Lee Ahern

Stories that Count: Influence of News Narratives on Issue Attitudes

This paper examines the impact of using narratives to frame a political issue on individuals’ attitudes. In an experiment, we asked participants to read either narrative or informational news articles that emphasized the potential economic benefits or environmental consequences associated with shale gas drilling. Results indicated both news formats (narrative vs. informational) and frames (environmental vs. economic) had significant immediate effects on issue attitudes and other responses; narrative environmental news had a significantly greater impact than informational environmental news. Cognitive responses and empathy were significant partial mediators of narrative impact. Environmental narratives also had a more significant impact on individuals’ delayed issue attitudes.

Communicating the Risks of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Effects of Message Framing and Exemplification

Health messages can be either informative or descriptive, and can emphasize either potential losses or gains. This study, guided by message framing theory and exemplification theory, specifically investigated the combined effects of messages with loss–gain frames mixed with statistics or exemplar appeals. The findings revealed a series of main effects and interactions for loss–gain frames and statistics-exemplar appeals on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) prevention intention, intention to know more, perceived severity, perceived fear, perceived external efficacy, and perceived internal efficacy. The gain-statistics appeal showed an advantage in promoting perceived efficacy toward FASD, while the loss-exemplar appeal revealed an advantage in increasing prevention intention, perceived severity, and perceived fear toward FASD. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Is it a sense of autonomy, control, or attachment? Exploring the effects of in-game customization on game enjoyment

The data shows the distinct role of autonomy, control and attachment in creating enjoyment.Consistent with self-determination theory, feelings of autonomy and control contribute to enjoyment.Attachment to the customized avatar contributes to enjoyment through immersion.In general, players perceive a sense of control through customizing avatars.The feelings of autonomy and control are more critical predictors of enjoyment than attachment. This study presents a model linking character customization and game enjoyment. Two separate studies using different types of customization (functional vs. aesthetic) were employed to test two competing mechanisms that explain the effects of customizing in-game characters: feelings of autonomy and control-rooted in self-determination theory-and perceived attachment to game characters. Additionally, this study investigated how these two divergent mechanisms influence game enjoyment through immersion-related experiences. The findings showed that the feelings of autonomy and control are consistently stronger explanations for enjoyment, regardless of customization type. The results suggest that similar to other entertainment media, games can appeal to individuals through the senses of autonomy, control, and attachment to a character; the first two prove more critical.

Merck's One Less Campaign: Using Risk Message Frames to Promote the Use of Gardasil® in HPV Prevention

In 2006, Merck introduced Gardasil® through its One Less campaign, highlighting how the vaccine protects against the transmission of human papillomavirus (HPV) and, potentially, cervical cancer. The purpose of this study was to determine how young women learned about Gardasil and if the One Less campaign influenced the patients decision to receive/decline the vaccines. Participants primarily learned about Gardasil from television advertising, and felt the campaign addressed the psychometric paradigm hazard factors of control and dread associated with HPV. However, participants reported that physicians/physicians assistants and mothers remained the primary sources of influence when choosing to receive/decline the vaccine series.

The Effectiveness of Stratified Constructed Week Sampling for Content Analysis of Electronic News Source Archives: AP Newswire, Business Wire, and PR Newswire

This study extends the content analysis sampling literature through exploration of sample size requirements for electronic news source archives. Significantly larger samples are required to achieve representativeness for AP Newswire, Business Wire, and PR Newswire than for more traditional sources of news content. When sampling press releases, constructing weeks on a quarterly basis provides more representative samples than constructing weeks on a full-year basis for some categories, particularly those tied to a fixed business cycle. The results support the idea that as information passes through more media gatekeepers, who limit and standardize content, the sample sizes required for content analysis diminish.

Key trends in environmental advertising across 30 years in National Geographic magazine

This longitudinal retrospective case study describes the sponsors, ad types, frames and message factors in green advertising over three decades in National Geographic magazine, the bellwether nature publication in the USA. In addition to providing a clearer picture of the extent and nature of environmental strategic messaging over three decades, results provide empirical support for theoretical relationships between the level of green advertising and economic indicators. After providing historical and theoretical context, detailed results are presented for both overall and longitudinal analysis. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

The Current Environment of the Theory-Practice Divide

Over the past 2 years, I have had a unique opportunity to gain perspective on the current status of the environmental communications theory-practice divide. With the time pressures and tightly focused agendas that characterize academic life, it is easy to lose track of how social scientific advances in a specific issue-area are being interpreted within the larger social marketplace of ideas. You cannot read everything. In light of this, stepping back to survey the broader environmental communications landscape not only provides an overview of how academic research is affecting practice but also helps identify those areas where additional work might do the most good. Personally, I was given the luxury of some perspective taking in the context of three recent national service initiatives. In 2009, I helped organize a panel on “greenwashing” and the ethical implications of environmental communication for the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk (ComSHER) Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). In 2010, as Professional Freedom and Responsibility Chair for ComSHER, I worked with the Public Relations Division to develop a two-panel preconference event focused directly on linking theory and practice in communications about the environment, with a particular focus on global warming. In addition, I have been an active member of a task force looking at the possibility of creating a new international environmental communications association. A central question for any new association is deciding on the nature and extent of its linkages with practitioners, which led me to extensive

Acting on surprise: emotional response, multiple-channel information seeking and vaccination in the H1N1 flu epidemic

A survey conducted among college students (N = 205), one of the groups most susceptible to the H1N1 influenza virus, examined how people responded to the unexpected public health crisis from their initial emotional reaction, to information seeking, to vaccination behavior. Results showed that surprise upon first learning of the H1N1 flu was positively related to multiple-channel information seeking. People who used multiple channels to get updated about the pandemic reported more favorable attitudes about getting vaccinated against the H1N1 flu and were more likely to regard getting vaccinated as the norm. These cognitive antecedents were positively related to their actual vaccination behavior.

Worldviews, Issue Knowledge, and the Pollution of a Local Science Information Environment

Research in motivated reasoning supports the notion that sociopolitical identity moderates the impact of knowledge on attitudes toward science issues. However, science knowledge and sociopolitical orientation have been measured in different ways, and the results have not been entirely consistent. In this study, 964 adults participated in an online survey-experiment examining their reactions to a message about local water quality. Results show that while issue-specific knowledge predicts increased environmental science public policy support, “polluting” the information environment with already politicized message frames activates sociopolitical orientation as a moderator and, among certain groups, reverses the direction of the relationship.

First-Person Effects of Emotional and Informational Messages in Strategic Environmental Communications Campaigns

ABSTRACT This study examined the first- and third-person effects of emotional and informational messages, particularly relating to the critical issue areas of energy, the environment, and global warming. Due to intense political polarization on such issues, it also explored the role of political party identification. The results of an experiment indicated that informational messages about the environment produced third-person effects, while environmental advertisements meant to evoke emotion caused first-person effects. Moreover, emotional environmental advertisements appealed more to Republicans and those who did not support a political party. As such, indirect, emotional messages appear to represent an opportunity for strategic environmental communicators to design campaigns that resonate with potentially unreceptive audiences.