Suchergebnisse

Using a two-round longitudinal panel data set from the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY), the present study examined the roles of antidrug-related community activities at both individual and aggregate levels in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. This study found a main effect of parent's antidrug-specific community activities on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. More interestingly, parents who did not actively participate in antidrug-related community activities were more likely to talk about drugs with their offspring after being exposed to the antidrug campaign ads than were their counterparts. In contrast, there was little evidence for a contextual effect of aggregate-level antidrug-specific community activities on targeted parent-child communication or for its cross-level interaction with campaign exposure. The implications of these findings for communication research and public health intervention efforts were discussed.

To examine how communication scholars have incorporated the concept of social capital originating from other disciplines, we first analyzed citation patterns among social capital–related journal articles, book chapters, and books extracted from Communication Abstracts. Moreover, we investigated whether and how communication scholars have cited three pioneering scholars in this area, that is, Robert Putnam, Pierre Bourdieu, and James Coleman, to identify aspects of social capital that have either been emphasized or overlooked. Based on the analyses of 171 journal articles, books, and book chapters, we found that the translation of the concept of social capital into communication research has been driven and dominated by a small group of political communication scholars. The results of our content analysis demonstrate that the prominent players in social capital research in the communication field distinctly favored the work of Putnam over those of Bourdieu and Coleman. The implications of these findings for communication research are discussed.

The present study examined the psychological mechanisms underlying the indirect effects of antidrug-specific social capital on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. Moreover, it explored why campaign exposure and social capital exert interactive influences on parent-child communication. Using a three-round longitudinal panel data set from the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY), we found that when taking into account behavioral attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, parents' attitude toward talking about drugs with their child mediated the effects of antidrug-specific social capital on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. Furthermore, behavioral attitude mediated the interactive effects of campaign exposure and social capital on parent-child communication. The implications of these findings for research on the connection between media exposure and conversation and for public health interventions were discussed.

Cultivation theory and research have been criticized for their failures to consider variation in effects by genre, employ appropriate third-variable controls, and determine causal direction. Recent studies, controlling for a variety of demographic characteristics and media use variables, have found that exposure to local television (TV) newscasts is associated with a variety of problematic "real-world" beliefs. However, many of these studies have not adequately assessed causal direction. Redressing this limitation, we analyzed data from a two-wave national representative survey which permitted tests of lagged association between overall TV viewing, local TV news viewing, and fatalistic beliefs about cancer prevention. We first replicated the original cultivation effect and found a positive association between overall TV viewing at Time 1 and increased fatalistic beliefs about cancer prevention at Time 2. Analyses also provided evidence that local TV news viewing at Time 1 predicts increased fatalistic beliefs about cancer prevention at Time 2. There was little evidence for reverse causation in predicting changes in overall TV viewing or local TV news viewing. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Previous research suggests both cognitive and affective variables can impact how the public thinks about new scientific developments such as nanotechnology. Most studies have not explored the origins of these variables or their simultaneous, interactive influences on public opinion. Using national telephone survey data (N=706), we examine the pathways between different types of media use and attitudes toward nanotechnology, particularly potential mediating roles of nanotechnology knowledge and deference toward scientific authority. People relying on newspapers and the Internet for science information report higher levels of nanotechnology knowledge, while respondents using science TV showed higher levels of deference toward scientific authority.

Communication scholars have raised concerns that the media present contradictory or conflicting information on health, science, and political issues, speculating that such information may have adverse effects on public cognitions, affect, and behaviors. However, the evidence base for the effects of contradictory messages remains thin. Using nutrition as a case example, this study builds upon this nascent literature by employing a three-wave panel dataset from a survey with a nationally representative sample of American adults. We found that exposure to contradictory nutrition messages from television increases nutrition confusion, whereas exposure from print media decreases confusion. Moreover, nutrition confusion was positively associated with nutrition backlash, and nutrition backlash decreased engagement in fruit and vegetable consumption. Implications for campaigns and other communication interventions are discussed.

This study examines whether and how exposure to information about health disparities from mediated and interpersonal sources and political trust are jointly associated with policy support and political advocacy. Using a two-wave panel survey design with a national U.S. sample, we found that political trust moderated the association between exposure to health-disparities information from interpersonal sources and policy support. Specifically, a negative relationship between exposure from interpersonal sources and policy support was observed among respondents with a lower than average level of political trust. In contrast, respondents with a higher than average level of political trust showed a positive association between exposure from interpersonal sources and policy support. Among respondents with average level of political trust, the relationship between exposure from interpersonal sources and policy support was generally flat. In addition, exposure to health-disparities information from media sources was positively related to political advocacy after controlling for possible confounders.

This study examines how information and communication technologies – mobile phone, social networking websites, blogging, instant messaging, and photo sharing – are related to the diversity of people's social networks. We find that a limited set of technologies directly afford diversity, but many indirectly contribute to diversity by supporting participation in traditional settings such as neighborhoods, voluntary groups, religious institutions, and public spaces. Only one internet activity, social networking websites, was related to lower levels of participation in a traditional setting: neighborhoods. However, when direct effects were included, the total influence of social networking services on diversity was positive. We argue that a focus on affordances of new media for networked individualism fails to recognize the continued importance of place for the organization of personal networks: networks, that as a result of the persistent and pervasive nature of some new technologies, may be more diverse than at any time in recent history.