- Dripping Springs, Texas, United States
Renita Coleman
The University of Texas at Austin, School of Journalism, Faculty Member
The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason About Ethics. Lee Wilkins and Renita Coleman. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. 164 pp. $19.95 pbk. "Why" questions are often difficult to answer, but they provide useful... more
The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason About Ethics. Lee Wilkins and Renita Coleman. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. 164 pp. $19.95 pbk. "Why" questions are often difficult to answer, but they provide useful insights in the realm of ethics. Lee Wilkins and Renita Coleman pose such a question in The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason About Ethics. After concluding that journalists are competent and sophisticated ethical thinkers, the authors ask, "Why is it that they still appear able to make so many boneheaded mistakes?" Wilkins, a professor at the University of Missouri, and Coleman, now an assistant professor at Texas, offer no simple answers, but they do provide an original, multilayered approach that goes a long way toward explaining how journalists make moral judgments. In a field filled with ethics casebooks and alarmist lamentations about the current state of the news industry, The Moral Media takes a refreshingly different approach. In an attempt to illuminate patterns of ethical decision making, Wilkins and Coleman have assembled several studies-including quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews-of journalists and journalism students. This mixed approach has several strengths. To guide the reader through the variety of methods, The Moral Media is organized and thorough. It begins with a concise, clear review of moral development theory, including the landmark works of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Carol Gilligan, as well as more modern scholars such as James Rest. The book's systematic approach extends to the experiments and surveys, which are explained and discussed in detail. The mixed methodology incorporates the wellknown Defining Issues Test, which explores the reasons behind ethical decisions and offers assessments of moral development. The quantitative studies are amply supported-even the most demanding readers should find their desire for data fulfilled in the statistical figures and tables-while the qualitative surveys are illustrated with numerous quotes. While meticulous with their social science, Wilkins and Coleman also maintain a firm grasp on "real-world" newsroom conditions, reflected, for example, in their acknowledgement that time constraints can affect journalists' ethical decision making. The authors note that respondents had no time limit to complete their surveys and interviews, a luxury few journalists have on deadline. Another strength of the book is the application of the studies' implicit lessons to the classroom. Wilkins and Coleman devote a chapter to journalism ethics instruction, and they suggest greater emphases on the ethical underpinnings of law, normative theory, social justice, and the ethics of care. …
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Boy bands have long been disparaged in music journalism, in part because of their association with teenage and prepubescent girls who are their primary fans. This study uses media stereotypes of musicians and their fans to see how the... more
Boy bands have long been disparaged in music journalism, in part because of their association with teenage and prepubescent girls who are their primary fans. This study uses media stereotypes of musicians and their fans to see how the interplay of age and gender among these two constituencies is associated with negative stereotyping in music journalism. This study fills a gap in scholarship with a quantitative comparison of how modern boy bands and their fans are stereotypically portrayed compared to non-boy bands and their fanbases in a generalizable way. A content analysis of UK and U.S. music journalism from 2010 to 2015 finds that young women music fans continue to be stereotyped, and that boy bands are diminished through stereotypes that are gendered feminine, most prominently about their age and youth, authenticity of the music, and innocent sexuality. However, the boy bands were not diminished through feminine tropes more closely aligned with women fans, such as with the use ...
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This study updates and expands the application of stereotyping and professional socialization to music journalism in a way that is generalizable to the United States music journalism industry, and seeks to understand the role women... more
This study updates and expands the application of stereotyping and professional socialization to music journalism in a way that is generalizable to the United States music journalism industry, and seeks to understand the role women journalists play in counteracting or perpetuating stereotyping of women musicians. A content analysis of 936 articles finds significant stereotyping of women musicians in major US music publications during 2016. The stories, randomly sampled from eight top US publications, were predominantly about men artists and by men authors, and were more likely to discuss women musicians' appearance and relationships, and used more sexualized and emotional language. Improvement was found in that articles were no more likely to discuss women musicians' age and youth than men's. Women journalists were just as likely to stereotype women musicians as men journalists were, and more so in one category. We expand stereotyping by incorporating insights from professional socialization and applying it to the 'soft news' yet male-dominated field of music journalism, adding to our knowledge of hard news fields such as politics, business and sports. It also updates the few studies of music journalism from decades ago, showing little progress in the blatant stereotyping of women musicians
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Boy bands have long been disparaged in music journalism, in part because of their association with teenage and prepubescent girls who are their primary fans. This study uses media stereotypes of musicians and their fans to see how the... more
Boy bands have long been disparaged in music journalism, in part because of their association with teenage and prepubescent girls who are their primary fans. This study uses media stereotypes of musicians and their fans to see how the interplay of age and gender among these two constituencies is associated with negative stereotyping in music journalism. This study fills a gap in scholarship with a quantitative comparison of how modern boy bands and their fans are stereotypically portrayed compared to non-boy bands and their fanbases in a generalizable way. A content analysis of UK and U.S. music journalism from 2010 to 2015 finds that young women music fans continue to be stereotyped, and that boy bands are diminished through stereotypes that are gendered feminine, most prominently about their age and youth, authenticity of the music, and innocent sexuality. However, the boy bands were not diminished through feminine tropes more closely aligned with women fans, such as with the use of emotional language. Being young and male does not automatically mean marginalization and stereotyping, howeverthe young men in the non-boy bands were consistently referred to in nonstereotypical ways.
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This study extends framing theory by identifying two causal mechanisms and one contingent condition for a new type of frame to be used with issues where people dispute scientific claims. This new “adaptive frame” focuses on adapting to... more
This study extends framing theory by identifying two causal mechanisms and one contingent condition for a new type of frame to be used with issues where people dispute scientific claims. This new “adaptive frame” focuses on adapting to climate change impacts without cueing deeply held beliefs by discussing causes. An experiment shows this frame works by reducing persuasion knowledge and increasing perceived behavioral control, resulting in science skeptics being significantly more likely to intend to take action, engage with the news, and agree with the story’s perspective. This effect is moderated by science skepticism, with adaptive frames working significantly better on the very people the news media are not reaching. We contribute to theory with an understanding of how a frame that eliminates references to deep-seated beliefs is more effective than the existing frames of conflict, attribution of responsibility, and possibly others.
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Two experiments explored the effects of photographs on ethical decision making in the journalism domain. Both found that photographs improved participants' ethical reasoning and identified mental elaboration as significant in that... more
Two experiments explored the effects of photographs on ethical decision making in the journalism domain. Both found that photographs improved participants' ethical reasoning and identified mental elaboration as significant in that process: thinking about the people affected by an ethical situation helped improve ethical reasoning. Involvement also was important; when participants were not very involved with the dilemmas, having photographs significantly improved their ethical reasoning. Theoretical explanations for why and how this occurs are offered, building upon moral development theory.
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This is a copyrighted book, so I'm not able to add full text. The publisher is SAGE. I have no free e-copies.
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Framing is described as being like a picture that includes some elements but leaves out others, with scholars declaring that what is left out is just as important as what is emphasized; however, few studies specifically examine left-out... more
Framing is described as being like a picture that includes some elements but leaves out others, with scholars declaring that what is left out is just as important as what is emphasized; however, few studies specifically examine left-out frames. This study uses a content analysis of Chinese media coverage of China’s left-behind children to investigate omitted or repressed frames. It finds that the frames most associated with the root cause of the problem were the least used, and proposes the theoretical concept of “digressive framing,” which distracts from the main issue and diverts attention from the real source of problems. This type of framing is about more than simply not providing a frame of reference for understanding or providing a conflicting frame; it is about not providing the frame at the root of the problem. If media do not frame issues in ways that get at causality, long-term solutions will be unlikely. Keywords: Framing, media frames, Chinese media, content analysis, Ch...
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Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media’s ability to transfer its agenda of issues to the public, but little is known about them at the affective level of agenda setting. Evidence... more
Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media’s ability to transfer its agenda of issues to the public, but little is known about them at the affective level of agenda setting. Evidence shows individual differences may work differently with affect, thus this study examined demographics that predict adopting the news media’s affective agenda. Using data from the U.S. Presidential campaigns in 2008, 2012 and 2016, it found that, indeed, demographics do not all work the same for affect as issues. Unlike with issue agenda setting, education showed no effect at all, while the young were more likely to adopt the news media’s affective agenda than older age groups. As expected, Democrats and Republicans were more likely to adopt the news media’s affective agenda of their own candidates, but Independents were not. As with first-level agenda setting, there was no effect of gender.
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This study advances our understanding of mainstream US journalists’ perceptions of their industry’s ethical climate by extending first- and third-person perception to this domain. These journalists believe that colleagues in their same... more
This study advances our understanding of mainstream US journalists’ perceptions of their industry’s ethical climate by extending first- and third-person perception to this domain. These journalists believe that colleagues in their same organization act unethically significantly less often and act ethically significantly more often than those at other organizations and in related industries. The first- and third-person perceptions are a linear function of social distance but are not the mirror image of each other in this domain. In addition to theoretical contributions, suggestions for ways these perceptions can be used to improve journalists’ moral judgment are offered.
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1 The Importance of Image and Affect in Politics 2 Historical Traces and Relevant Concepts 3 The Role of Information Processing 4 The Methods Behind the Research: How We Did These Studies 5 The Two Levels of Agenda Setting: Issues and... more
1 The Importance of Image and Affect in Politics 2 Historical Traces and Relevant Concepts 3 The Role of Information Processing 4 The Methods Behind the Research: How We Did These Studies 5 The Two Levels of Agenda Setting: Issues and Attributes 6 Visual Cues in the Formation of Affect 7 The Valence of Affect: Accentuate the Negative or Put Your Best Foot Forward? 8 The Makeup of Affect: Emotions and Traits 9 New Media and Demographic Differences in Agenda Setting 10 An International Investigation of Affective Agendas 11 What We Now Know About Affect and Implications for Democracy
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This experiment explores whether vivid writing can improve ethical reasoning by testing it in public relations against non-vivid writing, alone and in combination with pictures. Vivid writing has effects similar to photographs on... more
This experiment explores whether vivid writing can improve ethical reasoning by testing it in public relations against non-vivid writing, alone and in combination with pictures. Vivid writing has effects similar to photographs on attention, memory, emotion, and persuasion; this study explores whether vivid writing effects includes one of the more important effects that photographs can have—improving ethical reasoning. Results show non-vivid writing alone raised participants’ moral judgment, however photographs increased participants’ perceptions of the issues as morally important. Vivid writing did increase participants’ empathy, and empathy was related to support for the organization. Photographs increased participants’ perception of the issue as morally important.
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This mixed-methods study using a national, random sample of journalism students explores their motivations for majoring in journalism and conceptions of the roles of journalists. It showed many similarities among students today and... more
This mixed-methods study using a national, random sample of journalism students explores their motivations for majoring in journalism and conceptions of the roles of journalists. It showed many similarities among students today and yesterday and some differences between students and professionals. Students’ ranking of the importance of roles compared to professionals showed no significant correlation. They still recognize the same four main roles of journalists, but rank them in a different order and define them differently. These future journalists see ‘soft news’ as being on equal footing, if not more important, than traditional ‘hard news’. They consider it fair game for journalists to join the conversation about important issues of the day. They see citizen journalists as not only taking over more of the adversarial duties of journalists but also increasing the amount of information and opinion that people have access to, making the interpretive role of journalists more necessar...
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ABSTRACT Much of the research on outdoor advertising predates recent technological advances. This study updates past research and adds to our understanding of how new technology such as “smartboards” affects consumers' recall of... more
ABSTRACT Much of the research on outdoor advertising predates recent technological advances. This study updates past research and adds to our understanding of how new technology such as “smartboards” affects consumers' recall of outdoor messages. This study finds that smartboards produced the lowest level of aided recall. Two related factors, message consistency and repetition, may account for these findings. Recall may be related to repetition insofar as the smartboard rotated multiple advertisers at eight-second intervals, meaning each advertiser likely failed to achieve wear-in. The tri-vision board repeated multiple messages for one advertiser, adding to wear-in while reducing the chance of early wear-out.
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This study links uses and gratifications theory to a theory that addresses civic engagement and then applies it to create an electronic public sphere designed to encourage citizens to participate in civic life. An experimental website on... more
This study links uses and gratifications theory to a theory that addresses civic engagement and then applies it to create an electronic public sphere designed to encourage citizens to participate in civic life. An experimental website on the topic of the state budget was created and tested to assure maximum usability by citizens. It found that the site designed to conform to users' wants and needs in content, navigation and appearance did indeed foster positive attitudes toward civic engagement. Participants who saw the usable site were significantly more likely to have positive attitudes toward civic engagement than those who saw a site not designed for usability. The site features under the control of website creators, such as story content and site appearance, showed strong correlations with civic engagement attitudes.
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This study explores the relationship between age and the media's agenda-setting effects both by cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. Using American National Election Studies surveys and the New York Times Index data from 1960 to... more
This study explores the relationship between age and the media's agenda-setting effects both by cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. Using American National Election Studies surveys and the New York Times Index data from 1960 to 2004, we test three possible effects of age on the agenda-setting process: generational, life-cycle, and period effects. Findings show the public agenda is fairly stable across generations and age cohorts despite increasing signs of media diversification and audience specialization. More important, different generations’ agendas were overall correlated with the media agenda in each year, indicating robust agenda-setting effects of the media on the public, except for baby boomers. The findings generally support the hypothesis of period effects. Implications of the findings are discussed.
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This study used three controlled experiments to investigate the effects of a story subject's race on the moral judgment of Asian American, Hispanic, and Black professional journalists by changing only the race of the... more
This study used three controlled experiments to investigate the effects of a story subject's race on the moral judgment of Asian American, Hispanic, and Black professional journalists by changing only the race of the news subjects in photographs. Contrary to what in-group and identification theories would predict, minority journalists did not show preference to story subjects of their own race,
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This study used in-depth interviews with 18 photographers and designers to explore how civic journalism has changed their work and some of the practical problems it raises. The main issue for designers was ‘too many pieces’ - stories,... more
This study used in-depth interviews with 18 photographers and designers to explore how civic journalism has changed their work and some of the practical problems it raises. The main issue for designers was ‘too many pieces’ - stories, sidebars, info-graphics, and photographs. One solution they devised was a graphic device they called a ‘grid’ to package information in a systematic way. Photographers struggled with conceptual stories that were hard to illustrate. They suggested a return to ‘enterprise’ photos, but acknowledged they take too much time. Theoretical insights include the core problem of dichotomous reasoning in three general areas: First, the world of these civic journalism workers is divided into the visual and the verbal, with the verbal predominating. Second, the movement has neglected to address changes at the organizational level, focusing instead on individuals, i.e. citizens. Third, visual journalists think about their work as dialectic when they discuss the normative issues as being separate from the philosophical issues. Some solutions and implications for the profession are discussed.
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Surveys of mass media content related to social violence suggest that it generally focuses on the individual, atomistic ‘act’ (e.g. the bang-bang car chase) rather than issues of cause and prevention. Yet, increasingly - but with... more
Surveys of mass media content related to social violence suggest that it generally focuses on the individual, atomistic ‘act’ (e.g. the bang-bang car chase) rather than issues of cause and prevention. Yet, increasingly - but with controversy - doctors, health officials and activists have pushed for a ‘public health’ model of reporting news about crime and violence that looks at interactions between the victim, the agent of injury or death, and the environment in which the injury or death took place rather than viewing it in strictly individual terms. In this study of television news-magazine stories, we found a strong emphasis on episodic and personal stories, with minor allusions to greater social issues. The emphasis on entertainment seemed to negate any promised ‘public health’ angles. We conclude that the challenge for the public health model is to find ‘scripts’ that journalists deem to be publicly consumable and ratings friendly.
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A controlled experiment is used to investigate the effects of race of news subjects on journalists' ethical reasoning. In this study, race of the people in the ethical dilemmas presented had a significant effect on ethical reasoning.... more
A controlled experiment is used to investigate the effects of race of news subjects on journalists' ethical reasoning. In this study, race of the people in the ethical dilemmas presented had a significant effect on ethical reasoning. When participants knew the race because they saw photographs, their ethical reasoning scores were higher when the people in the ethical dilemmas were white than when they were African American.
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Survey and content analysis data from the 2004 presidential election were used to examine relative strength of first- and second-level agenda setting. Second-level candidate attributes exert a stronger agenda-setting influence on the... more
Survey and content analysis data from the 2004 presidential election were used to examine relative strength of first- and second-level agenda setting. Second-level candidate attributes exert a stronger agenda-setting influence on the public than does the salience of issues. More striking is the difference in effect sizes on voting intention. Respondents' perception of candidates' traits has a stronger agenda-setting effect and is a better predictor of voting intention than candidates' issues stance. Additionally, a new contingent condition for second-level effects was confirmed: negative information has more power to transfer the media's agenda of candidate attributes to the public.
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This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and seeks to understand its valence. Three important findings emerged; first, the media's emotional-affective agenda corresponds with the... more
This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and seeks to understand its valence. Three important findings emerged; first, the media's emotional-affective agenda corresponds with the public's emotional impressions of candidates; second, negative emotions are more powerful than positive emotions even when the topic is not a negative “problem”; and third, agenda-setting effects are greater on the audiences' emotions, defined as feelings, than on their cognitive assessments of character traits, the most common way affect is measured in agenda-setting studies.
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As online journalism takes on a larger role in informing the electorate about issues of importance, an understanding of how citizens interact with online journalistic content may be as important as what the content is. If a citizen is not... more
As online journalism takes on a larger role in informing the electorate about issues of importance, an understanding of how citizens interact with online journalistic content may be as important as what the content is. If a citizen is not able to find or use the information necessary to make decisions about community issues, the information is worthless. The capability to find and use online information is what the concept of usability is about. This paper presents a case study of how usability can be integrated experientially into an online journalism course. This process helps students better connect the needs of the citizens to the design and content of a Web site by seeing directly the basis for many usability standards.
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ABSTRACT Health communication is increasingly being held to higher moral standards. No longer do noble goals outweigh ethical concerns. This content analysis examines ethical frames and primes in health public service announcements (PSAs)... more
ABSTRACT Health communication is increasingly being held to higher moral standards. No longer do noble goals outweigh ethical concerns. This content analysis examines ethical frames and primes in health public service announcements (PSAs) so we may begin to address the most prevalent of the problematic ones and find more ethical alternatives. In this study, 80% of the PSAs conveyed messages that individuals were to blame. Negative emotion, such as fear, was the second most frequent frame. Stereotypes of women were the primes most prevalent in the visuals, and visual and verbal messages were vastly different for some of these primes. The ethical implications of each are addressed.
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Research Interests: Health Communication, Journalism, Violence, Social Marketing, Media Framing, and 13 morePublic Health, Medicine, Newspapers, Library and Information Studies, Humans, Crime, United States, Risk factors, Information Dissemination, Communication and media Studies, Public health systems and services research, PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION, and Risk Factors
... of Public Journalism Renita Coleman Introduction Public Journalism is a '90s phenomenon. ... The official christening of public journalism can be traced to 1990, with Jay Rosen widely considered the founding in-tellectual father... more
... of Public Journalism Renita Coleman Introduction Public Journalism is a '90s phenomenon. ... The official christening of public journalism can be traced to 1990, with Jay Rosen widely considered the founding in-tellectual father and Davis Merritt as his professional counterpart. ...
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With the emergence of interactive communication that more easily allows consumers to contact public relations offices, researchers are increasingly investigating the dialogic potential of online communication for maintaining relations... more
With the emergence of interactive communication that more easily allows consumers to contact public relations offices, researchers are increasingly investigating the dialogic potential of online communication for maintaining relations with the general public (Bortrec & Seltzer, 2009; Kent & Taylor, 1998, 2002; Kent, Taylor, & White, 2003; Ryba1ko & Seltzer, 2010). Kent and Taylor (1998) defined dialogic communication as "any negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions" {p. 325) with the purpose of engaging in honest, open, and ethical give-and-take with the public. The authors urged public relations organizations to facilitate dialogue by establishing channels and procedures for fostering dialogue, including social network sites (i.e., Facebook and Twitter). Specifically, public relations professionals argue social network sires and Twitter facilitate two-way communication by opening up new direct avenues of communication between organizations and their public, providing mor...
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Surveys of mass media content related to social violence suggest that it generally focuses on the individual, atomistic ‘act’ (e.g. the bang-bang car chase) rather than issues of cause and prevention. Yet, increasingly – but with... more
Surveys of mass media content related to social violence suggest that it generally focuses on the individual, atomistic ‘act’ (e.g. the bang-bang car chase) rather than issues of cause and prevention. Yet, increasingly – but with controversy – doctors, health officials and activists have pushed for a ‘public health’ model of reporting news about crime and violence that looks at interactions between the victim, the agent of injury or death, and the environment in which the injury or death took place rather than viewing it in strictly individual terms. In this study of television news-magazine stories, we found a strong emphasis on episodic and personal stories, with minor allusions to greater social issues. The emphasis on entertainment seemed to negate any promised ‘public health’ angles. We conclude that the challenge for the public health model is to find ‘scripts’ that journalists deem to be publicly consumable and ratings friendly. K E Y W O R D S j crime j journalism j news j p...
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This study identifies how audiences use nonverbal cues to judge specific character traits in political figures. Participants assessed pictures that showed the example politician making eye contact with another person with highest scores.... more
This study identifies how audiences use nonverbal cues to judge specific character traits in political figures. Participants assessed pictures that showed the example politician making eye contact with another person with highest scores. His hand positions received the lowest character-trait scores. Findings show that participants associated direct eye contact and smiling with characteristics such as intelligence, good leadership, and caring, but not morality or honesty. In fact, no nonverbal cue affected evaluations of morality. However, those who judged the candidate as moral from nonverbal cues had a greater likelihood of voting for him.
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ABSTRACT This study investigated how the prevalent visual depiction of obesity in the media promotes stigmatization of obese individuals. Particularly, this study proposed and tested the two sequential mechanisms which were not explicated... more
ABSTRACT This study investigated how the prevalent visual depiction of obesity in the media promotes stigmatization of obese individuals. Particularly, this study proposed and tested the two sequential mechanisms which were not explicated in the previous models but indispensable in stigma research: (1) the disease avoidance response (i.e. discomfort for physical contact) and (2) dehumanizing perception. Results of two experiments overall supported the extended model: the headless photos of obese individuals triggered the disease avoidance responses, which sequentially increased the dehumanizing perception of and negative attitudes toward obese individuals. The identity trait (e.g. gender) match increased readers' level of social identification with obese people and alleviated the disease avoidance response when they saw the photo of the obese model as a whole being. By contrast, the opposite effects (i.e. disidentification and heightened discomfort) were found when the participants saw the headless photo of the obese model of the same gender.
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This chapter reviews the major theories of moral development originating with Piaget and Kohlberg, including contemporary modifications of those theories. It then reviews how these theories have been applied to moral decision-making and... more
This chapter reviews the major theories of moral development originating with Piaget and Kohlberg, including contemporary modifications of those theories. It then reviews how these theories have been applied to moral decision-making and moral development of professionals, specifically journalists and public relations professionals. It notes that journalists and public relations professionals score well on tests of moral development when compared to other professions. Empirical work suggests that race may exert a significant influence on moral decision-making as does exposure to certain sorts of visual stimuli. The authors delineate moral development from moral judgment in empirical work. The chapter concludes with suggestions for further research, including an examination of the impact of emotion on moral decision-making.
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My textbook was recently published by SAGE. Here is the preface and table of contents at the end. Happy to answer questions.
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Book Review in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly of "Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions" Founded on theories of affect and agenda-setting, Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions: The Affect Agenda examines the media coverage of... more
Book Review in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly of "Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions"
Founded on theories of affect and agenda-setting, Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions: The Affect Agenda examines the media coverage of politicians' images and their influence on voters in election campaigns. Politicians' images are comprehensively interrogated in terms of attributes, appearance, characteristics, and personal style—and how these factors shape voters' attitudes in evaluating political candidates. The volume is the incredible work of Renita Coleman, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism, and Denis Wu, associate professor of communication at Boston University. Coleman and Wu provide three key arguments why politicians' images matter in political communications scholarship, especially when studied from affect, information processing, and agenda-setting theoretical standpoints. First, many public office seekers are assessed not on the issue stances they embrace, but on their images—self-presentation, emotional displays, and personal attributes. Second, in spite of numerous studies on the influence of mediated agendas on politics, Coleman and Wu point out that most research examine texts only—yet the news media does not deliver words only. Thus, they argue that the potential impact of visuals on people's perceptions is too important to ignore in research. This is so because visuals make stories on television credible and interesting, resulting in what the authors refer to as " picture superiority. " Third, the influence of politicians' images fits better with the demands of visually driven media as well as those of voters' memory mechanisms, the authors say. The book is based on a decade's worth of empirical studies that explore the image presentation of political candidates and its influence at both aggregate and individual levels. The studies that provide rich data for the book cover the U.S. presidential elections of 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, as well as the 2012 Taiwan presidential election. The data corpus was collected using public opinion surveys and content analyses. Importantly, Coleman and Wu's book very much resonates with Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections by Maria Grabe and Erik Bucy, which places high premium on visual aspects of election coverage. The two volumes have important parallels, arguing for the critical role of visuals in evaluation of politicians, that visuals are a great source of political information, that visual aspects of political news remain heavily understudied, and relying on longitudinal data collection cutting across at least four presidential elections in the United States. In a nutshell, the authors of the two books strongly demonstrate that visuals (especially television ones) matter in politics because their effects can trigger attention, increase arousal, and shape public opinion. Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions has 11 chapters. Chapter 2 traces the philosophical roots of ideal conceptions of the political leader in both Chinese and Greek
Founded on theories of affect and agenda-setting, Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions: The Affect Agenda examines the media coverage of politicians' images and their influence on voters in election campaigns. Politicians' images are comprehensively interrogated in terms of attributes, appearance, characteristics, and personal style—and how these factors shape voters' attitudes in evaluating political candidates. The volume is the incredible work of Renita Coleman, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism, and Denis Wu, associate professor of communication at Boston University. Coleman and Wu provide three key arguments why politicians' images matter in political communications scholarship, especially when studied from affect, information processing, and agenda-setting theoretical standpoints. First, many public office seekers are assessed not on the issue stances they embrace, but on their images—self-presentation, emotional displays, and personal attributes. Second, in spite of numerous studies on the influence of mediated agendas on politics, Coleman and Wu point out that most research examine texts only—yet the news media does not deliver words only. Thus, they argue that the potential impact of visuals on people's perceptions is too important to ignore in research. This is so because visuals make stories on television credible and interesting, resulting in what the authors refer to as " picture superiority. " Third, the influence of politicians' images fits better with the demands of visually driven media as well as those of voters' memory mechanisms, the authors say. The book is based on a decade's worth of empirical studies that explore the image presentation of political candidates and its influence at both aggregate and individual levels. The studies that provide rich data for the book cover the U.S. presidential elections of 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, as well as the 2012 Taiwan presidential election. The data corpus was collected using public opinion surveys and content analyses. Importantly, Coleman and Wu's book very much resonates with Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections by Maria Grabe and Erik Bucy, which places high premium on visual aspects of election coverage. The two volumes have important parallels, arguing for the critical role of visuals in evaluation of politicians, that visuals are a great source of political information, that visual aspects of political news remain heavily understudied, and relying on longitudinal data collection cutting across at least four presidential elections in the United States. In a nutshell, the authors of the two books strongly demonstrate that visuals (especially television ones) matter in politics because their effects can trigger attention, increase arousal, and shape public opinion. Image and Emotion in Voter Decisions has 11 chapters. Chapter 2 traces the philosophical roots of ideal conceptions of the political leader in both Chinese and Greek
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This study investigated how the prevalent visual depiction of obesity in the media promotes stigmatization of obese individuals. Particularly, this study proposed and tested the two sequential mechanisms which were not explicated in the... more
This study investigated how the prevalent visual depiction of
obesity in the media promotes stigmatization of obese individuals.
Particularly, this study proposed and tested the two sequential
mechanisms which were not explicated in the previous models
but indispensable in stigma research: (1) the disease avoidance
response (i.e. discomfort for physical contact) and (2)
dehumanizing perception. Results of two experiments overall
supported the extended model: the headless photos of obese
individuals triggered the disease avoidance responses, which
sequentially increased the dehumanizing perception of and
negative attitudes toward obese individuals. The identity trait (e.g.
gender) match increased readers’ level of social identification with
obese people and alleviated the disease avoidance response
when they saw the photo of the obese model as a whole being.
By contrast, the opposite effects (i.e. disidentification and
heightened discomfort) were found when the participants saw the
headless photo of the obese model of the same gender.
obesity in the media promotes stigmatization of obese individuals.
Particularly, this study proposed and tested the two sequential
mechanisms which were not explicated in the previous models
but indispensable in stigma research: (1) the disease avoidance
response (i.e. discomfort for physical contact) and (2)
dehumanizing perception. Results of two experiments overall
supported the extended model: the headless photos of obese
individuals triggered the disease avoidance responses, which
sequentially increased the dehumanizing perception of and
negative attitudes toward obese individuals. The identity trait (e.g.
gender) match increased readers’ level of social identification with
obese people and alleviated the disease avoidance response
when they saw the photo of the obese model as a whole being.
By contrast, the opposite effects (i.e. disidentification and
heightened discomfort) were found when the participants saw the
headless photo of the obese model of the same gender.
Research Interests:
This study advances our understanding of mainstream US journalists' perceptions of their industry's ethical climate by extending first-and third-person perception to this domain. These journalists believe that colleagues in their same... more
This study advances our understanding of mainstream US journalists' perceptions of their industry's ethical climate by extending first-and third-person perception to this domain. These journalists believe that colleagues in their same organization act unethically significantly less often and act ethically significantly more often than those at other organizations and in related industries. The first-and third-person perceptions are a linear function of social distance but are not the mirror image of each other in this domain. In addition to theoretical contributions, suggestions for ways these perceptions can be used to improve journalists' moral judgment are offered. Third-person perception (TPP) has received considerable attention in the past two decades for its ability to predict how people view the effects of media messages on themselves and others. Defined as people's tendency to see others as more affected by