Browsing by Author "Duncan, Megan A."

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    The effectiveness of credibility indicator interventions in a partisan context
    Duncan, Megan A. (SAGE, 2019-12-01)
    Audiences, who cannot investigate the credibility of most news stories for themselves, rely on noncontent heuristic cues to form credibility judgments. For most media, these heuristics were stable over time. Emerging formats of journalism, however, require audiences to learn to interpret what new heuristics credibility cues mean about the story’s credibility. In an experiment, participants (N = 254) were given instructions about how to interpret the credibility cues in three formats as they read a politicized news story, which were compared with a control condition with no instructions. Results show the timing and source increase the effectiveness of the instructions.
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    Environmental Risks, the Leverage of Scientific Information and Data, and Mediated Communication
    Seo, Hye-Jeong (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-28)
    This dissertation addresses the complex challenge of communicating knowledge about environmental risks from toxic chemicals. Modern environmental risks are often invisible and technically complex, making the management of these risks highly dependent on data and information. Reliance on risk knowledge necessitates effective dissemination and communication by government agencies, yet the public's engagement with this information remains unclear due to limited real-world studies. This dissertation is comprised of three standalone papers bridging this gap. Each focuses on different aspects of risk knowledge communication using news dialogues as data sources. The first paper investigates the communication of location-specific risk information through a case study of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RAAP). Using content analysis and logistic regression, the study examines how scientific information about local environmental issues is presented in news articles and what factors influence its inclusion. Findings highlight the varying capacities among different stakeholder groups to access and utilize scientific information, underscoring the need for governmental and research support for less-resourced groups. The second paper explores chemical-specific risk knowledge, focusing on the environmental risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Employing a structural topic model (STM) and multinomial logistic regression, the study assesses the impact of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)'s Draft Toxicity Assessment for GenX, one of the PFAS chemicals, on news topics. Results indicate that the influence of new risk knowledge on news topics varies depending on community context, with significant impacts observed when communities are ready for governmental action or legislation using the new assessment. The third paper examines the use of the US EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database in news media. Through exploratory analysis, it reveals how different stakeholders use TRI data to make claims about environmental risks, highlighting that environmental organizations are primary users who often reconstruct TRI data to make it more relevant to the public. This suggests their potential role as intermediaries in risk knowledge communication. This dissertation provides empirical evidence of the limited news coverage of environmental risk knowledge, the dominance of government sources, and the significant role of intermediary groups. The findings suggest policy implications for government agencies and other organizations, highlighting the need to improve the conveyance and communication of risk knowledge. Recommendations include providing more contextual information and training for communities and intermediary groups on interpreting and utilizing risk data and information. These aim to bolster public comprehension and responsiveness to environmental risks, thereby protecting public safety and health.
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    The Implications of The Sharing Economy for Public Relations Theory and Practice: A Thematic Analysis of Airbnb, Uber and TaskRabbit
    Knight, Andrew Marshall (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-15)
    This thesis presents a public relations perspective of the sharing economy by exploring how three prominent sharing economy companies, Airbnb, Uber and TaskRabbit, communicate to form a relationship with key stakeholders, including customers and service providers. Employing a qualitative, thematic analysis, this study analyzed each company's website communication and found the relationship qualities of social trust, safety and support to be prominent elements of relationships communicated by each company. Serving as one of the only public relations studies to address the sharing economy, this thesis extends relationship management theory's application to a new socioeconomic movement and situates current sharing economy research in a new context of public relations. This study provides important communication insights for organizations in the sharing economy that rely on strong organization-public relationships in order to be successful, and it unites public relations and sharing economy research.
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    Masking the Second Amendment: Issue agenda building during the 2020 American presidential election
    Shaughnessy, Brittany Rose (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-10)
    This study content analyzed interest group and candidate tweets from the 2020 American presidential election to determine what issues and substantive attributes were most salient on interest group and candidate agendas during the "hot phase" of the campaign. Cross-lagged correlations were conducted during two time periods from Labor Day to Election Day 2020 to measure agenda building effects. These tests were conducted for Democratic nominee and eventual President Joe R. Biden, and Republican nominee and former President Donald J. Trump. These tests were also conducted for two issue-based interest groups: Everytown for Gun Safety and the National Rifle Association. Findings indicate that Biden influenced Trump's campaign agenda, but Trump did not influence Biden's. The interest groups showed reciprocal influence with each other. Given the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election, the candidates were largely talking about the same issues. However, substantive attributes reveal the candidates' true issue agenda. This study offers methodological innovation by utilizing NVivo for content analysis.
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    Nappily Ever After: A Theoretical Analysis of Black Women's Hair in Film
    Travis, Tasia (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-13)
    This thesis will examine the film Nappily Ever After (Al-Mansour, 2018). I will use the communication theory of identity (CTI) as a theoretical framework to analyze the film. My CTI analysis will depict how hair affects a Black female character's life in terms of her identity. My thesis will use the CTI layers, which include personal, enacted, relational, and communal, to evaluate the film. The film is organized into five parts that describe how the main character's hair changes during a pivotal period of her life: Straighten, Weave, Blonde, Bald, and New Growth. Ultimately, the thesis explores how the main character evolves to be more comfortable with herself as her hairstyles change throughout the film.
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    Same Scandal, Different Standards: The Effect of Partisanship on Expectations of News Reports about Whistleblowers
    Duncan, Megan A.; Perryman, Mallory; Shaughnessy, Brittany (Taylor & Francis, 2021-06-19)
    This experiment (N = 591) tests whether audiences adjust their standards for what qualifies as fair journalism based the transparency of news editors, the source of the news, and the target of an accusation. In the context of a whistleblower scandal, the results suggest the relationship between the audience member’s ideology and the news story publisher and target influence what details the audience thinks journalists should reveal. Additionally, we find transparency from editors can alter those perceptions.
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    Selective rating: Partisan bias in crowdsourced news rating systems
    Duncan, Megan A. (Taylor & Francis, 2021-12-27)
    Crowdsourced news rating systems have been suggested as a solution to reducing the amount of misinformation online audiences see. This study expands previous research crowdsourcing by looking at how characteristics of the rating system affect user behavior. In an experiment (N=1,021), two parameters of the rating system were manipulated. First, users were shown different varieties of news brands on the “menu” they were asked to rate. Second, participation was mandatory for half and voluntary for others. Results indicate partisans rated more news brands when they saw an ideologically dissimilar news menu than one that matched their ideology. Further, the trustworthiness rating of the mainstream news menu decreased when participants had a choice to participate rather than were forced. These results have important implications for understanding how users participate in crowdsourcing news credibility.
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    Staying silent and speaking out in online comment sections: The influence of spiral of silence and corrective action in reaction to news
    Duncan, Megan A.; Pelled, Ayellet; Wise, David; Ghosh, Shreenita; Shan, Yuanliang; Zheng, Mengdian; McLeod, Doug (Pergamon-Elsevier, 2020-01-01)
    Through the lenses of Spiral of Silence Theory, the Corrective Action Hypothesis, and peer influence research, we conducted an online experiment to identify the influence of varying opinion climates on opinion expression about a news controversy. This study expands the corrective action literature by manipulating the perceived opinion climate and measuring opinion change and subsequent expression. After all participants (N = 415) read the same news story, they were randomly assigned to one of five opinion climate conditions (supportive, oppositional, mixed, uncertain or polarized) operationalized through user comments following the story. The experiment allowed participants to reply, comment, do both, or not further engage in an attempt to mirror real-world expression behavior. The results suggest that the opinion climate formed by news comments influenced the opinions and comments of participants, providing evidence that those who hold strong opinions are more likely to comment when they perceive the opinion climate to be oppositional rather than supportive to their worldview.
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    Taking it from the team: Assessments of bias and credibility in team-operated sports media
    Mirer, Michael; Duncan, Megan A.; Wagner, Michael (2018-10-29)
    Team- and league-operated media play a growing role in the sports media system. Few have looked at how audiences perceive the credibility of in-house content, which regularly mimics traditional sports journalism. An experimental analysis finds that even among fans, independent media content is rated more credible than that produced in-house. Fans view stories accusing their team of wrongdoing as biased even as they find them credible.
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    Technologies, Ethics and Journalism’s Relationship with the Public
    Duncan, Megan A.; Culver, Kathleen Bartzen (Cogitatio Press, 2020-07-27)
    Drones can provide a bird’s eye view of breaking news and events that can be streamed live or used in edited news coverage. Past research has focused on the training and ethics of journalists and drone operators. Little attention, however, has been given to audiences and their acceptance and perception of ethics. We suggest that audiences who are open to personal technology use will perceive news media using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as more ethical in an extension of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. In a survey (N = 548) of adults living in the United States, we explore the correlates between trust, technology, privacy, and the use of UAVs. Results suggest all three are positively correlated with openness toward drone journalism. We find the audience has preferences for the types of news stories that should be covered using drones. Participants indicated they welcome drone journalism when covering traffic and investigative stories, but not celebrities and politicians. The findings have implications for newsrooms, suggesting transparency and outreach to educate people on the technology could help build trust. Further, the results suggest that Diffusion of Innovation theory can be applied when mediated through news media.
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    What's in a Label? Negative Credibility Labels in Partisan News
    Duncan, Megan A. (SAGE, 2020-10-13)
    Concern about partisan audiences blindly following partisan news brands while simultaneously being unable to distinguish the credible news from hoax news dominates media criticism and theoretical inquiries. Companies and media literacy advocates have suggested credibility labels as a solution. This experiment tests the effectiveness of credibility labels at the intersection of partisan news brands and partisan news stories. Using news credibility theory and Partisan Media Opinion hypothesis, it investigates the effects credibility labels have on partisan audiences, partisan news brands, and partisan news stories. It finds that credibility labels may be an effective news literacy tool, and that credibility is enhanced when the news story’s ideological perspective does not match the ideology of the news brand.
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    Women's Influence on Culture in Collegiate Esports
    Lane, Taylor Catherine (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-21)
    With the rising popularity of esports, it is more important than ever to examine this male dominated sport along gendered lines. In competitive video game spaces, women are targets of harassment and toxic speech more often than men, leading to the need for coping strategies. This thesis looked at collegiate esports teams to see if men and women felt similarly about team culture and inclusion while playing on these teams. The hypotheses of this study predicted correlations between variables related to team culture, inclusion, and coping strategies along gendered lines. Results indicated that all players used gender masking the least of the all the coping strategies, women report using avoidance as a coping strategy more than men, team culture was positively correlated with inclusion, and that women feel less included on their esports teams than men. A discussion along with future directions followed and largely advocated for the separation of esports teams by gender to alleviate institutional access disadvantages that women have when playing competitive video games.
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    The World Asked, Who am I?: A study focused on Latino Identity and Self Esteem
    Giron, Veronica Isabel (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-08)
    This thesis explores the complex link between Latino individuals' self-esteem and media depictions. This thesis was created with the intent to fill a current gap in communication research by providing original data and addressing the lack of quantitative research surrounding the Latino community. The Latino Perceptions of Realism in TV and Film Scale was created as a new tool to measure opinions about ethno-cultural portrayal. This thesis aims to clarify how Latino people's self-esteem is shaped by the perceived realism of media depictions, drawing on Social Identity Theory and Social Learning Theory. This thesis examines how Latinos are portrayed in movies to determine how media exposure affects how the Latino population views their self-esteem. This study uses empirical analysis to further our understanding of the relationship between media portrayal, social identity development, and self-esteem in the Latino community. The thesis offers original quantitative data using a survey-based approach. It introduces the Latino Perceptions of Realism in TV and Film Scale, a new survey tool for gauging perceptions of Latino interpretations of television and film Latino characters. Regression analysis was employed to investigate how media depictions affect the development of self-esteem in the Latino population. Key findings provide insight into the complex relationships between media portrayal and the way Latinos view their ethnic group in film and television. Demographic factors such as age and gender, the amount of media consumption, intellectual capacity, and work ethic were revealed as important determinants impacting the development of Latino self-esteem. This study contributes new data to the discipline of media effects research, extending the conversation on the stereotypical representation of Latinos in television and film. It also provides insight into how Latinos view their self-esteem based on character portrayals in film and television.