Joseph B. Walther

Media Effects: Theory and Research

This review analyzes trends and commonalities among prominent theories of media effects. On the basis of exemplary meta-analyses of media effects and bibliometric studies of well-cited theories, we identify and discuss five features of media effects theories as well as their empirical support. Each of these features specifies the conditions under which media may produce effects on certain types of individuals. Our review ends with a discussion of media effects in newer media environments. This includes theories of computer-mediated communication, the development of which appears to share a similar pattern of reformulation from unidirectional, receiver-oriented views, to theories that recognize the transactional nature of communication. We conclude by outlining challenges and promising avenues for future research.

Computer-mediated communication and the reduction of prejudice

Prejudice among Israeli Jews and Arabs declined in yearlong virtual teams.A longitudinal design and post-test control groups enhance causal conclusions.The study integrates CMC theory with the intergroup contact hypothesis.Interpersonal factors correlate with better attitudes toward outgroups as a whole. The promise of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to reduce intergroup prejudice has generated mixed results. Theories of CMC yield alternative and mutually exclusive explanations about mechanisms by which CMC fosters relationships online with potential to ameliorate prejudice. This research tests contact-hypothesis predictions and two CMC theories on multicultural, virtual groups who communicated during a yearlong online course focusing on educational technology. Groups included students from the three major Israeli education sectors-religious Jews, secular Jews, and Muslims-who completed pretest and posttest prejudice measures. Two sets of control subjects who did not participate in virtual groups provided comparative data. An interaction of the virtual groups experience×religious/cultural membership affected prejudice toward different religious/cultural target groups, by reducing prejudice toward the respective outgroups for whom the greatest initial enmity existed. Comparisons of virtual group participants to control subjects further support the influence of the online experience. Correlations between prejudice with group identification and with interpersonal measures differentiate which theoretical processes pertained.

Self-disclosure and liking in computer-mediated communication

This research investigated the process by which self-disclosure leads to liking in computer-mediated communication (CMC). Research has shown that CMC influences the attributions that individuals make regarding self-disclosure as well as the affection that they feel towards disclosers as a result of these attributions. However, little is known about the impact that attributions have on ones own reciprocal self-disclosure. In an original experiment, dyads of friends or strangers disclosed to one another in text-based CMC. After their discussion, a questionnaire assessed participants liking toward their partners as well as their attributions regarding their partners behavior. Results show that self-disclosure prompted receivers interpersonal attributions, which led receivers to like their partners. But, receivers interpersonal attributions did not lead to reciprocal disclosure. The results corroborate Jiang, Bazarova, and Hancocks (2011) model that links self-disclosure and liking by way of interpersonal attributions, and demonstrate one disclosure-liking effect in CMC: People like those who self-disclose to them. This study provides further evidence for CMCs unique impact on the relationship between self-disclosure and liking, and contributes to our understanding of the interpersonal processes that lead to liking in CMC. Interpersonal attributions mediate disclosure and liking in CMC.Data support the proposition people like others who disclose in CMC.Data do not support the proposition people disclose to those they like in CMC.Data do not support the proposition people like those to whom they disclose in CMC.

Building relationships through dialogic communication: organizations, stakeholders, and computer-mediated communication

Abstract Online media are integral to daily life, and while many organizations use them to reach broad audiences, others still appear to be uncomfortable with online media because they do not understand how to maximize their potential to interact effectively with stakeholders. Numerous organizations use online media for one-way communication to disseminate information, despite the affordances of the media platforms for two-way, dialogic communication. This article draws on two dominant interpersonal theories of computer-mediated communication—social information processing theory and the hyperpersonal model—to propose dialogic strategies that organizations can use to improve their online communication with their stakeholders. We illustrate the application of these principles through three stages of relationship building: initiating/experimenting, intensifying, and integrating/bonding. The article integrates the applications within an overall dialogic communication strategy, and provides organizations and practitioners with a model with which they can engage stakeholders with dialogic methods via social media.

The Influence of Responses to Self-Disclosure on Liking in Computer-Mediated Communication

The relationship between self-disclosure and liking another person is well-known, as is the prevalence and importance of self-disclosure in computer-mediated interactions. The effects of conversation partners’ responses to disclosures are an overlooked issue, implicated but not examined in most previous research. An original experiment examined whether different forms of response to self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication affect liking differently. Participants engaged in dyadic online chat with either their friend or a stranger. An interviewer communicated one of three types of response to another individual’s self-disclosures: reciprocal self-disclosures, compliments, or neutral deflections. Both reciprocal self-disclosure and compliments generated greater liking than did deflection. The effects of response types on attraction did not differ between friends and strangers. The findings indicate the importance of different forms of response to self-disclosure in interpersonal attraction online and the role of responsiveness to disclosure in initial as well as established relationships.

An Effort to Increase Organ Donor Registration Through Intergroup Competition and Electronic Word of Mouth

The effort to increase Web organ donation registrations in Michigan by enhancing 2 types of university campaigns with social media strategies informed by social identity theory is the focus of this research. The two campaigns focused on either ingroup or rivalry outgroup social identification, and each was enhanced with individually focused social media in the first year of the campaign and with electronic word of mouth in Year 2 of the campaign. Results indicated that individually focused social media such as Facebook ads worked well in rivalry campaigns (in which registrations increased two times over baseline) but not in ingroup identification campaigns (in which registrations decreased significantly over baseline when ads were introduced in the first year of each type of campaign). Electronic word-of-mouth strategies worked well in both ingroup identification campaigns (in which registrations increased two times over baseline) and rivalry campaigns (in which registrations rose almost eight times over baseline, when strategies were introduced in the second year of each type of campaign).

Overattribution of Liking in Computer-Mediated Communication Partners Infer the Results of Their Own Influence as Their Partners’ Affection

Previous research found that computer-mediated communication (CMC) users affectively compensate for partners when they believe their partners’ negative demeanor to be malleable, but unlike in other media, they discount their own influence on their partner. This research examined attributions that chat users make when they influence their partners but do not recognize their own causal influence. Dyads conducted either online text-based conversations or audio interactions. Each male dyad member was told that his female partner (who was actually naïve) was in a bad mood or had an unpleasant personality. Although they had rated their ability to influence others’ demeanors as lesser when using CMC compared with those who anticipated telephone (audio), males acted more pleasantly when expecting a bad mood, and rated the partner as behaving more pleasantly, in CMC. In CMC, males filled the attributional gap by inferring that partners’ behavior reflected partners’ liking toward them. These findings extend the hyperpersonal model of CMC to explain how illusions about partners’ affection may come to influence the sociability of online interaction and vice versa.

The Effect of Message Persistence and Disclosure on Liking in Computer-Mediated Communication

Abstract In computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems, the messages that a user types usually persist on the screen for some time, a feature that distinguishes CMC from face-to-face interaction. Persistence may activate psychological self-perception, leading communicators to infer from their persistent messaging how they feel about the subject more so than if messages did not persist. This study applies persistence and self-perception to the relationships between self-disclosure and liking. It identifies which among several disclosure or liking relationships may be most susceptible to self-perception effects. An experiment found that message persistence interacts with a conversational partner’s responses to self-disclosure and intensifies liking toward the partner. Suggestions follow for future research further exploring the mechanisms of persistence, and reconceptualizing self-perception factors in interactive media settings.

Evaluating Health Advice in a Web 2.0 Environment: The Impact of Multiple User-Generated Factors on HIV Advice Perceptions

ABSTRACT Unlike traditional media, social media systems often present information of different types from different kinds of contributors within a single message pane, a juxtaposition of potential influences that challenges traditional health communication processing. One type of social media system, question-and-answer advice systems, provides peers’ answers to health-related questions, which yet other peers read and rate. Responses may appear good or bad, responders may claim expertise, and others’ aggregated evaluations of an answer’s usefulness may affect readers’ judgments. An experiment explored how answer feasibility, expertise claims, and user-generated ratings affected readers’ assessments of advice about anonymous HIV testing. Results extend the heuristic–systematic model of persuasion (Chaiken, 1980) and warranting theory (Walther & Parks, 2002). Information that is generally associated with both systematic and heuristic processes influenced readers’ evaluations. Moreover, content-level cues affected judgments about message sources unexpectedly. When conflicting cues were present, cues with greater warranting value (consensus user-generated ratings) had greater influence on outcomes than less warranted cues (self-promoted expertise). Findings present a challenge to health professionals’ concerns about the reliability of online health information systems.

Things we know about media and morality

To the Editor — Crockett’s Comment ‘Moral outrage in the digital age’1 explains how social media affect responses to moral violations and the consequences thereof: social media increase the frequency of exposure to moral violations, alter the cost and constraints of experiencing them, and promote feuding responses. We applaud Crockett for addressing this pressing topic. However, a significant body of communication science research suggests important ways in which Crockett’s model and hypotheses could be enriched and refined. First, Crockett argues that individuals show moral outrage when exposed to moral content in social media contexts and that this outrage is consistent with an individual’s moral subculture. Crockett primarily accounts for volume and platform of exposure while underspecifying content as emotional, immoral or otherwise triggering stimuli. Volume is a reasonable start. However, existing models show that moral beliefs shape media exposure, and that these beliefs are influenced as a result. Moral subcultures emerge in response to media use2 and the moral profiles of these subcultures shape the evaluation of moral actions3. Importantly, moral messages differ in systematic ways4 and vary by source5. Therefore, research should address how variations in media content interact with individuals’ moral profiles to shape exposure6 and subsequent behavioural outcomes7. Given that volume can be considered an outcome of variation in moral content, Crockett’s model would benefit from specifying message, source and receiver characteristics that explain intensity of and variation in moral emotions. Second, Crockett’s argument assumes that social media constitute echo chambers and that exposure to moral content in social media contributes to polarization. Empirical support for these assumptions is mixed. Moral content on social media platforms are part of broader media contexts that jointly contribute to moral evaluations and behaviour. In traditional and new media contexts, audience fragmentation is lesser than audience duplication and this finding is true across multiple nations and platforms8. If social media significantly contribute to polarization, then the most polarized audiences should use social media the most. Nationally representative data show the opposite pattern9. Accordingly, Crockett’s hypothesis that echo chambers associated with social media limit the costs and benefits of moral outrage requires further empirical scrutiny. Finally, Crockett argues that exposure to moral content evokes stronger moral outrage in social media compared with in person. This is supported by preliminary evidence for a small effect size in a large sample1. However, the hypothesis that social media exacerbate moral outrage in kind and ferocity over other channels requires additional evidence. Illuminating questions might consider the properties of social media in addition to volume and ease of transmission with a focus on the written nature of online communication that intensifies the emotional impact of messages. Despite the prevalence of graphics in social media, commenting is still predominantly textual, and therefore exceptionally provocative10. If we agreed that evidence for echo chambers is inconclusive and social media may not limit the benefits of moral outrage, then other factors such as intensified self-perceptions and commitment to public positions due to postings are indeed aspects worth considering in more detail. Ultimately, if social media affect moral outrage at the individual and societal level, then cross-disciplinary collaborations to model morality, media and their mechanisms will help us better understand these phenomena. ❐