{"title":"The professional backstaging of diversity in journalism","authors":"Ashley W Carter, Patrick Ferrucci","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae011","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how diverse US-based journalists—both Black, Indigenous, and people of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer [or sometimes questioning] and others—perform their diversity within newsrooms. Applying Goffman’s theory of dramaturgy, the study illustrates the nuanced differences in terms of how journalists perform their diverse identities differently on both the frontstage and backstage. These differences are explained through the proliferation of historical norms such as objectivity in journalism in the United States, norms that curtail how diversity can be enacted. The study introduces the concept of professional backstaging, a concept that describes how professional norms can bypass organizational and individual agency to force certain actions off the frontstage. Finally, the discussion theorizes how these findings—and particularly the concept of professional backstaging—can contribute to future work across studies of media organizations and within the discipline of organizational communication.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140142145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Empowering social media users: nudge toward self-engaged verification for improved truth and sharing discernment","authors":"Fangjing Tu","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae007","url":null,"abstract":"How can we empower social media users to better discern the veracity of news and share less false news? This survey experiment (N = 636) assessed the effectiveness of two interventions—signing a Pro-Truth Pledge and utilizing a Fact-Checking Guide. Results showed that utilizing the Fact-Checking Guide increased skepticism of news posts, likelihood to verify news posts, verification engagement, and reduced intention to share news without regard to news veracity. Before and after comparisons indicated that after verification engagement activities, truth and sharing discernment improved with higher factual accuracy ratings for true news, lower accuracy ratings for false news, and a greater likelihood to share true news compared to false news. Individual’s engagement in verification was identified as a crucial mechanism through which the Fact-Checking Guide intervention led to better truth and sharing discernment. The study could inform social media designs that promote a truthful news environment.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140096822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Hanitzsch, Antonia Markiewitz, Henrik Bødker
{"title":"Publish and perish: mental health among communication and media scholars","authors":"Thomas Hanitzsch, Antonia Markiewitz, Henrik Bødker","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae012","url":null,"abstract":"Studies point to a significantly higher prevalence of mental health issues among academics compared to most other working populations. However, we know relatively little about the situation within the field of media and communication studies. Based on an international survey of 1028 researchers within this field, we found mental health issues to be widespread. Early career researchers, women, and those in nonpermanent positions were significantly more strongly affected by these issues than scholars in later career stages, men, and those in permanent employment. Academics in our field worry most about structural aspects of their work, most notably about publication pressure and future career prospects. We argue that while our findings are somewhat aligned with results from or across other fields, they are still worrisome. We thus argue for the need to start a conversation about how to reduce the mental burden, especially for young and early career researchers.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"119 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140064314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marc Jungblut, Scott Althaus, Joseph Bajjalieh, Chung-hong Chan, Kasper Welbers, Wouter van Atteveldt, Hartmut Wessler
{"title":"How shared ties and journalistic cultures shape global news coverage of disruptive media events: the case of the 9/11 terror attacks","authors":"Marc Jungblut, Scott Althaus, Joseph Bajjalieh, Chung-hong Chan, Kasper Welbers, Wouter van Atteveldt, Hartmut Wessler","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae004","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, disruptive media events, such as major terrorist attacks, have gained increasing relevance in news coverage around the world. Despite the growing importance of such globally broadcast media events, little research to date has examined cross-national variation in event coverage or the predictors of this variation. This study examines news coverage about the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States across 51 countries to analyze whether the topical focus and emotional tone of news coverage about the attacks varied according to a country’s proximity to the United States and the dominant role perceptions of its journalistic culture. We show that these macro-level predictors are associated in varying degrees with the country-level topical focus and emotional tone of reporting over the 30 days following this salient event. Moreover, our analysis also suggests that temporal developments may have uniformly structured much of this worldwide coverage.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139750309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In-person, video conference, or audio conference? Examining individual and dyadic information processing as a function of communication system","authors":"Jingjing Han, Lucía Cores-Sarría, Han Zhou","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae003","url":null,"abstract":"The wide use of virtual communication has raised a need to understand its effect on communication effectiveness and the ways its different forms influence users’ information processing. To that end, this study proposes the Dynamical Interpersonal Communication Systems Model and posits that the amount of information directly perceived affects individual and dyadic information processing. This proposition is tested by examining how visual information influences physiological patterns, known to underlie information processing, during in-person, video, and audio-only conferences. Results indicate that while audio-only communication sustained emotional intensity better, visual-based communication required less initial cognitive effort. Visual information in combination with physical presence (in-person communication) resulted in consistently lower cognitive effort and stronger synchronization of positive emotions, compared to contexts involving visual but without embodied information (video communication). This study shows the importance of investigating interpersonal communication simultaneously across multiple systems and at the intra- and inter-personal levels.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139750350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theory of communicative (dis)enfranchisement: introduction, explication, and application","authors":"Elizabeth A Hintz, Kristina M Scharp","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae002","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, we set forth the theory of communicative (dis)enfranchisement (TCD). The TCD is useful for exploring the ramifications of the hegemonic ideologies which constrain and afford our everyday lives, and which are constructed and reflected in disenfranchising talk (DT). The TCD also asks what communication mechanisms work to reify and resist these hegemonic ideologies. We first introduce the warrant for this theorizing, then overview the assumptions of critical postmodernism and propositions of the TCD. We offer guidance for using the TCD via example research questions, suitable contexts, methodological tools, and conclusions researchers can potentially render. We offer criteria for evaluating the TCD regarding its consistency with critical postmodernism, utility as a heuristic framework, and capacity for claims-making. We respond to potential critiques of the TCD by distinguishing the TCD from six related bodies of communication theorizing, and by addressing the purported opaqueness of critical theorizing. Finally, we offer an example analysis to illustrate the TCD in research practice.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139568369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How dual-message nature documentaries that portray nature as amazing and threatened affect entertainment experiences and pro-environmental intentions","authors":"Anna Freytag, Daniel Possler","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqad044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad044","url":null,"abstract":"Nature documentaries are an entertaining and informative genre that appears well-suited to environmental communication. However, producers of nature documentaries face a dilemma: Although they aim to inspire their audiences to act pro-environmentally, they fear ruining viewers’ entertainment experience if they address environmental destruction. Hence, conventional nature documentaries solely portray pristine nature. In contrast, recent nature documentaries have adopted a dual-message strategy by showing beautiful nature footage while also addressing conservation issues. We investigated how these dual-message nature documentaries affect viewers’ hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences and their pro-environmental behavior intentions compared with conventional nature documentaries. We integrated theoretical accounts from entertainment research and environmental psychology and tested our assumptions in three online experiments (total N = 1,362). Our findings suggest that dual-message nature documentaries evoke weaker hedonic experiences than conventional documentaries but stronger eudaimonic experiences (i.e., mixed affect and reflection) that mediate the effect of dual-message documentaries on pro-environmental intentions.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"166 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139568362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meta-theorizing framing in communication research (1992–2022): toward academic silos or professionalized specialization?","authors":"Dror Walter, Yotam Ophir","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqad043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad043","url":null,"abstract":"Framing, a prominent communication theory, is often lamented as a fractured paradigm, leading some to offer radical changes to its conceptualization, operationalization, and application. Using a meta-theoretical and computational approach, we analyze three decades of framing research to examine academic silos, specializations, the canon’s formation, gender inequalities, authors’ origins, countries studied, and methods used in framing research. Instead of silos, our analysis of 5,291 papers and over 170,000 citations identified specializations formed around a core of canonic texts. While framing research has become more diverse over the years, males affiliated with U.S. institutions still predominately author canonical works. Results reject the isolated-silos hypothesis in favor of a view of framing as a bridging networked paradigm, coalescing around core assumptions, definitions, and approaches. These findings contrast with the common fractured-paradigm narrative and challenge calls for radical solutions.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139110339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lene Aarøe, Kim Andersen, Morten Skovsgaard, Flemming Svith, Rasmus Schmøkel
{"title":"The journalistic preference for extreme exemplars: educational socialization, psychological biases, or editorial policy?","authors":"Lene Aarøe, Kim Andersen, Morten Skovsgaard, Flemming Svith, Rasmus Schmøkel","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqad041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad041","url":null,"abstract":"Exemplars are central in news reporting. However, extreme negative exemplars can bias citizens’ factual perceptions and attributions of political responsibility. Nonetheless, our knowledge of the factors shaping journalistic preferences for including exemplars in news stories is limited. We investigate the extent to which educational socialization, psychological biases, and editorial policy shape journalistic preferences for extreme negative exemplars. We field large-scale survey experiments to a population sample of journalism students, a nationally representative sample of citizens, and a representative sample of “young people” and obtain evaluations of news value, newsworthiness, and behavioral measures of the actual write-up of news articles. We find significant support for the role of editorial policy and limited support for the role of educational socialization and psychological biases. In a time where economic pressures and the proliferation of digital media potentially lead editors to prioritize clickbait, these findings suggest that structural biases in news coverage may be aggravated.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138559392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is communication a dependent or involuted discipline? A citation analysis of communication publications from 2010 to 2020","authors":"Jiaying Hu, Jeffry Oktavianus, Jonathan J H Zhu","doi":"10.1093/joc/jqad039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad039","url":null,"abstract":"Communication research has been one of the fastest-growing disciplines across the social sciences over the last two decades in terms of the numbers of Social Science Citation Indexed journals and articles. However, whether Communication is an independent discipline remains debated. Of various criticisms, one extreme considers Communication too dependent on other disciplines, whereas the other regards Communication as too inward-looking. In the current study, we measure and analyze citations of articles not only among communication scholars but also between communication scholars and their counterparts from other disciplines to evaluate the performance of communication research. Our findings suggest that communication research has maintained balanced citation patterns, with a 20% self-citation rate, a 1:1 ratio between incoming and outgoing citations, and a high diversity of in- and out-citations across social science disciplines. The results may serve as useful food for thought for future evaluation of communication discipline.","PeriodicalId":48410,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication","volume":"64 40","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71524877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}