief change. Reanalyses of experimental data (N=74) support the hypothesized direct effects and several proposed mediating relationships.

Mentoring and Other Communication Support in the Academic Setting

The purpose of this study was to determine the dimensional structure of mentoring and other communication support behaviors in an academic environment. Professors (N = 224) at two universities were surveyed. A communication support questionnaire was developed, and three separate factors emerged as elements of perceived communication support: the Mentor/Protégé Dimension, the Collegial Social Dimension, and the Col legial Task Dimension. The Mentor/Protégé Dimension appears to represent the tradition al concept of mentoring. The Collegial Social Dimension is more reciprocal and friendship oriented. The Collegial Task Dimension reflects reciprocal support that is work related. The study supported the idea of multidimensional support within an academic organization.

Narrative Processing of Entertainment Media and Mental Illness Stigma

This study examined the narrative effects of familiarity, transportation, whether a story is factual or fiction, and perceived realism on the stigmatizing behavior of social distancing behavior. A sample of N = 137 participants watched a commercial movie about mental illness. Genre was manipulated to determine whether fiction or nonfiction impacted social distancing behavior. Although there was no effect of the genre manipulation, transportation was found to have a relationship with social distancing, with the more relevant the participants found the story, the lower they demonstrated social distancing behavior. How much participants identified with the main character was found to have a partial mediating effect between perceived story relevance and social distancing behavior.

How Perceptions of News Bias in News Sources Relate to Beliefs about Media Bias

Consumers define bias in sour ces differently than journalists do. One r eason may be thepublic perception that media generally ar ebiased.

Effects of threatening visuals and announcer differences on responses to televised alcohol warnings

This study examined threatening background visuals and voice-over differences in televised alcohol warnings. Participants ( N v = v 401) viewed four television adwarning pairs embedded in sports programming. Between-subjects conditions included a threatening visual behind the warning, a non-threatening visual, a plain background, and a no-warning control. Use of a male or female announcer, each using a relatively warm or imperative voice quality, were manipulated within-subject factors. Outcomes included knowledge, cognitive responses regarding warning content and presentation, and perceptions of the risk of the product (beer) shown in the ad. All warnings increased post-test knowledge of alcohol risks relative to control; the largest increase resulted when warnings were accompanied by the threatening visual. Threatening visuals also increased positive thought elaborations about the warning message content and presentation. However, the threatening visuals did not reliably impact perceived risk of beer use, suggesting that threatening visuals influenced responses and knowledge by increasing attention to the warning rather than by increasing perceived threat. These findings are consistent with the EPPMs proposed initial threat appraisal mechanism (Witte, 1992), and further suggest that threatening visuals serve as a heuristic cue motivating increased processing of message content (see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), rather than an influence via a peripheral route as suggested by the ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Interactions between drinking level and announcer gender and vocal quality variables were also found, but contributed only trivially to explained variance.

Female Adolescent Communication About Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Health researchers acknowledge a limited understanding of the social context of adolescents regarding their communication and decision making about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Using in-depth interviews, this study examines 18-year-old women regarding their self-concepts about STD communication, including their perceived and actual knowledge levels. Fifteen first-year college students from a Western university showed strong self-concepts and high perceived knowledge relative to sexual decision making and communication. The womens actual knowledge holding, however, was low. They demonstrated difficulty finding information from mediated sources with either high regard or mistrust of new information technologies for such information and limited use of interpersonal communication sources.

Adolescent counterarguing of TV beer advertisements: evidence for effectiveness of alcohol education and critical viewing discussions.

The pervasiveness of American youths exposure to alcohol advertising is well-documented, as is the correlational evidence linking such exposure to alcohol-related attitudes, use, and expectancies. While efforts to train young people to resist persuasive appeals are often made in alcohol education programs, little evidence exists concerning the effectiveness of such efforts. The present study (N = 83) found that recency of exposure to alcohol education classes and discussion of alcohol advertising in such classes predicts cognitive resistance (counterarguing) of such advertisements months or even years after class exposure. Age, gender, and ethnicity were statistically controlled. While females tended to counterargue the alcohol advertisements more than did males, there was no statistically significant difference in the impact of education on males and females.

Adolescent responses to TV beer ads and sports content/context: Gender and ethnic differences

This experiment examines gender and ethnic differences in adolescent responses to TV beer advertising in sports and entertainment programming, as well as the relationship between such responses and present and planned alcohol use behavior. Female adolescents responded less positively than males to beer advertisements and to sports content of advertising, and more positively to nonbeer advertisements. However, positive responses to beer ads predicted alcohol use among female and male adolescents. No differences in response patterns to ads due to Latino ethnicity were found.

Active Televison Viewing and the Cultivation Hypothesis

grated in it. These findings, therefore, provide further evidence that the media are supportive elements in the community. The findings of this study, then, are strongly supportive of the social maintenance model of the media’s role in communities. The citizens of Louisville clearly view the local media as a positive aspect of their community. Their opinions on this score are consistent with those found in previous studies of community leaders and average citizens in other communities.l9 There is a need, therefore, for more detailed studies which further examine citizens’ feelings about the role of the media in their communities.

Confidence in Beliefs About Social Groups as an Outcome of Message Exposure and Its Role in Belief Change Persistence

The role of confidence in beliefs as an outcome of message exposure and as a factor in the process of belief change has important theoretical implications for theories of media effects and theories of belief change. Using as stimuli messages portraying women of two different cultural backgrounds, this experiment identifies some effects of source expertise and message discrepancy on confidence in beliefs over three posttests (immediate, 10-14 days, and 6 weeks). Messages that were discrepant with existing beliefs had a greater impact on confidence in beliefs than did nondiscrepant messages; more expert sources also slightly increased confidence in beliefs. The direction of the effect of discrepancy (an increase) was opposite to that predicted. Path analyses suggest that the effects of confidence in beliefs on persistence of belief change in this study are largely indirect; the authors suggest that effects of message exposure on confidence and the effects of confidence on belief change persistence may depend on whether the beliefs addressed in the message are central or peripheral.