Research

This study explores the effects of food science perception on food decisions in the controversial case of genetically modified (GM) foods. We examine (1) how scientific consensus and scientific deference affect the public perception of GM foods; and (2) how perception and healthy eating interest influence people's actual food consumption decisions. We categorized our samples into four groups based on different risk/benefit perceptions of GM food: tradeoff, relaxed, skeptical, and uninterested in the process of further data analysis.

In its use of interactive media technology, the public takes on an important role in disseminating news, especially when sharing it through social networking sites. This study demonstrates what motivates media users to participate in the process of sharing online news in two cultures: South Korea and the United States (U.S.). Employing the theory of reasoned action, this study empirically displays how the intention to share online news is influenced by attitudes and subjective norms. Particularly, this study measures both attitudes toward and subjective norms about (1) the specific news article and (2) social media participation. Our findings reveal more substantial effects that attitudes have on behavioral intention than subjective norms in the U.S. group. The discussion highlights the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Aging in place (AIP), or older adults' ability to remain in their homes and communities as they age, is an important social issue given the growing aging population. Communication is a central component of this process, yet little is known about how communicative resources are used by residents to co-construct community as they age. In order to address this topic, a quasi-ethnographic study of a local neighborhood was completed using communication infrastructure theory (CIT). Three themes emerged from the data: (1) shifting communication infrastructure, (2) shifting identities, and (3) shifting priorities of the community and its members. These findings inform theoretical and practical implications related to the built environment and organizational-resident communication that facilitates the AIP experience.

This experiment manipulated three features (intergroup social comparison, outgroup character stereotypicality, intergroup intimacy) of an intergroup TV pilot proposal. The study examined how two underlying social identity motivations (social enhancement, social uncertainty reduction) were gratified by the aforementioned features, and whether this gratification predicted media attractiveness. Findings indicate that when social comparison was manipulated to advantage the ingroup, intergroup media gratified existing social enhancement motivations and led to audiences rating the show as more entertaining and attractive. This finding was most clearly evident in the absence of intergroup romance. The gratification of social uncertainty reduction motivations was also shown to increase audience perceptions of intergroup media attractiveness, but outgroup stereotypicality was weakly associated with the gratification of this motivation. These results are discussed in terms of both theoretical implications as well as applications to media campaigns.

While the need for evaluation has become increasingly emphasized within the global public diplomacy community, recent research suggests the state of the practice is grim. However, the few writings that exist on evaluation practices in public diplomacy are anecdotal and focus mainly on obstacles to enacting evaluation behavior. Little is known about evaluation-related perceptions, motivations, and attitudes of public diplomacy practitioners themselves. As practitioners are under increasing pressure to deliver evaluations, understanding the perspective of practitioners and their motivations is necessary. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, this study presents the results of interviews with 25 public diplomacy practitioners in the U.S. Department of State. The results lend insight into the attitudes, norms, and behavioral controls that influence practitioners’ intentions to engage in evaluation. The article also suggests explanations as to why evaluation struggles to gain a foothold within public diplomacy, and makes proposals for improving future practice.

Companies have frequently used visuals (e.g., still images and videos) as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategies, and those visuals often contain emotional content. As yet, however, scholars and practitioners have little understanding of how emotional design influences the effectiveness of CSR communication. This study examined how the emotional valence and arousal generated from contextual images in CSR messages affected the perceived CSR motives of companies, attitude toward the companies, purchase intention, and CSR participation intention. The results of a 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) × 2 (arousal: calm vs. arousing) experiment showed that arousing negative images elicited the highest level of attributing public-serving CSR motives to companies, the most favorable attitude toward the companies, and the strongest purchase intention, and CSR participation intention. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Young adults were exposed to experimentally manipulated stereotypical, counterstereotypical, or extremely counterstereotypical media depictions of an older adult driving. Perceptions of exemplar typicality and beliefs about older adults’ driving ability were assessed. The results support a curvilinear model in which there is a point, or “sweet spot,” where exemplars are perceived as typical enough of their group to be seen as cognitively related and relevant to perceptions of the group, but still atypical enough to change perceptions and beliefs. We discuss implications of these findings for group-related cognitions, subtyping, and media depictions of older adults.

Patient-provider relationships can either impede or encourage patient utilization of healthcare services and adherence to treatment. Given the significant health disparities found among low-income African Americans, it is imperative to understand this population’s experiences with healthcare providers and how to improve their patient-provider relationships in order to increase successful treatment outcomes. Relationship management is a well-tested theory that examines factors that improve outcomes between organizations and their publics. This exploratory study uses relationship management theory to understand how African Americans who are medically underserved perceive the quality of their relationships with healthcare providers. Focus groups were held with low-income African American adults. Findings reveal that communication is key to improving trust, but other characteristics needed for a quality relationship were lacking, particularly perceived commitment, which impedes better healthcare. The low-income, medically underserved context influenced participant perceptions of factors such as commitment, but participants also expressed efficacy in feeling in control of healthcare situations, which may help them maintain quality relationships. This study offers theoretical elaboration as well as practical suggestions for how providers may wish to address an important population of patients through communication.

This study examines consumers’ uses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication channels, the relationship of such uses to consumers’ CSR awareness, and the mechanisms through which consumers’ CSR awareness can lead to their intention to participate in CSR activities. Specifically, we explored the mediation effects of consumers’ CSR associations with a company, consumers’ assessment of the company’s CSR credibility, and consumers’ perceptions of their relationship with the company, applying the conceptual frameworks of the uses and gratification theory, source credibility theory, and organization–public relationship (OPR) scholarship. We conducted an online survey of a company’s customers (N = 394), and the results showed that their level of awareness of the company’s CSR activities was positively related to the degree of use of all communication channels through which they received CSR messages, except CSR reports. The degree of the customers’ awareness of the company’s CSR programs, however, did not always correspond to the customers’ intention to participate in the programs: a crucial condition mediating between the customers’ knowledge of CSR programs and their intention to participate in the programs was their associating the company with CSR. The CSR associations influenced CSR credibility and perceived OPR quality, which, in turn, led to CSR participation intention. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

By 1893, the Supreme Court had officially declared women to be citizens, but most did not have the legal right to vote. In Practicing Citizenship, Kristy Maddux provides a glimpse at an unprecedented alternative act of citizenship by women of the time: their deliberative participation in the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.

Hailing from the United States and abroad, the more than eight hundred women speakers at the World’s Fair included professionals, philanthropists, socialites, and reformers addressing issues such as suffrage, abolition, temperance, prison reform, and education. Maddux examines the planning of the event, the full program of women speakers, and dozens of speeches given in the fair’s daily congresses. In particular, she analyzes the ways in which these women shaped the discourse at the fair and modeled to the world practices of democratic citizenship, including deliberative democracy, racial uplift, organizing, and economic participation. In doing so, Maddux shows how these pioneering women claimed sociopolitical ground despite remaining disenfranchised.

This carefully researched study makes significant contributions to the studies of rhetoric, American women’s history, political history, and the history of the World’s Fair itself. Most importantly, it sheds new light on women’s activism in the late nineteenth century; even amidst the suffrage movement, women innovated practices of citizenship beyond the ballot box.