Juan José Igartua

To think or not to think: two pathways towards persuasion by short films on AIDS prevention.

Health messages are designed to stimulate an active cognitive process in those audiences generally with little involvement. The Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo sustains that subjects with high involvement and those with low involvement react differently to the persuasive message to which they are exposed. One efficient way to capture the attention of the low involvement audiences is to insert the messages within an entertainment context. Our study attempted to analyze affective and cognitive processes to explain the impact of these new formats, fictional shorts for HIV/AIDS prevention. A 2 2 2 factorial design was used, with involvement in the AIDS issue (high/low) and the type of format (musical/dialogue) as independent variables. The finding showed the better the quality of the short (with dialogue style) the more negative affectivity was stimulated, also the more cognitive processing was induced, and a more favorable attitude towards preventive behavior was stimulated.

Cognitive, Attitudinal, and Emotional Effects of News Frame and Group Cues, on Processing News About Immigration

This study aimed to contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms explaining the so-called framing effect. Experimental research (N = 355) was carried out with a 2 · 2 between-subjects factor design in which the news frame and group cues were manipulated in a news story on the consequences of the increase in immigration in Spain, and their impact on cognitive, attitudinal, and emotional variables was assessed. The results show that the type of news frame stressed in the report exerted significant cognitive, attitudinal, and emotional effects. It was also found that the emotional impact aroused by the news frame was conditioned by the incidental presence of information regarding the national or geographic origin of the immigrants in question. These results are consistent with the hypotheses posed and partially support the argument that the framing effect is a process governed by heuristic processing.

Framing Latin America in the Spanish press: A cooled down friendship between two fraternal lands

Abstract This study focuses on a news framing analysis of Latin America and Latin Americans in the Spanish press. For this purpose 1,271 news articles with different Latin American countries or their citizens as main actors were examined. These news stories had been published by the main Spanish newspapers in 1999. The results reveal that attribution of responsibility, human interest, and conflict constitute the prevailing frames used by the Spanish press. Furthermore, significant differences in the considered variables in terms of main country actor were observed. Venezuela and Colombia, in particular, are associated with armed conflicts, natural disasters, crimes, and accidents using human interest and conflict news frames. This leads to a necessary consideration of the consequences this type of news coverage on Latin America may generate, and whether it will reinforce stereotypes or prejudices in the Spanish audience against peoples from these countries, especially those with a high migratory influx to Spain.

Recepción e impacto socio-cognitivo de las noticias sobre inmigración

Resumen Se ha sugerido que un factor explicativo del rechazo hacia la inmigración es la actuación de los medios de comunicación. Sin embargo, son escasas las investigaciones sobre la recepción e impacto de las noticias sobre inmigración. En este artículo se presenta un estudio experimental sobre los efectos socio-cognitivos de las noticias sobre inmigración. En la investigación participaron 186 estudiantes universitarios. La noticia experimental entregaba información sobre el incremento de la inmigración en España: a) aludiéndose a las consecuencias positivas (contribución económica) o negativas (incremento de la delincuencia); y, b) incluyéndose información sobre el origen de los inmigrantes (latinoamericano versus marroquí). Los resultados mostraron que el tipo de encuadre noticioso enfatizado en la noticia ejercía efectos socio-cognitivos significativos. También se observó un efecto diferencial de la noticia en función del origen de los inmigrantes protagonistas.

Identification With Characters, Elaboration, and Counterarguing in Entertainment-Education Interventions Through Audiovisual Fiction

The aim of this article is to further knowledge of the explanatory processes of narrative persuasion in the field of health communication, using data obtained in a research study of entertainment-education based on audiovisual fiction. Participating in the study were 208 young persons between the ages of 14 and 20, randomly distributed to three different groups. Each of the groups was exposed to a different episode of the Colombian television series Revelados, desde todas las posiciones. The results showed that greater identification with the main character of the episode transmitting a prevention message was associated with greater cognitive elaboration, which in turn led to more favorable attitudes toward the topics addressed. However, counterarguing was not observed to play a significant mediating role. The findings of this study allow us to conclude that getting people to think and reflect can help persuade them, which suggests that narrative persuasion models and dual models of rhetorical persuasion can be compatible in certain contexts, such as when messages are designed in such a way that characters make explicit arguments that endorse a prosocial message through dialogues.

Hedonic and eudaimonic motives for watching feature films. Validation of the Spanish version of Oliver – Raney’s scale

Abstract Three studies are presented to validate the Spanish version of Oliver and Raney’s (2008; 2011) eudaimonic and hedonic motivations scale. In Study 1, 132 university students watched a dramatic (sad) film, filling out the scales to evaluate motivations regarding cinema consumption and reception processes. Eudaimonic motivation was associated with deeper cognitive processes during the reception and stronger identification with the protagonist. Study 2 evaluated the test-retest reliability of the eudaimonic and hedonic motivations scale (n = 44). In Study 3 (n = 537), statistically significant age differences were observed in hedonic and eudaimonic motivations. Furthermore, convergent correlations were detected between hedonic and eudaimonic motivations and preferences of different film genres. These results allow us to conclude that the Spanish version of the hedonic and eudaimonic motivations scale presents adequate psychometric properties, thus being convergent with those obtained by Oliver and Raney.

El análisis del sistema de mensajes: hacia una definición de la violencia desde el proyecto de Indicadores Culturales

Resumen Se presenta una descripción de la metodología utilizada por George Gerbner y su equipo para analizar la violencia en televisión. El proyecto de Indicadores Culturales, en el cual se inscribe el Análisis del Sistema de Mensajes, es el marco en el que se desarrolla el estudio de la violencia. Dicho proyecto surgió en respuesta a la situación de conflicto y violencia social en que vivía EE.UU. en los años sesenta. El denominado índice de violencia es el indicador que Gerbner creará para valorar su prevalencia en televisión. Sus análisis se centran únicamente en la violencia física y, por esta razón, los estudios y resultados de Gerbner han sido parcialmente criticados. Finalmente, se establecen algunas pautas para la investigación de la violencia haciendo hincapié en un análisis contextual. No todos los actos de violencia representados en televisión son similares ni tampoco los efectos que pueden generar en las audiencias.

Skills of Digital Literacy to Address the Risks of Interactive Communication

New technologies are fully integrated into the lives of children, so every day they spend more and more time using them. It is noteworthy that technologies offer many opportunities and benefits for children, but they are also associated with disadvantages and dangers. For this reason, parents and educators fear that children could suffer any of the network risks: exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sexual harassment or grooming, sexting, contact with strangers, and impersonation. In this situation, the authors should not deprive minors of the use of digital technologies. Nevertheless, the solution is to provide them with digital skills so they become digital literate and can use these tools safely. Therefore, through this study they sought to identify the skills that compound digital literacy: technological or instrumental, communication, information, critical, and security. Finally, the authors propose the implementation of a literacy intervention with the aim of providing the children with these skills.

Cultural proximity and interactivity in the processes of narrative reception

This study aims to further our understanding of the reception processes associated with the consumption of new interactive audiovisual products by individuals from different cultures. Through a quasi-experimental research, it analysed reception of a film produced in Germany, in two different European socio-cultural contexts (Spain and The Netherlands). A 2 × 2 factorial design was used, the independent variables being cultural proximity (high, low) and the modality in which the movie was viewed (interactive, non-interactive). Cultural proximity influenced the processes of evaluating the movie, but viewing modality showed no significant differences. Identification with the protagonists of the movie was associated in both cultural contexts with enjoyment, self-perceived physical sensations and emotional induction. These results are relevant for explaining how receivers from different cultures react to audiovisual productions of different origin and to new forms of consumption.

Risks of interactive communication: a digital literacy proposal

In recent years, adolescents have increased the use of interactive technologies. These children have more and more technological equipment and they commonly use interactive communication. This type of communication offers many possibilities and benefits to the users, but it also involves disadvantages and dangers that are of particular concern in the case of minors: exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sexual harassment or grooming, sexting, contact with strangers... In this situation, we should not deprive adolescents of the use of digital technologies and interactive communication. The solution is to provide them with digital skills so they can use these tools safely. Therefore, this project aims to increase the digital skills of adolescents with a proposal for diagnosis and intervention of digital literacy. This project will be implemented through three phases. In the first phase we will make a survey to find the level of digital skills of children. To do this, we will create and validate a scale of digital skills. In the second phase we want to check if the digital literacy influences on the degree of gratification obtained with digital contents. To do this, we will conduct an experiment. The goal is to know if the process for getting children safer involves a restriction of the opportunities and advantages of the online world. Finally, in the third phase we will consider the results of the two previous studies to develop a mobile app to digitally literate. To develop this application we will build on the theories of persuasion and the strategy of entertainment-education. This last phase will be carried out by an experiment. Through it we would check if this application is effective for digitally literate, and more specifically, whether the narrative persuasion is effective for persuading and educating.