Susan H. Sarapin

Identifying Admired Models to Increase Emulation Development of a Multidimensional Admiration Scale

According to social cognitive theory, people are most likely to emulate the behaviors of admired models. Though potentially valuable to researchers and practitioners, this postulate remains untested, as there is no validated measure of admiration. To facilitate research on admiration, a 14-item measure was constructed and the resulting scores were validated across two studies.

When “Like”-Minded People Click: Facebook Interaction Conventions, the Meaning of “Speech” Online, and Bland v. Roberts

In Bland v. Roberts, a public-sector employee sued because he was fired for clicking the Facebook “Like” button on the campaign Website of his employer’s re-election rival. The judge dismissed the free-speech claim stating that “Liking” Web content is not “sufficient” speech to warrant constitutional protection. Employing relevance theory, we explored whether Facebook users’ attitudes and practice indicate the expectation of free-speech protection. Data collected included participants’ “Liking” habits and attitudes about whether “Liking” communicates a message. Two-thirds of the respondents agreed on the meaning of a “Like,” and 81.6% of respondents believed that “Liking” something is communicating a message.

Entertaining free expression on public sidewalks: Are city ordinances kicking musical muses to the curb?

ABSTRACT Freedom of expression, provided by the First Amendment, is a core part of the foundation of our democracy. Yet those who use public places for artistic expression, such as music, are still fighting to benefit from this right, a right vital to their ability to earn a living from musical performances. Historically, both in the United States and elsewhere, buskers, those who perform on the streets for tips, have been subjected to unreasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of their speech, and, at times, outright banishment from constitutionally protected public fora. This article demonstrates why current restrictions on street performers constitute clear violations of free speech through an examination of historical restrictions, case law, and the current rules and regulations of four US cities. Obtaining an ostensibly permanent decision from the Supreme Court is not the solution for ensuring the free-speech rights of street performers. Rather, we present an example of model regulations that, if embraced by individual localities, can ensure proper protection for the First Amendment rights of musicians in public spaces.

Theorizing the Impact of Targeted Narratives: Model Admiration and Narrative Memorability

Communication campaigns often include components that have been designed for a specific population, a strategy referred to as targeting. Targeted narratives are story-based components of a campaign that feature a character or situation relevant to the intended audience. Though commonplace, few studies have explicated the underlying mechanisms by which targeted narratives exert influence. In a message evaluation study, 316 women aged 40–75 (Mage = 51.19, SD = 8.11) were exposed to one of two targeted narratives and asked to complete measures of model admiration, narrative memorability, and intentions to receive a mammography. Targeting was based upon affiliation with the Mormon church. The results revealed that the relationship between the targeted narratives and screening intentions was especially strong for women from the target population who admired the depicted models and found the stories memorable.

The biggest lie on the web: Coming to terms with the failure to read through the lens of the First Amendment

Abstract As lines between public and private spaces online continue to blur, contracts are moving closer to the day when government actors will be involved in all of them. When 90%+ of online users do not read the terms-of-service (ToS) agreements of social media sites, they are unaware of possible repercussions of blindly assenting to these unread contracts, including potentially relinquishing a number of their constitutional rights. Primary among these is their First Amendment right to petition the government for relief in a court of law. In most ToSs, the online user must agree to mandatory arbitration in the site owner’s venue of choice. Secondary is their sole right to their intellectual property afforded by the Constitution. Through an online survey (N = 235), this article reports data concerning respondents’ attitudes toward reading ToSs, their demographic information, and their likelihood of accepting a forum-selection term from Twitter, contrary to their potential constitutional rights. Two major findings are that: (a) there was no effect of education on the likelihood of rejecting Google’s unfavorable copyright-related terms; and (b) 63.2% of those who state they would not, under any condition, accept the unfavorable Twitter forum-selection term do, indeed, belong to or have belonged to Twitter.