Jessie M. Quintero Johnson

Benefits and Costs of Channel One in a Middle School Setting and the Role of Media-Literacy Training

OBJECTIVES. Channel One is a public-affairs program that includes 10 minutes of news and 2 minutes of paid product advertising or public service announcements. Advocates assert that it increases public-affairs knowledge, but critics charge that it garners a captive audience for teen-targeted advertising. This experiment analyzed the differential effects of Channel One depending on whether early-adolescent viewers received a media-literacy lesson in conjunction with viewing the program. Outcomes included perceptions of Channel One news programming, recall of program content and advertising, materialism, and political efficacy. METHODS. Researchers used a posttest-only field experiment (N = 240) of seventh- and eighth-grade students using random assignment to conditions. Conditions included a control group, a group that received a fact-based lesson, and a group that received the same lesson content using a more emotive teaching style. It was expected that the emotion-added lesson condition would be more effective than the logic-only lesson condition because of its motivational component. RESULTS. On average, students remembered more ads from Channel One than news stories. Participants in the control group remembered fewer news stories than did the groups that received the lessons. Students reported having purchased during the preceding 3 months an average of 2.5 items advertised on the program. Both fact-based and affect-added training increased student skepticism toward advertisers. As expected, student liking of the program enhanced their learning from it and was associated with higher levels of political efficacy. Students held misconceptions about the role of their school in the production of Channel One. CONCLUSIONS. The use of Channel One by schools can have benefits, but these come with risk that some may consider unacceptable. On the positive side, student liking of the program was associated with their political efficacy. Although those who responded positively to program content and presentation style learned more from it, they also tended to want things that they saw in the advertisements. The data therefore show that the program can provide some benefits to young adolescents, but the results also provide justification for concerns about the commercialization of the classroom.

Exploring audience involvement with an interactive narrative: implications for incorporating transmedia storytelling into entertainment-education campaigns

Abstract The present article contributes to the growing corpus of scholarship that seeks to shed light on how the entertainment-education (EE) strategy can be implemented and evaluated across diverse media platforms. Because a transmedia approach to storytelling is a natural, albeit an understudied extension of the EE strategy, the researchers investigate how involvement with one interactive storytelling format, flash games, influences audience involvement and message outcomes. The researchers’ evaluation of audience involvement with an interactive narrative in a flash game, designed as one element of a national transmedia campaign to increase milk consumption, demonstrated that narrative understanding was related to participants’ (N=157) experiences of feeling involved with the game (i.e., transportation), although significant changes in message-related beliefs, attitudes and behavioural intentions were not related to transportation. Transportation was positively related to enjoyment of the game, but frustration with gaming challenges negatively influenced transportation and enjoyment. This study illustrates the need for further investigation of involvement with stories in interactive media platforms, and, most importantly, the continued exploration of the strengths and limitations associated with incorporating transmedia storytelling elements into EE campaigns.

Testing the Explanatory Power of Two Measures of Narrative Involvement: An Investigation of the Influence of Transportation and Narrative Engagement on the Process of Narrative Persuasion

Achieving a more sophisticated understanding of narrative persuasion requires an examination of how the experience of narrative involvement influences persuasive resistance. In this study, we used a multiple message design approach to test two models of narrative involvement, one with transportation and the other with narrative engagement, with programs featuring persuasive stories about sexual and reproductive topics from primetime television. Although both transportation and the narrative engagement influenced processes related to changes in participants’ (N = 362) beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions, the two scales influenced different cognitive and affective responses to the narratives. Transportation was positively related to enjoyment and the perception that the narrative topic was personally relevant. Narrative engagement predicted enjoyment and reduced reactance. Neither transportation nor narrative engagement significantly influenced cognitive elaboration or counterarguments, based on the application of a thought-listing procedure designed to measure counterarguments related to the realism of the narratives. Put together, these findings suggest that the study of narrative persuasion necessitates the use of different measurement instruments that can adequately assess the multidimensional nature and influence of narrative involvement.

When Women “Snap”: The Use of Mental Illness to Contextualize Women's Acts of Violence in Contemporary Popular Media

ABSTRACT Media depictions play an important role in the cultivation and perpetuation of social stigmas surrounding mental illness. Through a critical textual analysis of female perpetrators of violence in three examples drawn from diverse media forms, we explore how depictions from very different genres help to map key themes in a broader popular discourse framing violence committed by women as a consequence of mental illness. The mental health frames we focus on include examples of exceptionalism in news media, victimhood in film, and relational trauma in soap operas. Findings suggest that, unlike media depictions of psychopathic male perpetrators of violence, representations of female perpetrators tend to feature nuanced and sympathetic portrayals. However, media texts that explore social factors contributing to womens acts of violence imply that women who commit violence do so because of psychosis induced by traumatic circumstances often beyond their control. Such depictions perpetuate a gendered understanding of psychopathy and reify the notion that mental illness is an underlying cause of societal violence.

Exploring the Influence of Parasocial Relationships and Experiences on Radio Listeners’ Consumer Behaviors

The purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of radio listener experiences on radio listening behaviors, consumer perceptions and behaviors, and social media involvement. A national sample of listeners (N = 2,700) from a variety of small, medium, and large designated market areas (N = 9) throughout the United States revealed the presence of parasocial relationships (PSRs) and experiences of parasocial interaction (EPSI) with local and nationally syndicated radio personalities. Both PSRs and EPSI predicted radio listening, positive perceptions about, recall of, and purchasing of the brands, products, and services recommended by listeners’ favorite radio personalities. Results also show that PSRs and EPSI predicted listeners’ involvement with social media platforms.

Optimizing the Presentation of Mental Health Information in Social Media: The Effects of Health Testimonials and Platform on Source Perceptions, Message Processing, and Health Outcomes

ABSTRACT Using social media for the purpose of disseminating mental health information is a critical area of scientific inquiry for health communication professionals. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the presence of a first-person testimonial in educational mental health information placed in Facebook and Twitter messages influenced college students’ (N = 257) source perceptions, information processing, cognitive elaboration, health information recall, beliefs, and behavioral intentions. Results show that exposure to social media messages that featured mental health information embedded with a testimonial predicted less source homophily and more critical thoughts about the social media source, less systematic message processing, and less cognitive elaboration. Health information recall was significantly impacted by both the social media platform and message content such that participants in the testimonial condition on Facebook were more likely to recall the health facts in those messages whereas participants who viewed the testimonial in Twitter were less likely to recall the facts in those tweets. Compared to those who read Facebook messages, participants who read Twitter messages reported higher levels of systematic message processing. These findings suggest that the integration of health testimonials into social media messages might inadvertently provoke psychological resistance to mental health information, thereby reducing the persuasive impact of those messages.

“he Acted Like a Crazy Person”: Exploring the Influence of College Students’ Recall of Stereotypic Media Representations of Mental Illness

Nearly half of all U.S. adults will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their developmental trajectory, and college students may be particularly vulnerable to experience mental distress. Despite its prevalence, public perception about mental illness remains obscured by misinformation and social stigma. Scholars have long recognized the role that mass media play in cultivating and perpetuating this stigma. The purpose of this study was to survey college students (N = 359) to explore how mass media prime stereotypic conceptions about mental illness and subsequently influence the mechanisms of social stigma. Results indicated that media use predicted higher estimates of the prevalence of mental illness. Participants’ descriptions of mentally ill media characters were characterized by stereotypic attributes including violent behaviors, angry outbursts, childlike behaviors, and severe symptomatology. Recall of stereotypic depictions of mental illness predicted discomfort around people with mental illness, but those participants who defined mental illness using severe symptomatology were more willing to communicate concerns about mental illness. These findings illuminate why it is necessary to assess how audiences perceive media representations of mental illness in order to understand the mechanisms through which mass media shape public perception about mental illness.

Tweeting Facts, Facebooking Lives: The Influence of Language Use and Modality on Online Source Credibility

The present study examines how language use (e.g., personalized vs. depersonalized language) and modality (e.g., tweets vs. Facebook status updates) influence source credibility interdependently. A total of 257 participants read personalized or depersonalized health messages embedded in mock-up tweets or Facebook status updates. The results show that users perceive depersonalized tweets as more credible than depersonalized status updates posted on Facebook. On the other hand, personalized status updates on Facebook generate higher credibility judgments than personalized tweets. The findings are discussed in light of the MAIN model as well as the preconceived user expectations and communication norms of social media.