Research Publication Roundup: September 2022
A vibrant and collaborative interdisciplinary research culture at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media creates new knowledge, advances scholarship and helps reinvent media.
Director of the Park Library Stephanie Willen Brown recently published a book chapter addressing "soft skills" in managing licensed online collections, such as purchasing resources and working with vendors and colleagues. More details on this chapter are listed below, along with a list of other recently published or presented scholarship by UNC Hussman faculty and students.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
This article assesses the extent to which existing state and federal laws limit election misinformation and the prospect that these laws will survive First Amendment scrutiny. In doing so, the authors reviewed more than 125 state statutes that regulate the content of election-related speech, creating a regulatory taxonomy of laws targeting the content of speech relating to elections.
The Paycheck Protection Program was a key component of the United States’ economic policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic crisis, offering forgivable loans to small businesses to aid them in retaining their employees. In this article, the authors theorize and examine the PPP as a “public money,” performing a mixed-methods analysis of news articles covering the PPP from mainstream and partisan sources between March and July 2020. They focus on three areas of controversy over the PPP in this coverage: the intended beneficiaries of PPP funds, the overlap between PPP and expanded unemployment insurance in paying workers, and the boundaries of which organizations were “small businesses” meriting PPP forgivable loans. The authors trace how these controversies evolved through continuous redefinition of the core problem of PPP and demonstrate how journalistic coverage constructs public monies such as the PPP.
In this survey of 347 Kentucky physicians, the authors investigated prescribers’ beliefs and behaviors surrounding abuse-deterrent opioids (ADFs). More than half of surveyed physicians believed opioids should have ADF requirements, although physicians who prescribed ADFs reported primarily doing so to divert patients’ family members (94%). Those who were early adopters believed ADFs were effective in reducing opioid abuse significantly more than other physicians. Early adopters, compared to mainstream physicians, were more likely to screen for risk of opioid abuse. Only 57% of physicians who participated in the survey believed opioid abuse was a problem in their individual practice. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Among parents of young children, fruit drinks are generally considered to be “healthy.” In this experiment, the research team tested three claims common to fruit drinks (e.g., “no artificial sweetners”, “!00% Vitamin C”, and “100% all natural”). More than 2,000 parents of children ages 1 – 5 were randomly assigned to see drinks with one of the three claims or no claim on the label. Parents selected two drinks for their children: (1) A fruit drink or 100% juice and (2) A fruit drink or water. Parents in all three claim conditions were more likely to choose the fruit drink over the 100% juice. Parents who saw two of the three claims (i.e., “no artificial sweeteners” and “100% all natural”) were more likely to choose the fruit drink over the water. Parents who saw third claim (i.e., “100% Vitamin C”) were not more likely to choose the fruit drink over the water. Parents exposed to all three claims were more likely to believe that the fruit drinks contained no added sugar and were 100% juice. The results did not differ based on the demographics of the participants (e.g., race/ethnicity, income, etc.). Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
Prior to the introduction of vaccines against COVID-19, individual protective behaviors were the primary means of preventing spread of the virus. The research team surveyed 404 residents of North Carolina in July 2020 to learn about adherence to key protective behaviors (e.g., wearing a face mask, social distancing, etc.), as well as facilitators and barriers to engaging in these behaviors. Participants reported generally high engagement with individual behavior, although distancing and mask wearing were slightly less. Forgetting was a common barrier to both social distancing and mask wearing. Injunctive norms and perceived personal agency were both significantly associated with social distancing. Behavioral attitudes and injunctive social norms were both significantly associated with mask wearing. Perceived personal agency and perceived severity of COVID-19 were both significantly associated with limiting gathering size. The authors suggest that messaging targeting these barriers and facilitators should be developed and tested.
The effectiveness of warnings for cigars is relatively unknown. Adults who had used cigars in the past 30 days were recruited to view and rate seven text warning statements about cigar use. The 777 participants rated each of their viewed warning statements on perceived message effectiveness, a measure of how effective a message is at discouraging smoking. Participants who viewed warnings about consequences to the cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive systems, as well as warnings about damages to the mouth and warnings of early death, reported their messages to be significantly more effective than the other messages. Awareness of the health consequence was also associated with higher perceived message effectiveness, while the length of the warning message (i.e., number of characters) was associated with lower perceived message effectiveness. No significant differences were found between cancer and noncancer messages. The authors suggest that these findings can assist in developing effective cigar warnings.
The quality of interaction and networking between students and between students and industry professionals is a common question in online-based programs. The authors surveyed alumni from a 10-year-old cohort-based online master’s program in digital communication. Participants reported feeling a sense of community both during the program and after graduation. Participants reported using common e-networking tools, such as Facebook and e-mail, to interact with members of their cohorts and other cohorts. Participants reported valuing the ability to network with industry professionals from a diversity of experiences. However, participants also reported the need for more identity-based diversity among cohort members. Implications are discussed.
Eleven e-resource managers share practical tips and techniques for working with licensed online collections. This chapter covers the “soft skills” of purchasing and licensing electronic resources, including working with colleagues and vendors.
Amid emerging information and communication technologies with unique affordances for storytelling and story sharing, most studies in narrative communication still focus on narratives delivered through traditional mediums. There has been little research on how emotionally charged stories can be used to engage audiences on social media. This study examined the roles of emotions and emotional shifts on user engagement behaviors on Facebook. Analyzing Facebook narratives by multiple breast cancer organizations (N = 403), the researchers found a primacy effect of emotions in social stories, as negative emotions in the initial segment of a story increased user engagement behaviors. Emotional shift patterns were associated with user engagement behaviors, with the shift from positive to positive being the least engaging. Our findings advance narrative communication science in the social media context and offer important implications on how organizations can use social media to tell emotionally engaging stories.
CONFERENCES
American Political Science Association Annual Meeting
Sept. 14-18, 2022 | Montreal
Archer, A., Schmitt, C., McGregor, S., & Jang, H. (2022). Presidential authority and the legitimation of far-right news [Conference presentation]. APSA Annual Meeting, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Lorenz, A. (2022). “If he can win, anything is possible”: Subnational female candidates post-2016 [Conference presentation]. APSA Annual Meeting, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Trust and Safety Research Conference
Sept. 29-30, 2022 | Palo Alto, California
Reid, A., & Ringel, E. (2022). Look who’s reporting now: A content analysis of Big Tech’s 2020 transparency reports [Conference presentation]. Trust and Safety Research Conference, Palo Alto, CA, United States.